[.ca] Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image (ISBN 1580051081)

From Amazon.com:
The breezy, irreverent essays in Adios, Barbie are a welcome antidote to the narrow cultural consciousness the tiny doll has fostered for more than 40 years. While thousands of little girls worship Barbie's plasticine perfection, those who wind up dissatisfied with the message she sends--be white, be skinny, be stacked, be pretty, and then you'll be loved--can tell you how a toy skews body image in the real world. Among whites talking trash about blacks and upwardly mobile black folks, notes Erin J. Aubry, big butts are suspect--"low-class and ghettoish," the antithesis of Barbie's tightly tucked derriere. Yet on good days, Aubry applauds her ample proportions, for "unlike hair or skin, the butt is stubborn, immutable--it can't be hot-combed or straightened or bleached into submission. It does not assimilate; it never took a slave name." In "Fishnets, Feather Boas, and Fat," Nomy Lam--a 250-pound, 22-year-old disabled woman--and friends elbow their way to the front of a determinedly different club, "dancing like fiends toward revolution." Lee Damsky tells us why her mother's model of scientific prowess took a dusty third-place to big-screen images of "beauty and femininity \othat\c seem to offer me absolute power rivaled only by a fascist dictatorship." Because the various writers gathered together here are young, their conceits and world-views are sometimes annoyingly unexamined; by the same token, though, their energy, heckling, and bone-deep assurance make large and pleasing dents in mainstream assumptions. --Francesca Coltrera

so, so so important:
I love this book, and I've read parts of it over and over again for my own healing. I admire every writer in this book so much, and after I finished reading it, I felt like something in me changed... going any deeper would be too personal.. but I recommend this book to anyone who has the slightest issues with their bodies.

Interesting but flawed:
The idea behind "Adios Barbie" is interesting, mixing two controversial and explosive issues (body image and ethnic identity), but it isn't pulled off perfectly. Out of the 26 essay writers: 2 are East Indian, 6 are black, 3 are hispanic, 5 are Jewish (7 if you count the editor and foreword writer), 9 are white and 1 is Filipino-European. The best essays are "Klaus Barbie, and other dolls I'd like to see" by Susan Jane Gilman, is a wickedly funny mockery of themed barbies; "The Skinny on Small" by Diane Sepanski about a 5"3.5 woman's struggles with being short (which I can relate to, as I am the same height as her); "My Jewish Nose" by Lisa Jervis is written with self deprecating humor; "Strip!" by Diana Courvant, about a transsexual and "Intimate Enemies" by Jennifer Berger is a thought-provoking story about a woman's literal war with her allergy prone body. However, most of the other essay are nearly identical, about a woman's struggles with her weight or ethnicity, and while it's certainly an interesting topic, the similarity waters it down quite a bit and the high number of these types of essays starts to get boring. In "Fishnets, Feather Boas and Fat", author Nomy Lamm starts to get downright obnoxious and borders on the offensive in her constant mocking of other people and seeming arrogance. The topic Ms. Lamm writes about is interesting enough: about a 250 pound disabled lesbian who likes fashion and has the bravery to wear outrageous costumes she concocts herself, and she touches on issues of not wanting to be serious and upstanding all the time, and feeling insecure about her flamboyance; and it seems that she is well-meaning and provacative. However, her quote: "poor body image usually refers to the plight of thin women who think they are fat" may not be meant offensively, but it seemed belittling towards the pain and self-hatred many anorexics/bulimics and other "thin" women do feel. "Adios, Barbie" is worth a read, but don't take all the ideas presented to heart.

Great Book!:
I have never been really into Women's Studies, but I recently saw this book and was intrigued. Like almost every woman on earth, I struggle with my feelings about my body. It's just so great to know that I'm not alone. It's inspiring to read about women who've made peace or made progress with their body images. This book definitely made me more aware of images of beauty that society considers normal. I realized that I've spent my whole life swallowing what the media tells me to and letting that form my self image. The contributors to this book are very diverse but are united as well.

Body Outlaws:
"Ophira Edut is one of those renaissance kinda gals who causes you to wonder what you've been doing with all your spare time. The founding publisher of HUES (Hear Us Emerging Sisters) magazine, a web designer, illustrator, writer and lecturer, she has been creating public space for women and girls to raise their voices and be heard for years. All this, and she's still in her 20s. With Body Outlaws, Edut has brought together 26 different women's voices to collectively challenge unrealistic mainstream mythologies of beauty and body image. Body Outlaws is a republication of Edut's first book Adios Barbie, with the addition of two new chapters and a slightly revised introduction... I don't think that I would be amiss in surmising that as women/girls, we each have body image issues. Obsessions that evolve out of our own human body's failure to measure up to unrealistic lifestyles and standards of beauty that surround us. The articles in Body Outlaws deal with all these insecurities and misgivings with a refreshingly honest approach. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the articles that Edut has collected, is the spectrum of body issues that they address. Not focusing on the traditional obsession with weight alone, Edut's contributors speak on skin, noses, hair, lips, butts and the like. ...The writers in Body Outlaws are unabashedly frank, willing to reveal their own complicated "-isms" in their privileging of qualities of "the other" over their own. The book is worth the investment for Nomy Lamm's piece alone. Her honest and witty style always charm the pants off me. Here she addresses the issue of actively engaging in beauty and enjoying and celebrating your own sense of style and artifice rather than pretending that looks don't matter. The two new articles -- one by Christy Damio on losing her eyesight at age 13, and the other on being a plus-sized model, by Kate Dillon - are excellent additions to the anthology. Body Outlaws is up there on the list of books that I wish someone had given me when I was 13 years old to help me deconstruct all of the negativity that I was beginning to stockpile about my relationship to my body. To that end, it is a book I intend to pass on to every young woman I encounter. As a woman in her mid-twenties, its strength is not lost on me and it is a welcome addition to my library. So head to your favourite neighbourhood bookstore or online vendor and get yourself a copy. With the variety of voices and perspectives represented within this collection you will be sure to find something that resonates." --Emira Mears can be found at Soapbox Girls.

*so* amazing:
I brought this book with me to work one day and I finished in less than a week...which is quite a feat for a slow reader like me, but I couldn't put it down. Every store I felt like I had some personal connection with. Every character was somehow connected in a really interesting way and every story was moving. These ladies showed that they just didn't care what anyone thought about them, they were going to do their own thing. That's the way it should be.