Lamb and Frog

Every so often I browse through my old blog posts for fun and inspiration. I did this a month or so ago and realized that ever since I stopped doing "FO Friday" posts, I haven’t talked much about the books I’ve been reading. I know this is supposed to be a ‘fiber arts’ blog, but it is my personal blog and I kind of miss talking about books, so I’m going to try to be a little more conscientious about sharing from now on (even though damn little of what I read has anything to do with the fiber arts). As the title of this post suggests, there will be a full book review later, but here are some books that I’ve finished recently (and by ‘recently’ I mean since last summer)*:

• The Help by Kathryn Stockett
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey
• Sweet Revenge, Dark Tort, and Double Shot – Culinary Mysteries by Diane Mott Davidson (mmmm. literary junk food.)
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer (awkward name for a most-excellent book)
• Most of the Isabel Dalhousie and Scotland Street series by Alexander McCall Smith

Obviously I have not been in the mood for non-fiction. Nevertheless, I finished one outstanding non-fiction book last week–The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It by M. Gigi Durham, Ph.D. It came highly recommended by my book club buddy Tina (she of the Berroco Sox) and it sounded interesting so I figured I’d give it a shot.

Once upon a time I mentioned how much more rich and complex the book Lolita is compared to the media images conjured by the name. Durham’s book got off to a promising start when she notes that Nabokov’s title character is a completely different person than the image that comes to mind when one hears the name in the media. Nabokov’s character is a naive little girl who is ruthlessly exploited by a middle-aged pervert and who pretty much winds up as a poor white trash young mom until Humbert Humbert (the perv) finally dies and leaves her a packet of money (a form of rescue denied to most young women who are exploited in reality rather than fiction). The media image is a pre-teen vixen who is aware of her sexuality and uses it to control the affections of middle aged men for her own advantage. Durham makes this distinction (although she doesn’t mention how Nabokov’s Lolita winds up at the end of the story) and uses it to define "The Lolita Effect" in Nabokovian terms…as something that results in girls’ exploitation, not their empowerment (the word which is often used to excuse the exploitation). She explores exactly how this is done (by narrowly defining the concept of ’sexiness’) and what can be done to about it (another refreshing change from much non-fiction that describes the current state of our society) using the following five "myths" that underpin the American understanding of female sexuality:

1. If You’ve Got It, Flaunt It–revealing and trashy are sexy…anything subtle is not.
2. Anatomy of a Sex Goddess–Barbie and supermodels are sexy…anything else is not.
3. Pretty Babies–young is sexy (and younger is sexier)…anything over 25 is not.
4. Violence is Sexy—especially when it’s against young, pretty women in revealing clothing…put an old woman, a young boy, or even a puppy in the same advertisement, movie, or video game and sexy quickly becomes ludicrous at best, vile at worst.
5. What Boys Like—to be sexy means pleasing men and boys…not yourself.

Most of the women I know are aware of these myths and how harmful they can be to young girls and the women they become. Nevertheless, the book is filled with new insights. For example, pretty much everyone knows how impossible it is for most women to even approximate Barbie’s body even though that is what is held up in our society as an ideal. What I didn’t realize is just how much globalization has spread that ideal (and how it much more deeply it affects women of color or those who have physical handicaps…even seemingly minor ones such as having to wear hearing aids). I always knew the aims were to make women insecure about themselves in order to sell products, but I never realized at how large a scale. And, while I have thought about how it affects less affluent women in the U.S., I hadn’t really thought about its effect on much poorer women in developing countries.

The truly amazing part of this book, however, is not the new insights the author brings, but her steadfast refusal to name a scapegoat. While she recognizes the media’s role in perpetuating the myths, she holds all of us accountable for using media wisely and well…and provides real-life, easy-to-use strategies for how to do so. She does not demonize cosmetic companies, or anyone else using these myths to sell products, for making money. She’s OK with capitalism, she thinks it’s up to all of us to be more mindful consumers and to not blindly or accidentally help the companies perpetuate these harmful myths. She doesn’t say it’s not OK to use makeup or to want to be more attractive. She simply encourages an examination of the underlying motives for wanting to do these things. She’s working to foster an awareness that leads to mindful consumption which she hopes will improve the lives of girls everywhere. If you’ve been reading this blog for any time at all, you can probably understand why I liked this book so much.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any time at all you are also probably aware that I have little boys, not little girls, so it would’ve been easy to say to Tina (who has one of each), "not my problem." The thing is, it is my problem, and yours, and everyone else’s. Anything that devalues a single aspect of humankind affects all of us in the long run. If you’ve ever found yourself bemoaning the fact that "American Civilization" is rapidly becoming an oxymoron, then you really ought to read it. The book is well written and short (a little over 200 pages not including the notes and resources at the end) and it is quite an eye opener (even for those of us who consider ourselves rather enlightened on such things). I hope you all will consider putting it in your list or in your pile.

* If you click on the link and buy the book, I’m supposed to get some sort of kickback from amazon.com. I’m currently in the process of becoming an affiliate of my local bookstore (Bookworks on Rio Grande). If that happens as planned (the bookstore has to approve my request for affiliation), I will be linking there instead of amazon.

Update 01.10.2010: My friend Len, of Life Among the Mammals, just shared this link to an author interview. If you’ve been thinking about women and the media I heartily recommend reading Len’s recent series of posts on “The Tweety Birds”. The posts discuss how a certain group of women in new media are allowed themselves to be photographed and interviewed by Vanity Fair magazine…and then proceeded to protest most vehemently about the results. (Len and I are not sympathetic.) An astute commenter (John C.) on Len’s blog even coined a term for such people (men and women): attentivores. That one’s a keeper.