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Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West.

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Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West Sheila Jeffreys Oxford, Routledge, 2005 206pp., ISBN 0415351820 12.95 [pounds sterling].

In Beauty and Misogyny (2005) Sheila Jeffreys asks a chilling question: 'should western beauty practices, ranging from lipstick to labiaplasty, be included within the United Nations' understanding of harmful traditional/cultural practices?' (p.i). In doing so she requires her readers in western societies to take a critical look at themselves and their everyday beauty 'work'. She holds up a mirror that is hard to accept because it goes to the roots of the understanding of what it means to be a woman in western society. It would have been easy to reject her approach because many of the practices Jeffreys writes about are so much part of daily routines that they have come to be seen as "natural", unchangeable, irresistible, "facts" of life. By starting to ask the questions that Jeffreys confronts her readers with they are asked to open up their private lives for public scrutiny. Julie Bindel has said that Sheila Jeffreys offers no comfort zone to her readers. I would argue that she achieves this by taking her analysis to a very personal level, an approach which is at times difficult to come to terms with.

To encourage her readers to follow her line of argument, Jeffreys offers an uncompromising position on the topic, sticks to a highly...

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