I just try to resist when my participation feels coerced, unconsciously or otherwise.

This is the root of Klein’s theory. “The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behavior and not appearance,” she wrote in 1990, meaning it’s less about how close a woman hews to the beauty standards than the fact that she believes she’s never close enough, and acts accordingly. “Competition between women has been made part of the myth so that... See more

a principle isn’t a principle until it costs you something

These anxieties reminded me of what Naomi Klein once called “the typical beauty myth double bind.” Here’s how she described it: “No matter what a woman’s appearance may be, it will be used to undermine what she is saying and taken to individualize—as her personal problem—observations she makes about aspects of the beauty myth in society.” That is,... See more