the "beauty myth"

For my senior capstone project this semester, I am doing a research paper about women, their bodies, and the unrealistic standards they are expected to meet. Although mostly it has only made me angry and sad for women, it's also very interesting; there are so many books on this subject that I never knew existed and probably would have never read if not for this paper. 

If you're interested...or just bored with your life, you should read: 

"The Beauty Myth" by Naomi Wolf 

I'm about half way through it and so far, it's very eye-opening, interesting, and quite sad. The next on my list is "Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall" by Kjerstin Gruys. I'm reallllly excited for that one and that's why I'm saving it for last (or at least 2nd). It's her personal account of how she took her life back by not looking in a mirror for a year. If that's not cool, I don't know what is. Seriously, that's awesome and I don't know that I could do it. 

Anyway, since I haven't actually written a paper yet..or even close, I'll shut up. I'm just really excited about this and mostly that there are women who are standing up for themselves and others. People are beautiful. Make-up, boob jobs, designer vagina's (if you can call it that), the latest fashion, etc. don't make us beautiful- we already are and we just don't see it. In fact, Naomi Wolf said that the biggest challenge women face today isn't material status or even legal, it's psychological; we are so accustomed to striving for a "perfect" body, life, family, etc that we don't need laws holding us back...we hold ourselves back. Interesting stuff. 

And now I'll go back to reading because I have lots of it to do. :)