The Power of Beauty: Our Looks, Our Lives

by Nancy Friday

  “…responsibility, equality, sensitivity…”: Sheila Benson, “True or False: Thelma and Louise Just Good Ol’ Boys?” Los Angeles Times, May 31, 1991, p. F1.

  “Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America…”: American Association of University Women, “Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America,” January 1991; see also Christina Hoff Sommers, “The Myth of Schoolgirls’ Low Self-Esteem,” Wall Street Journal, October 3, 1994, p. A20; Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), pp. 137–152.

  “There they are, together, stuck together…”: Doris Lessing, Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), p. 120.

  “those who were best able to resolve conflicts…”: Michael Segell, “The Pater Principle,” Esquire, March 1995, p. 122.

  John and his sister Fanny…: John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire (New York: Ballantine, 1995 [1981]), pp. 50–51.

  “watches wistfully as they…”: Joyce Johnson, Minor Characters (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1983), p. 84.

  CHAPTER 4

  G. Stanley Hall: For a discussion of Hall’s, Locke’s, and Rousseau’s contributions to the study of adolescence, see Louise J. Kaplan, Adolescence: The Farewell to Childhood (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984).

  “There is a progressive awareness…”: B. Inhelder and J. Piaget, The Growth of Logical Thinking (New York: Basic, 1958), quoted in Peter Blos, On Adolescence: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation (New York: Free Press, 1966 [1962]), p. 124.

  “Western democratic, capitalistic society…”: Blos, On Adolescence, pp. 203–204.

  “physically mature beasts…”: Virginia Rutter, “Adolescence: Whose Hell Is It?” Psychology Today, January/February 1995, p. 68.

  “Because the school was designed…”: Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood (New York: Delacorte, 1982), p. 41.

  “Only a few years ago…”: Laurence Steinberg, Adolescence (New York: Knopf, 1985), p. v.

  nearly $100 billion a year in 1994: Peter Zollo, “Talking to Teens,” American Demographics, November 1995, p. 24.

  close to 30 percent…: Alan Guttmacher Institute, “Teenage Reproductive Health in the United States,” 1994.

  “and the economy was such…”: Sue Woodman, “How Teen Pregnancy Has Become a Political Football,” Ms., January/February 1995, p. 92.

  “It also hints at the negative feelings…”: Rutter, “Adolescence: Whose Hell Is It?” p. 68.

  “Almost always…”: Louise J. Kaplan, Female Perversions: The Temptations of Emma Bovary (New York: Doubleday, 1991), p. 248.

  More than 1.6 million young people: U.S. Census, “Who’s Minding the Kids?” 1994.

  the hipline of a size 10 dress…: Sam Roberts, Who We Are: A Portrait of America Based on the Latest U.S. Census (New York: Times Books, 1994), p. 252.

  “Are you there God?…”: Judy Blume, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret (New York: Dell, 1991 [1970]), p. 100.

  “Primitive menstrual taboos…”: Susan Brownmiller, Femininity (New York: Linden, 1984), pp. 193–195.

  “The sex organ of a man…”: de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, p. 386.

  in 1986, $23,974,600 was spent…: Mediawatch Multi-Media Service, “Product versus Media Report,” 1995.

  From Aristotle’s time… spread with it: Barbara G. Walker, The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1983), p. 635.

  “It is not easy to play the idol…”: de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, p. 357. According to an article… as menstruation: Susan C. Roberts, “Blood Sisters,” New Age Journal, May/June 1994, p. 137.

  Gilligan wanted to avoid flak…: Ibid.

  boys and girls have roughly equivalent self-images…: Roberta G. Simmons and Florence Rosenberg, “Sex, Sex Roles, and Self-Image,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 4, no. 3 (1975): 229–258.

  Asked “How good-looking…” the worse their self-consciousness: Roberta G. Simmons et al., “Disturbance in the Self-Image at Adolescence,” American Sociology Review 38 (1973): 553–568.

  “not to distinguish…”: David Elkind, “Egocentrism in Adolescence,” Child Development 38 (1967): 1029–1030.

  Twelve percent of all fifteen- to nineteen-year-old girls…: Alan Guttmacher Institute, “Teenage Reproductive Health in the United States,” 1994.

  “My mother is always in my room…”: Seventeen, September 1995, p. 98.

  “In either case, the children…”: Rutter, “Adolescence: Whose Hell Is It?” pp. 58–59.

  “share all their secrets with Mother…”: Kaplan, Adolescence, p. 170.

  “How do you see your generation?”…: “My Generation: The Seventeen Survey,” October 1989, p. 101.

  girls with “traditional values”…: Vangie Foshee and Karl Bauman, “Gender Stereotyping and Adolescent Sexual Behavior: A Test of Temporal Order,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 22, no. 20 (1992): 1574–1575.

  “the designer insisted that fashion…”: Bernadine Morris, “From DKNY, Eclecticism for Mothers, Daughters,” New York Times, April 7, 1994, p. C10.

  “It is an odd fact…”: Kaplan, Adolescence, p. 14.

  “Starting in the third grade…”: Susan Harter, “Causes and Consequences of Low Self-Esteem in Children and Adolescents,” in Self-Esteem: The Puzzle of Low Self-Regard, ed. R. F. Baumeister (New York: Plenum, 1993), pp. 95–96.

  “the classroom teachers of the early adolescents…”: K. Lenerz et al., “Early Adolescents’ Organismic Physical Characteristics and Psychosocial Functioning: Findings from the Pennsylvania Early Adolescent Transitions Study (PEATS),” in Biological-Psychosocial Interaction in Early Adolescence: A Life-Span Perspective, ed. Richard M. Lerner and T. T. Fochs (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1987), pp. 225–247. Cited in Body Images, ed. Thomas F. Cash and Thomas Pruzinsky (New York: Guilford, 1990), pp. 118–119.

  “There’s nothing wrong…”: “My Generation: The Seventeen Survey,” p. 103.

  “I lost my virginity last year…”: Seventeen, June 1995, p. 58.

  “Eula Varner was not quite thirteen…”: William Faulkner, The Hamlet (New York: Vintage, 1991 [1931]), pp. 105–106, 141–142.

  In the study “…relating to males”: E. Mavis Hetherington, “Effects of Father Absence on Personality Development in Adolescent Daughters,” Developmental Psychology 7, no. 3 (1972): 313–326.

  “The women from intact families…”: Reported in Henry B. Biller and Robert J. Trotter, The Father Factor: What You Need to Know to Make a Difference (New York: Pocket, 1994), p. 186.

  more than one million of the United States’ nine million girls…: Guttmacher, “Teenage Reproductive Health in the United States.”

  who grow up without their fathers…: Hetherington, “Effects of Father Absence.”

  His most famous daughter, Anna…: Adam Phillips, On Flirtation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1994), pp. 90–93.

  CHAPTER 5

  “For the first time in her life…”: Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits (New York: Knopf, 1985), p. 281.

  More than one million incidents of domestic violence…: Ronet Bachman and Linda Saltzman, “Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report: National Crime Victimization Report,” August 1995, p. 3.

  “…many men fix on their object of desire…”: Paul Theroux, “The Roots of Desire,” Vogue, October 1995, p. 250.

  “cone bra like an icon…”: Ibid., pp. 248–250.

  73 percent of boys from twelve to nineteen… Teen Research Unlimited, unpublished figures, 1995.

  “i am a big man…”: Nine Inch Nails, “big man with a gun,” the downward spiral, TVT-Interscope Records, 1994.

  In Hunt’s study on sex…: Morton Hunt, Sexual Behavior in the 1970s (Chicago: Playboy Press, 1974), p. 77.

  “Obviously… masturbation…”: Harold Leitenberg et al., “Gender Differences in Masturbation and the Relation of Masturbation Experience in Preadolescence and/or Early Adolescence to Sexual Beh
avior and Sexual Adjustment in Young Adulthood,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 22, no. 2 (1993): 96.

  “after puberty, a boy must find constructive goals…”: Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, p. 186.

  “High school girls are less comfortable…”: Tamar Lewin, “Boys Are More Comfortable with Sex Than Girls Are,” New York Times, May 18, 1994, p. 20.

  Paul Newman mentioned…: Paul Newman, interview by James Lipton, Inside the Actor’s Studio, Bravo, April 26, 1995.

  “Cultural factors…”: Clara Thompson, “Penis Envy in Women,” Psychiatry 6 (1943): 123–124.

  average age of marriage…: U. S. Census Bureau, “Marital Status and Living Arrangements,” March 1994.

  “The parts of the body do not all grow…”: Steinberg, Adolescence, pp. 31–32.

  Between 1960 and 1992, suicide rates for white males…: National Center for Health Statistics, Division of Vital Statistics, published and unpublished data.

  “Look, the way I figure it…”: Wendy Bounds, “Dating Game Today Breaks Traditional Gender Rules,” Wall Street Journal, April 26, 1995, p. B4. “Your son’s relationship with girls…”: Biller and Trotter, The Father Factor, p. 183.

  “the absence of fathers is linked…”: Joseph P. Shapiro et al., “Honor Thy Children,” U. S. News & World Report, February 27, 1995, p. 39.

  the annual rate at which fifteen- to nineteen…: Fox Butterfield, “Teenage Homicide Rate Has Soared,” New York Times, October 14, 1994, p. A22.

  the Oedipus myth “holds less meaning…”: Walter Goodman, “Writers Discuss Theme of Myths in Modern Life,” New York Times, October 13, 1984, p. A13.

  “Safety for Women?…”: Ellen Goodman, “Safety for Women? Try Removing Men,” Santa Barbara News-Press, January 9, 1990, cited in Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), p. 220.

  “girls are likely to choose boyfriends…”: Frank Pittman, Man Enough: Fathers, Sons, and the Search for Masculinity (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1993), quoted in Lee Smith, “The New Wave of Illegitimacy,” Fortune, April 18, 1994, p. 94.

  “It seems to me that Bly has framed his cure…”: Marina Warner, Six Myths of Our Time (New York: Vintage, 1995 [1994]), p. 41.

  “Fear of men has grown…”: Ibid., pp. 32–33, 36–37.

  Studies tell us…: U.S. Justice Department, “The Survey of State Prison Inmates,” 1991.

  The Glueck study…: John Snarey, How Fathers Care for the Next Generation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1994), pp. 149–191, 349–356.

  “boys and girls express emotions equally…”: Farrell, The Myth of Male Power, p. 165.

  “Fathers who provided high levels…”: Snarey, How Fathers Care for the Next Generation, p. 173.

  “There is a time in the life of every boy…”: Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio (New York: Bantam, 1995 [1919]), pp. 219–220.

  “the limitless future of childhood…”: Blos, On Adolescence, p. 14.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Before the Brat Pack…”: “The Beautiful People,” W, January 1995, p. 86.

  “Bras were never burned…”: Robin Morgan, Sisterhood Is Powerful (New York: Random House, 1970), p. 521n.

  “I can think of two material items…”: Tom Robbins, “The Mini, a Natural High,” New York Times, April 6, 1995, p. C1.

  …want a virgin bride…: A New Glamour Survey, Hearts and Minds What Do College Men and Women Really Mean to Each Other?” Glamour, August 1981, p. 328; “My Generation: The Seventeen Survey,” p. 4; “Love and Sex in the 90s: The Seventeen Survey,” 1991, p. 60.

  “Why can’t men be glamourous… promoting so brazenly”: Amy M. Spindler, “In Milan, Brazen Men Parading,” New York Times, January 19, 1995, p. C13.

  “A full bosom…”: Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1970), p. 34.

  “the Wonderbra, for its contribution to fashion”: Nadine Brozan, “Fashion Award Winners,” New York Times, November 18, 1994, p. B8.

  “No penetration…”: Sally Belfrage, Un-American Activities (New York: HarperPerennial, 1995 [1994]), p. 199.

  “Please, God, let him telephone me now…”: Dorothy Parker, “A Telephone Call,” Complete Stories (New York: Penguin, 1995), p. 81. Originally published in The Bookman, January 1928.

  “our clothing is an extension of our skin…”: Karen De Witt, “So, What Is That Leather Bustier Saying?” New York Times, January 1, 1995, sec. 4, p. 2.

  “The esthetic running through Warhol’s films…”: Stephen Holden, “For Warhol, to Be Was to Be on Screen,” New York Times, January 27, 1995, p. C28.

  “The essence of the 60s…”: Laurel Graeber, “So Where Is That Lava Lamp Now?” New York Times, April 6, 1995, p. C6.

  “Fresh and frank…”: Clive Barnes, “‘Hair’—It’s Fresh and Frank,” New York Times, April 30, 1968, p. 40.

  “The happiness of being envied…”: Berger, Ways of Seeing, pp. 132–133.

  “The 60’s spawned…”: “In Praise of the Counterculture,” New York Times, December 11, 1994, p. 14.

  “Anybody who could write…”: Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, “Talking Dirty,” Ms., October 1973, p. 41.

  “feminist leaders who find…”: William Raspberry, “An Interest in Failure,” Washington Post, November 5, 1993, p. A27.

  “It is often falsely assumed…”: Greer, The Female Eunuch, p. 67.

  “The Sexual Revolution and The Women’s Movement…”: Anselma Dell’ Olio, “The Sexual Revolution Wasn’t Our War,” Ms., Spring 1972, p. 104.

  “Why have the sixties…”: Jennifer Egan, The Invisible Circus (New York: Talese-Doubleday, 1995), jacket flap.

  Time/CNN poll: Nancy Gibbs, “The War Against Feminism,” Time, March 9, 1992, p. 54.

  editors of the top women’s magazines…: Wendy Kaminer, “Feminism’s Identity Crisis,” Atlantic Monthly, October 1993, p. 53.

  average age of marriage in 1960: U.S. Census, “Marital Status,” p. vii.

  “The problem that has no name…”: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Dell Laurel, 1983 [1963]), p. 364.

  “sweeping generalities…”: Lucy Freeman, “The Feminine Mystique,” New York Times Book Review, April 7, 1963, p. 46.

  “overnight bestseller…”: “Angry Battler for Her Sex,” Life, November 1, 1963, p. 84.

  “the seduction of women’s talk…”: Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1995), p. 31.

  “I wrote the word ‘NOW’…”: Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, p. 384.

  “I couldn’t define ‘liberation’ for women…”: Ibid., p. 386.

  “Except that I like this book…”: Gloria Steinem, The Beach Book (New York: Viking, 1963), p. ix.

  “Personification of womanpower”: “Thinking Man’s Shrimpton,” Time, January 3, 1969, p. 38.

  raising “money and consciousness…”: “Gloria Steinem: A Liberated Woman Despite Beauty, Chic and Success,” Newsweek, August 16, 1971, p. 51.

  “By speaking together…”: Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (New York: Signet, 1986 [1983]), p. 5.

  “white, well-educated, suburban women”: Signature: Gloria Steinem, CBS Cable, November 4, 1981. Interviewed by Patrick Watson.

  “One could argue… revolutionary changes”: Flora Davis, Moving the Mountain: The Women’s Movement in America Since 1960 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991), pp. 70, 69.

  “We tangled a lot…”: “Playboy Interview: Betty Friedan,” Playboy, September 1992, p. 62.

  “a glossy magazine…”: Davis, Moving the Mountain, p. 117.

  “As they began to treat the movement…”: Ibid., pp. 118–119.

  “Steinem’s expressed attitude…”: “Gloria Steinem: A Liberated Woman,” p. 52.

  “Am I a feminist?…”: Cosmopolitan marketing, 1995.

  “It isn’t that women are attracted to pornography…”: Steinem, Outrageous Acts,
p. 258.

  “So women who ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’…”: Liz Smith, “Gloria Steinem, Writer and Social Critic, Talks about Sex, Politics and Marriage,” Redbook, January 1972, p. 76.

  “A lot of the failures of the movement…”: Jay Cocks, “How Long Till Equality?” Time, July 12, 1982, p. 22.

  “I’m not going to lie…”: “Playboy Interview,” p. 149.

  “stomping on a movement…”: Susan Faludi, Backlash (New York: Crown, 1991), p. 322.

  “What’s important is that we…”: Molly O’Neill, “Decades as Icon; Now, Freedom,” New York Times, February 9, 1995, p. C10.

  “Kohn is describing competition…”: Andrew Bard Schmookler, “No Contest: The Case Against Competition,” Los Angeles Times/The Book Review, September 28, 1986, p. 11.

  “I hate victimology…”: “Camille,” 60 Minutes, CBS, November 1, 1992. Interview by Steve Kroft.

  “No, you’re not going to ask…”: Ibid.

  “the Paglia cigarette boat…”: Ibid.

  “Gone are the appealing men…”: Margaret Carlson, “Batteries Not Included,” Time, December 2, 1991, pp. 78–79. “These [feminine hygiene] products…”: Nora Ephron, “Dealing with the, Uh, Problem,” Esquire, March 1973, p. 184.

  Among thirty- to thirty-four-year-olds…: Alan Guttmacher Institute, “Preventing Pregnancy, Protecting Health: A New Look at Birth Control Choices in the United States,” 1991.

  “She say, Here, take this mirror…”: Alice Walker, The Color Purple (New York: Washington Square, 1983 [1982]), pp. 79–80.

  “I’m very much a feminist…”: Laura Blumenfeld, “Feminists Hit a Bump and Grind at Lesbian Club,” Washington Post, July 25, 1991, p. D2.

  “the Mao Tse-tung of Women’s Liberation”: “Who’s Come a Long Way, Baby?” Time, August 31, 1970, p. 16.

  “Patriarchy has God on its side…”: Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970), pp. 51–52.

  “See, I’m single…”: Saturday Night Live, February 19, 1994.

  A recent Diet Sprite…: Maureen Dowd, “Our True Lies,” New York Times, August 20, 1995, p. A13.