The Beauty Myth (45 page)

43
Nonverbal cues ambiguous: Barbara A. Gutek, “Sexuality in the Workplace: Social Research and Organizational Practise,” in Hearn et al., op. cit., p. 61.

44
Molloy: Cited in Deborah L. Sheppard, “Organizations, Power and Sexuality: The Image and Self-Image of Women Managers,” in Hearn et al., op. cit., p. 150.

44
Success suit: John T. Molloy, “Instant Clothing Power,”
The Woman’s Dress for Success Book
(New York: Warner Books, 1977), Chapter 1.

44
Equal footing: Ibid.

44
Dress-for-success passé: Molloy remarks that “‘anything goes’ articles were written by fashion industry types who were not going to put themselves in a straitjacket by saying that one item worked better than another.” Molloy, Ibid., p. 27.

44
Molloy study: Ibid., p. 48.

46
Sizeable minority of men: Gutek, op. cit., pp. 63–64.

46
Use their appearance: “I use my personal appearance to my advantage in getting things accomplished on the job” is a statement that more men agree with than women. According to a recent study by psychologist Andrew DuBrin of the Rochester Institute of Technology, of 300 men and women, 22 percent of men use their appearance to get ahead, as opposed to 14 percent of women; 22 percent of men versus 15 percent of women admit using manipulation, and 40 percent of men versus 29 percent of women use charm. Cited in Marjory Roberts, “Workplace Wiles: Who Uses Beauty and Charm?,”
Psychology Today
, May 1989.

According to Barbara A. Gutek: “My surveys found relatively little evidence that women routinely or even occasionally use their sexuality to try to gain some organizational goal. There is even less support for the position that women have succeeded or advanced at work by using their sexuality. . . . In comparison to women, men may not only use sex more often at work, they may be more successful at it!” [Hearn et al., op. cit., pp. 63–64.]

48
Professional elegance: Levitt, op. cit., pp. 31–34.

49
Wherever records have survived: Miles, op. cit., p. 155.

49
1984 U.S. women: Sidel, op. cit., p. 61.

49
Estimates . . . from 54 to . . .: Ibid.

49
In the United Kingdom: Hewlett, op. cit.

49
U.S. pay differential: Hewlett, ibid.

49
Self-worth: Rosabeth Kanter, See
Men and Women of the Corporation
(New York: Basic Books, 1977), cited in Sidel, op. cit., p. 62.

49
Unsure of worth: Ibid., p. 63.

50
20 of 420 occupations: Ibid., p. 61.

50
Arlie Hochschild even found: See Hearn et al., op. cit.; see also Hochschild with Machung, op. cit.

50
Best economic option: Catharine A. MacKinnon,
Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987) pp. 24–25, citing Priscilla Alexander, NOW Task Force on Prostitution; the pimp retains much or most of this amount. See also Moira K. Griffin, “Wives, Hookers and the Law,”
Student Lawyer
, January 1982, p. 18, cited in MacKinnon, ibid., p. 238.

50
Twice as much: Ibid., p. 238.

50
Miss America’s salary: Ellen Goodman, “Miss America Gets Phonier,”
The Stockton
(Calif.)
Record
, September 19, 1989.

51
“Severe doubts”: Liz Friedrich, “How to Save Yourself from Financial Ruin,”
The Observer
(London), August 21, 1988.

51
Shoemaker Mine: Tong, op. cit., p. 84.

51
This sort of imagery anyway: Tong, ibid. See also Zillah R. Eisenstein,
The Female Body and the Law
(Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1988).

52
Direct comparisons are being made: See
Strathclyde
v.
Porcelli
, op. cit.

52
“Nude female depicted”: Ibid.

52
“Gray flannel suit”: Maureen Orth, “Looking Good at Any Cost,”
New York Woman
, June 1988.

53
Income discrimination. Ibid. Orth cites other examples of these expenses: A-list personal training, $1,240 a month. Retin-A, six visits to dermatologist at $75 each. Electrical “face-building” by Janet Sartin, $2,000 a series, lasts six months. “Female executives now consider the act of maintaining themselves a legitimate business expense,” Orth writes. “Maintenance has invaded the tax code.” “Models and prostitutes,” in MacKinnon,
Feminism Unmodified
, p. 24.

53
Vice-presidents who are women: Wallis, op. cit.

53
Fatigue: Deborah Hutton, “The Fatigue Factor,” British
Vogue
, October 1988.

54
A 60 percent shot at being poor: Hewlett, op. cit.

54
American older women: Sidel, op. cit.

54
In Great Britain: Taylor et al., op. cit., p. 14. Benefits for British old women are described in U.K. Equal Opportunities Commission, 1986.
The Fact About Women Is
 . . .

54
West German women retiring: Taylor et al. op. cit. p. 34.

54
Private pensions: Sidel, op. cit., p. 161.

54
Year 2000: Taylor et al., op. cit., p. 11, citing UN World Assembly on Aging, Vienna, 1982.

54
Long enough to give them: Hewlett, op. cit.

57
Unions never stopped trying: MacKinnon,
Feminism Unmodified
, p. 227. “Women,” MacKinnon also notes, “are randomly rewarded and systematically punished for being women. We are not rewarded systematically and punished at random, as is commonly supposed.”

Page

58
Anonymous women: See Marina Warner,
Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form
(London: Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1985).

58
Men look: John Berger,
Ways of Seeing
(London: Penguin Books, 1988), p. 47.

60
This tradition: Jane Austen,
Emma
(1816) (New York and London: Penguin Classics, 1986), p. 211; George Eliot,
Middlemarch
(1871–72) (New York and London: Penguin Books, 1984); Jane Austen,
Mansfield Park
(1814) (New York and London: Penguin Classics, 1985); John Davie, ed. Jane Austen,
Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); Charlotte Brontë,
Villette
(1853) (New York and London: Penguin Classics, 1986), p. 214; Louisa May Alcott,
Little Women
(1868–69) (New York: Bantam Books, 1983), p. 237; see also Alison Lurie,
Foreign Affairs
(London: Michael Joseph, 1985); Fay Weldon,
The Life and Loves of a She-Devil
(London: Hodder, 1984); Anita Brookner,
Look at Me
(London: Jonathan Cape, 1984).

61
Blowjobs and sentimentality: “Bookworm,”
Private Eye
, January 19, 1989.

62
Out of control: Peter Gay,
The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, Volume II: The Tender Passion
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 99. Harvard’s Radcliffe Annexe and Somerville College and Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford were founded in 1879; Cambridge University opened degrees to women in 1881.

62
To fifty thousand: Janice Winship,
Inside Women’s Magazines
, (London: Pandora Press, 1987), p. 7.

62
The press cooperated: John Q. Costello,
Love, Sex, and War: Changing Values, 1939–1945
(London: Collins, 1985).

64
Ideal self: Cynthia White,
Women’s Magazines, 1693–1968
, quoted in Ann Oakley,
Housewife: High Value/Low Cost
(London: Penguin Books, 1987), p. 9.

64
Betty Friedan: Friedan, “The Sexual Sell,” in
The Feminine Mystique
(London: Penguin Books, 1982), pp. 13–29. All quotes through page 67 are from this source.

65
“toiletries/cosmetics” ad revenue: Magazine Publishers of America, “Magazine Advertising Revenue by Class Totals, January–December 1989,” Information Bureau, A.H.B., January 1990.

67
Weren’t even spending much money on clothing anymore: Roberta Pollack Seid,
Never Too Thin
(New York: Prentice-Hall, 1989).

67
Style for all: Elizabeth Wilson and Lou Taylor,
Through the Looking Glass: A History of Dress from 1860 to the Present day
(London: BBC Books, 1989), p. 193.

67
Fell sharply: Marjorie Ferguson,
Forever Feminine: Women’s Magazines and the Cult of Femininity
(Gower, England: Aldershot, 1983), p. 27.

“What part did women’s magazines play in all this [the feminist agenda]?” Ferguson asked. “Most editors busily grappling with the problems of how to target audiences more tightly, or prevent circulation decline, were aware that some changes were taking place outside their offices, but often lacked any systematic information about their nature or extent. . . . Some editors related women going out to work to diminished ‘time’ and ‘need’ for women’s magazines:

“‘Then there is the business of women going out to work. Once you go out to work you have less time; your needs are different, and they might have been answered by either television, newspapers, or by the television programme paper.’ (Women’s weekly editor)”

Helen Gurley Brown,
Cosmopolitan
’s editor, increased its circulation from 700,000 in 1965 to 2.89 million copies a month in 1981. According to Brown, “
Cosmopolitan
is every girl’s sophisticated older sister. . . . 
Cosmopolitan
says you can get anything if you really try, if you don’t just sit on your backside with your nose pressed to the glass. . . . We carry our profile, one piece on health, one on sex, two on emotions . . . one on man/woman relationships, one on careers, one short story and one part of a major work of fiction, as well as our regular columns.” Quoted in Ferguson, p. 37.

67
The Nude Look: Seid, op. cit., p. 217.

67
Diet-related articles rose 70 percent: Ibid., p. 236.

67
To 66 in month of January: Ibid.

68
300 diet books on the shelves: Ibid.

68
Hybrid species, half man and half woman: Gay, op. cit.

68
Senator Lane: Ibid.

68
Degenerate women: Ibid. See also Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English,
Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness
(Old Westbury, N.Y.: City University of New York, Feminist Press, 1973).

68
Feminists were denigrated: Gay, op. cit., p. 227.

68
Jealousy will get you nowhere: Marcia Cohen,
The Sisterhood: The Inside Story of the Women’s Movement and the Leaders Who Made It Happen
(New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1988), p. 151; quotes from
Commentary
and
The New York Times
, also from Cohen, ibid., p. 261.

68
A bunch of ugly women: Ibid., p. 261.

69
Pete Hamill: Quoted in Cohen, p. 287.

69
Norman Mailer: Quoted in Cohen, p. 290.

69
W
OMEN ARE REVOLTING
: Ibid., p. 205.

71
Rivers and streams: Ibid., pp. 82–83, 133.

73
Misinformed: April Fallon and Paul Rozin, “Sex Differences in Perceptors of Body Size,”
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
, Vol. 92, no. 4 (1983). “Our data suggest women are misinformed and exaggerate the magnitude of thinness men desire.”

74
Trust: Cohen, op. cit., p. 91.

74
Pride in their identity: Quoted in J. Winship, op. cit., p. 7.

78
Fragility of the word: Lewis Lapham,
Money and Class in America: Notes on the Civil Religion
(London: Picador, 1989), p. 283.

78
Readers as a market: Lawrence Zuckerman, “Who’s Minding the Newsroom?,”
Time
, November 28, 1988.

78
Watergate: Thomas Winship, former editor at
The Boston Globe
, quoted in Zuckerman, op. cit.

78
Sell goods: Daniel Lazare, “Vanity Fare,”
Columbia Journalism Review
(May/June 1990), pp. 6–8.

78
Atmosphere: Ibid, pp. 6–8. Lazare points out that one American magazine,
Vanity Fair
, gives laudatory coverage of fashion and cosmetics giants; in September 1988 alone, these recipients of editorial promotion took out fifty ad pages at up to $25,000 a page.

79
650 TV messages a week: Mark Muro, “A New Era of Eros in Advertising,”
The Boston Globe
, April 16, 1989.

79
Demolish resistance: Ibid.

79
Pornography . . . 7 billion dollars a year: MacKinnon,
Feminism Unmodified
, op. cit., citing Galloway and Thornton, “Crackdown on Pornography—A No-Win Battle,”
U.S. News and World Report
, June 4, 1984; see also Catherine Itzin and Corinne Sweet of the Campaign Against Pornography and Censorship in Britain, “What Should We Do About Pornography?,” British
Cosmopolitan
, November 1989; J. Cook, “The X-Rated Economy,”
Forbes
, September 18, 1978 ($4 billion per year); “The Place of Pornography,”
Harper’s
, November 1984 ($7 billion per year).

In the past fifteen years, the industry has increased 1,600 times over and now has more outlets than McDonald’s. See Jane Caputi,
The Age of Sex Crime
(Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University, Popular Press, 1987).

79
United States alone, a million dollars a day: Consumer Association of Penang,
Abuse of Women in the Media
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), cited in Debbie Taylor et al.,
Women: A World Report
, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 67.

79
British magazines, Angela Lambert, “Amid the Alien Porn,”
The Independent
, July 1, 1989.

79
Swedish pornography: Gunilla Bjarsdal. Stockholm: Legenda Publishing Research, 1989.

79
18 million U.S. men: Taylor et al., op. cit., p. 67.