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69 S.M.U. L. Rev. 697 (2016)
Appearance as a Feminist Issue

handle is hein.journals/smulr69 and id is 733 raw text is: APPEARANCE AS A FEMINIST ISSUE' Deborah L. Rhode N 1929, in A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf maintained that every woman needed to consider what is your relation to the ever- changing and turning world of gloves and shoes .... ,2 Since then, that world has grown ever more complicated. In today's universe of esca- lating opportunities for cosmetic enhancement, the issues surrounding beauty have posed increasingly complex challenges. For some women, our cultural preoccupation with appearance is a source of wasted effort and expense, a threat to physical and psychological well-being, and a trig- ger for workplace discrimination. For other women, the pursuit of beauty is a source of pleasure and agency, and a showcase for cultural identity. The question for the women's movement is whether it is possible to find some common ground, and to develop a concept of beauty that is a source of pleasure rather than shame, and that enhances, rather than dic- tates self-worth. I. NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY DEBATES Contemporary challenges to appearance-related practices have long- standing roots. During America's first two centuries, respectable wo- men did not rouge, a practice associated with prostitutes.3 Women might ingest chalk, vinegar, or even arsenic to achieve a fair complexion, or kiss rosy crepe paper to redden their lips, but any detectable use of paints or powders put their reputations at risk.4 Beauty and virtue were intertwined, and reliance on cosmetics was thought corrosive to a chaste soul and a sign of moral depravity.5 Some black women's leaders simi- larly condemned anyone who wanted to whiten her skin: Why does she wish to improve her appearance? Why not improve her real self?'6 On hair, many leaders echoed the advice of Marcus Garvey: Don't remove 1. Original publication available at Deborah L. Rhode, Appearance as a Feminist Issue, in BODY AESTHETIcs 81 (Sherri Irvin ed., Oxford Univ. Press, 2016). The editorial assistance of Eun Sze is gratefully acknowledged. 2. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas 117 (Oxford University Press 2015). 3. Kathy Peiss, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture 53 (1998). 4. Id. at 15, 17; Karen Kozlowski, Read My Lips: A Cultural History of Lipstick 18 (1998). 5. Peiss, supra note 3, at 57. 6. Id. at 207.

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