a myth

Feminism brought us suffrage, career opportunities, awareness.

Imagine the modern woman: perfumed, confident, dressed to the nines, successful, smart. Imagine you’re an institution that will find profit, huge profit, in her destruction. How will you destroy her?

Tell her she’s ugly.

Tell her she’s too fat.

Tell her her hair’s too thick, or she’s wearing the wrong lipstick, or her boobs are too small.

Now, if you’re the woman, how do you fight back? By not believing. By not caring.

That’s easy enough to do, right? We know better, right? We’re empowered. Right?

This is quite a compelling read, and a bit of an eye-opener. Thanks to Cyril for lending me a copy. :)

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I haven’t read a nonfiction book in a while, so I was glad to have been able to read this one. Some of the other nonfic books that I enjoyed, off the top of my head: Watching the English, In Cold Blood, Bully, Freakonomics, Stupid White Men, The Culture of Narcissism, Fast Food Nation, and an excellent collection of true-to-life police stories presented interview transcript-style, with no comments from the author (I cannot remember the title, gah) .

I’d like to get my reading paws on this one:

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Thanks to Kenneth Yu for this FYI. :)

Some shameless self-promotion: I have a short story, “Singing”, in the January 18, 2010 issue of The Philippine Graphic. My thanks to the literary editor, Marra PL. Lanot, for taking it in.

Incidentally, in the same issue is the poem “Reportage” by online acquaintance Eliza Victoria.

Hooray. :D