‘Feminism is going to ruin your life (in the best way possible).’ This is the title of the first chapter of Florence Given’s debut book, Women Don’t Owe You Pretty. Since its publication last month, it has been hailed as ‘The Beauty Myth [Naomi Wolf, 1990] for the Instagram generation’, and quickly become regarded as one of the seminal texts for the current feminist movement.
Since reading it, and reading about it, and talking to other people who have read it, I can safely confirm that it has in fact ruined my life- but most definitely in the best way possible.
“I had to acknowledge the objective fact that I sit high on society’s scale of desirability, by being slim, non-disabled and white“
At just 20 years old, Florence Given has cultivated an Instagram following of 494k, written a ‘Sunday Times bestseller’, and won Cosmpolitan’s UK ‘Influencer of the Year’ in 2019. Her unique illustrations, pertinent writing, and online activism have gained her recognition as someone who is worth paying attention to, but she has also used this platform to evaluate her own privilege and promote the voices of those who have not necessarily had the same opportunities in life. She writes, “I had to acknowledge the objective fact that I sit high on society’s scale of desirability, by being slim, non-disabled and white,” scrutinising her own advantageous position and acknowledging all of the ways in which she has unfairly benefited from it. Reading her book felt less about learning her personal opinion and more about gaining insight into an accumulation of all the different perspectives and experiences that we most need to shed light on in our society.
“I needed to be told that it was okay to feel exhausted and that this exhaustion was simply a by-product of an education which was long overdue.”
I was at a point in my life where I really needed this book.
Over the past few months, while we have been locked up in isolation, I have tried to use this time to educate myself specifically about female issues and simultaneously develop more of a critical standpoint about my own life. At times, I felt myself becoming more frustrated than liberated, confused as to why my enlightenment was so interchangeable with the anger I felt at the world. So, when I read the first line of Women Don’t Owe You Pretty– ‘my journey into feminism was exhausting’- it single-handedly validated the turmoil of emotions I have been feeling recently while coming to terms with my own feminism. More than anything, I needed to be told that it was okay to feel exhausted and that this exhaustion was simply a by-product of an education which was long overdue.
Given captured an important sentiment when she wrote: “guilt is an unproductive emotion. Feeling guilty for past mistakes and behaviours does nothing for you or the people you harmed, unless it is accompanied by changed behaviour.” In our current political climate, with everything that is happening to catalyse much-needed change, it is easy to feel guilty; but there is no use in feeling guilty about things that you are not actively working against. Up until recently, I am ashamed to admit that my feminism has been somewhat reactionary and passive. I feel guilty about the comments that I have let slide, the friendships that I have let go unquestioned, the situations that I have not spoken up about, the intersectionality that I have not actively practiced enough, the personal interrogation I have not carried out to its full extent. But this guilt is useless in the face of a deeply patriarchal and prejudiced society that will not change until we collectively acknowledge the role we have all played in establishing and perpetuating it.
Everything that I read in this book resonated with me in a way that all progressive feminist texts should. I have always thought it a strange insult when people tell me that my thinking is too radical, as I have never thought of gender equality as a revolutionary concept; but if that is how it must be perceived to be effective, then so be it.
The ideas proposed in Women Don’t Owe You Pretty may not be quite as extremist as the thought of “tasting your own menstrual blood” (Germaine Greer, 1970), but perhaps what Given is asking us to do by reevaluating every intersection within which we consider our own femininity is an even more radical idea.
Esther Huntington-Whiteley
Featured image courtesy of @acharki95 via Unsplash.
