Thoughts on the "Religion" chapter...

The repeated, general ideas I found from the reading were that as our society has become more secular, women find their lives ruled by a different type of religion. The religion of beauty. And the religion of beauty gets its language from actual religion, such as ideas about "temptation" (with food versus actual sins) and following strict rules about diet and fitness.


I found that body image, beauty and sexual attraction are functions of "social construction" in that society, mostly men, seem to decide what makes someone or something beautiful or sexy. Such as the example about skin cream - aging doesn't have to be ugly! But someone decided that it is so now we have $250 skin creams, despite the fact that aging can not be reversed...
I also thought it was interesting, the idea that men die once and women die twice: once when our beauty fades and once when our bodies die. How sad is that? Why are we so separated? Why does it matter if our beauty isn't as radiant as it was at age 20? Does that signify a lesser contribution to society??


There were so many parts of the chapter on religion that made me think to myself, "Wow! That is so true, but I'd never made that connection before."
Like the part where Wolf lists off a bunch of slogans from anti-aging creams' ad campaigns. They all suggested that the creams were a "barrier" or "shield" from "irritants" or even the "daily environment." This plays on the actual fear that many women have about being raped or assaulted. Women are receptive to this advertising because, Wolf says, "it is about the unspoken underside of the life of the successful, controlled working woman: about sexual violance and street harassment and a hostile workplace."


Ideals of female beauty function as a form of social control in so many ways!
First of all, this constant guilt thing. Wolf called it "original sin"... this is a concept from religion that in the New Religion is a socially constructed problem of gender. "The Rites of Beauty define original sin as being born not mortal, but female." She says that now, no matter how young or old a woman is, she is never free of worry or guilt about her beauty!
Also, we have sexual guilt, but since sex is less of a taboo (well, kind of) in America, food has replaced sex as a sin. Especially delicious food is branded as "sinful" or "tempting"...Wolf gave this example comparing sex and food: "Sex within marriage, for procreation, was acceptable, while sex for pleasure was a sin; women make the same distinction today between eating to sustain life and eating for pleasure."


Women's choices and lives are limited by the social construct of beauty. Women are told that we need anti-aging creams, we need to be a certain weight, we need to be radiant. We need to be all these things because by being born women, we are inherently wrong, inherently sinful. We can combat this original sin by succumbing to the religion of beauty.
Going back to the idea of radiance: Wolf talks about this word when used to describe brides and pregnant women....women are most radiant when they are serving a man (brides) or a child (pregnancy). Thus, women are most beautiful when they are fulfilling their purpose as servants to men and children. It's so painfully obvious!!