Pornography: Men Possessing Women, by: Andrea ... - Feminish

significantly determine the quality and limits of any woman’s life.But these ideas—which change from society to society or from timeto time, or which exist in contrasting or opposing formulations atthe same time within the same society—have a common premise:the object must be that which it is supposed to be; its behavior mustbe appropriate to its function. Inappropriate behavior ruins femalebeauty. Since women are capable of everything but permittedalmost nothing (without the consequences of male revenge orgrudge), acts that enhance the sensual or aesthetic dimension of aman become virtual physical stains on a woman. The one staticstandard of female beauty is that the woman must conform to themale’s definition of her as an object with respect to function as wellas form. George Sand, for instance, attributed her own lack ofbeauty in male eyes (and therefore her own) to her intellectual andphysical activity. In so doing, she gives a still-accurate picture ofwhat the female beauty in Western culture may be and of what shemust not do:I had a sound constitution, and as a child seemed likely tobecome beautiful, a promise I did not keep. This was perhapsmy fault, since at the age when beauty blossoms I was alreadyspending my nights reading and writing.. . .Not to work so that my eyes would sparkle; not to run andplay in the sun when God’s sun attracts me so; not to walk insturdy wooden shoes for fear of deforming my ankles; to weargloves, that is, to renounce the quickness and strength of myhands; to doom myself to be clumsy and feeble; never to tiremyself, when everything urges me to use up my energy; to live,in short, under a bell jar; to be neither burned, nor chapped,nor faded before my time—such things were always impossiblefor me. 31Reading and writing, especially writing, have been seen as theantithesis of beauty in the female, as deadly as cyanide. Physicalactivity, even when prohibited, has been better tolerated.Women are reared, and often forced, to conform to the specificrequirements of ideal beauty, whatever they are at any given time.From foot-binding to waist binding to breast binding, ideal Beauty