This innovative, ethnographic study of a neighborhood beauty salon investigates how customers constitute a lively, affirming community of peers during their weekly visits. Facing the Mirror gives voice to older women, who, in a sexist and ageist society, are frequently devalued and rendered invisible. These older, mostly Jewish women articulate their experiences of bodily self-presentation, femininity, aging, and caring pertaining to their lives within and outside Julie's International Salon. This book explores the socio-moral significance of these experiences which reveals as much about society as about older women themselves. Women's narratives expose structures of power, inequality, and resistance in the ways women perceive reality, make choices and live in their worlds.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
An accessibly written ethnography, the women in Furman's beauty shop reveal a great deal about women's lives and positions in contemporary culture. -- Feminist Bookstore News
I quickly absorbed Furman's words-the results of nearly five years of research...it is a book long overdue. -- Heritage Sunday
Facing the Mirror combines studies of aging, Judaism, and beauty into an excellent ethnographic study of a beauty salon in Chicago. -- Gender & Society
The book calls much needed attention to an area of women's experience that has been seen as socially insignificant. -- C. Adamsky Choice
A respectful and even tender treatment of a large and largely neglected population in our culture: elderly, middle income, middle American women...[Furman's] account is beautifully written, warm. -- Sally B. Purvis
What Furman gives us in Facing the Mirror is hard to come by: a mostly jargon-free chronicle of an oft-ignored population. -- In These Times
Facing the Mirror is a thoughtful feminist analysis. -- Booklist
I quickly absorbed Furman's words-the results of nearly five years of research...it is a book long overdue. -- Heritage Sunday
Facing the Mirror combines studies of aging, Judaism, and beauty into an excellent ethnographic study of a beauty salon in Chicago. -- Gender & Society
The book calls much needed attention to an area of women's experience that has been seen as socially insignificant. -- C. Adamsky Choice
A respectful and even tender treatment of a large and largely neglected population in our culture: elderly, middle income, middle American women...[Furman's] account is beautifully written, warm. -- Sally B. Purvis
What Furman gives us in Facing the Mirror is hard to come by: a mostly jargon-free chronicle of an oft-ignored population. -- In These Times
Facing the Mirror is a thoughtful feminist analysis. -- Booklist
About the Author
Frida Kerner Furman is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University and is author of Beyond Yiddishkeit: The Struggle for Jewish Identity in a Reform Synagogue.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
How older woman cope in a Society of Beauty,
By Joanne Burnett (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Facing the Mirror: Older Women and Beauty Shop Culture (Paperback)
In reading this book, I found that it hit home in how I feel in today's society. I am not of Jewish decent but I am over 50. I am a student at Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario. I read the book for my Sociology of Woman's class, and I feel that in todays society if you are not thin, have gorgeous hair and the perfect body, you no longer seem to fit into today's culture.So where does the older generation fit, who knows. Women are not supposed to age, get wrinkles,gain weight or go grey. Why is that? Who knows. As I am one of those women as of today I still do not have the grey hair but that is because I am a natural blonde and it does not show as much, but I have the extra weight and what am I to do. Well you guessed it try and fit into today's society by loosing it and trying to be what the media says I should look like. The book tells it how it is to live in our Western Society, we need to have the media stop putting pressure on us.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Julie's International Salon-Julie's, for short-is located in a residential neighborhood of a large midwestern city. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
feminine practices Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Facing the Mirror, Julie's International Salon, The Witch, Energetic Anger, Golden Years, Grandma Ella, United States, Second World War, African American, David Maitland New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Julie's International Salon-Julie's, for short-is located in a residential neighborhood of a large midwestern city. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
feminine practices Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Facing the Mirror, Julie's International Salon, The Witch, Energetic Anger, Golden Years, Grandma Ella, United States, Second World War, African American, David Maitland New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 95
books:
See all 95 books this book cites
24
books
cite this book:
See all 24 books citing this book
- Aging and Ethics (Contemporary Issues in Biomedicine, Ethics, and Society) by Nancy S. Jecker on 4 pages
- Women and Aging: An Anthology by Women by Jo Alexander et al. on 4 pages
- Women on the Front Lines: Meeting the Challenge of an Aging America by Jessie Allen on 4 pages
- Women, Aging, and Ageism by Evelyn R Rosenthal on 4 pages
- The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
See all 95 books this book cites
- Rapunzel's Daughters: What Women's Hair Tells Us About Women's Lives by Rose Weitz on 4 pages
- The Religious Imagination of American Women (Religion in North America) by Mary Farrell Bednarowski on page 177, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Age Matters: Re-Aligning Feminist Thinking by Toni M. Calasanti on page 268, page 326, and page 333
- Gender in the Mirror: Cultural Imagery & Women's Agency (Studies in Feminist Philosophy) by Diana Tietjens Meyers on page 149, and Back Matter
- The Living Spirit of the Crone: Turning Aging Inside Out (Theology and the Sciences) (Theology & the Sciences) by Sally Palmer Thomason in Back Matter
See all 24 books citing this book
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