In this strident, well researched and sometimes exhausting critique of the women's movement's strains of "antibeauty ideology," Scott, an associate professor at the University of Illinois, argues that feminist doesn't have to mean frumpy. It won't be news to post Sex and the City
"do-me" feminists, but adornment, Scott insists, is a natural, inherently positive way for women to express their identities; fashion is neither the instrument of male oppression that members of the mid-19th-century anti-corset "dress reform" movement insisted it was nor the vehicle for sexual exploitation (or signal of antifeminist backlash) that some contemporary feminists suggest it is. Beginning with Susan B. Anthony's prudish rejection of stylish Elizabeth Oakes Smith at the 1852 Women's Convention, academic and upper-class feminists have consistently discredited women (especially of lower classes) who don't fit the mold, Scott argues. Scott's analysis extends to what she sees as today's antibeauty books and films (e.g., Naomi Wolf's The
Beauty Myth
, Jean Kilbourne's Killing Us Softly
movies), which she argues are hypocritical, reductionist and, at worst, classist. Scott is most convincing when she argues for the liberating capacity of fashion: "By ignoring the way that self-decoration expresses the human force of creative expression...[;] and by denying the strength these practices can bring at depression, dislocation, and even death, the antibeauty critique engages in cultural cruelty." But she sometimes falters, as when she glosses over the media and fashion industry's relationship to the very real danger of eating disorders. (Jan.)
