檳榔嶼

- Before women's liberation all females young and old were socialized by sexist thinking to believe that our value rested solely on appearance and whether or not we were perceived to be good looking, especially by men.
  - Understanding that females could never be liberated if we did not develop healthy self-esteem and self-love feminist thinkers went directly to the heart of the matter - critically examining how we feel and think about our bodies and offering constructive strategies for change.
- Women stripping their bodies of unhealthy and uncomfortable, restrictive clothing - bras, girdles, corsets, garter belts, ... etc - was a ritualistic, radical reclaiming of the health and glory of the female body.
- For women who had never been comfortable in dresses and skirts all these changes were exciting.
  - Many adult women embracing feminism stopped wearing crippling, uncomfortable high-heeled shoes. 
- No longer forced by sexist tradition to wear make-up, women looked in the mirror and learned to face ourselves just the way we are.
- Initially, capitalist investors in the cosmetic and fashion industry feared that feminism would destroy their business. They put their money behind mass-media campaigns which trivialized women's liberation by portraying images which suggested feminists were big, hypermasculine, and just plain old ugly.
  - In reality, women involved in feminist movement came in all shapes and sizes. We were utterly diverse. And how thrilling to be free to appreciate our differences without judgment or competition.
- It has never been a simple matter for women to unite a love of beauty and style with comfort and ease.
- Feminist struggle to end eating disorders has been an ongoing battle because our nation's obsession with judging females of all ages on the basis of how we look was never completely eliminated.
- While all females reaped the benefit of feminist interventions, more and more females were embracing anew sexist-defined notions of beauty.
- Nowadays, a huge number of heterosexual women past 40 were and are still single. Finding themselves in competition with younger women for male attention they often emulate sexist representations of female beauty. Certainly it was in the interest of a white supremacist capitalist patriarchal fashion and cosmetic industry to re-glamorize sexist-defined notions of beauty. Mass media has followed suit. In movies, on TV, and in public advertisements images of reed-thin, dyed-blonded women looking as though they would kill for a good meal have become the norm. Back with a vengeance, sexist images of female beauty abound and threaten to undo much of the progress gained by feminist interventions.
- No dire warnings work to deter females who believe their worth, beauty, and intrinsic value will be determined by whether or not they are thin.
- Girls today are often just as self-hating when it comes to their bodies as their prefeminist counterparts were.
  - To critique in and of itself does not lead to change. Indeed, much feminist critique of beauty has merely left females confused about what a healthy choice is.
- Nowadays, in a fashion world, especially on the consumer side, where clothing that looks like it has been designed simply for reed-thin adolescent girl bodies is the norm, all females no matter their age are being socialized either consciously or unconsciously to have anxiety about their body, to see flesh as problematic.
- However, if we abandon the struggle to eliminate sexist defined notions of beauty altogether, we risk undermining all the marvelous feminist interventions which allowed us to embrace our bodies and ourselves and love them.
- Until feminists go back to the beauty industry, go back to fashion, and create an ongoing, sustained revolution, we will not be free. We will not know how to love our bodies as ourselves.