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ADIOS BARBIE: YOUNG WOMEN WRITE ABOUT BODY IMAGE & IDENTITY
Ed. Ophira Edut, foreword by Rebecca Walker
Seal Press
264 pages, $14.95 (paper)
Adios Barbie is 26 essays which deal with body image and offer the perspectives of women of various ethnic and religious backgrounds, sizes, and sexualities. These essays focus on the ways in which societally-imposed standards of beauty can mess you up. The essays cover a range of topics: the troubles of being skinny ("The Skinny on Small" by Diane Sepanski); the troubles of being "fat;" the decision to shave body hair or not ("Memoirs of a (sorta) ex-shaver" by Carolyn Mackler); the politics of the black-and-female butt ("The Butt: Its politics, its profanity, its power" by Erin J. Aubry), not being white, but still being asked to fit the Anglo-American standard of beauty; and the politics of sex and sexual dominance ("The Chosen People" by Tali Edut).
While it makes sense that these essays are similar (since they were collected to create a...