Customer Reviews

The Lipstick Proviso

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After reading so many books by feminist authors it is wonderful to finally read a book that validates what I knew in my gut all along and was faulted for by "feminists"---its OK to be "feminine" and powerful at the same time. Its ok to be sexy and successful simultaneously. Men and women are different. We should revel in the difference and use the difference to enhance our position in our personal and professional lives. I now know that I am an "equity feminist". This book taught me that not all feminists are alike! I hope there are more books by this wonderful level headed realistic author. The quote from the book that has stayed with me is something along the lines of "I believe in equality of opportunity-not equality of result"!!

In this book, Lehrman seems intent on telling women to embrace the worst of "feminism": an obsession with power and status, as defined in traditionally "male" terms; a preoccupation with physical attractiveness as an avenue to said power and status (although this is clearly a tool that only a handful of women actually have at their disposal); a truly odious lack of concern for women who don't belong to the "Cosmo" world of wealth and beauty, and who don't live in the priveleged quarters of Manhattan; and a telling disdain for more politically-oriented feminists who are actually concerned with helping women as a whole, and society as a whole, rather than simply helping themselves. When are "feminists" like Ms. Lehrman going to get it? Empowering women doesn't mean getting them to emulate the worst in men. It means changing society's value system to one that values love, respect, and humanity more than money, status and power.

While surveying the landscape of contemporary feminism, this confused book does little more than reiterate Barbie's "girls can do anything message". The book tries to be a mixture of opinion based on survey data and some findings from science, while at the same time critiquing such writers as Faludi and Wolf. Some of it's good, some is horrendous.