When reading the first piece, ‘Inventing the Cosmo Girl’, the same thing kept jumping out at me and that was the exchange of a kind of misinformation. This article brought up some great points and Brown did phenomenal things for the advancement of women and for helping to change our place in society. I am completely in favor the liberation of women who feel as though their only place in society is next to a man. However, in her attempt to liberate these women and inspire them, did she create something different than what was originally intended? “Brown’s advice spoke to major changes in women’s economic and sexual roles, while also constructing a suggested social identity for her “working girl” readers.”
Playing devil’s advocate here for a minute, there is a section in this reading entitled “The Beautiful Phony”. This took the movement one step further and instead of encouraging women to assert themselves and pursue independence it seems as though Brown was trying to create some other superior being all together. When breaking away from the cultural norm and societal construction, a new brand of working class women began. “Expenditures on clothing, cosmetics, and accessories were presented as necessary investments in the construction of a desirable (and thus saleable) self.” Women were encouraged not to enhance themselves and assert their intellectual equality, but to completely reinvent themselves and their identity. What did this accomplish? Who was this for? These women, ironically enough, were still catering to the whims of men and to add to this it became necessary to reach to a standard of unattainable beauty. And in the quest for social and sexual independence it's trading one illusion for another.
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