On one hand, as I said, my body is now aware of how the myth has trapped it. Reading it during a pandemic further complicates the story because it remains both true and untrue.
While reading it in 2020 as an Indian woman can feel slightly unrelatable, the overall premise is one that continues to hit where it hurts. Reading The Beauty Myth feels like having a glass of cold water thrown at you. This myth is not individualistic, but rather a “cultural conspiracy” in order to profit from and keep intact a patriarchal form of governance and family. Women are kept subjugated, in part, through a radical ‘myth’ of beauty that postulates unrealistic aims for women and their bodies. While Wolf uses data and examples mainly from the West, her proposition remains valid across the world. Through her book, Wolf systematically highlights the effect of the beauty myth in numerous spheres of one’s life - work, sex, religion, culture, hunger and even violence. These ideals of beauty - thin, fair, young, delicate – are taught to women every day in myriad ways, which makes it even harder to spot where they truly stem from: large industries that profit from women’s insecurities. Naomi Wolf, in her 1991 book, The Beauty Myth speaks about these relentless, insidious ideals of beauty that are used to undermine women, especially at a time when they are breaking barriers in order to succeed. I have never been this aware, and uncomfortable about the demands I have for myself. This ‘fantasy’, or myth, is a cage, and quarantine has shown me that I’m still within it, no matter how much I believe I do not need to conform. Now, the longer I spend alone in my own house, dressing up for my computer and mirror, the more I question the fantasy I’m supposed to aspire to be. Before, it felt normal to feel inadequate.
I have never been this aware and uncomfortable about the demands I have for myself.
Shaving my arms and legs offers some semblance of the ‘pretty’ I am looking for, but still falls short. These days, my eyebrows feel bushy and my leg hair is curling at the ends. When I look in the mirror, I recognize myself as the “before” picture in my own life and I long for a time before it became unsafe to get waxed, plucked, threaded, shaved, made up and more – like clockwork every month. It has been months of social distancing and self-isolation for most of us.
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