Expert: Dylan Thompson - 11/29/2006

Question
What does this passage means " How easy it is to start it off by defining womenas caretakers of their surfaces, and then to disparage them for being superficial." It is a crude trap and it has worked for too long.

I saw this passage from the book:A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source? by Susan Sontag. I was reading that story but then I'm having a hard time understanding that passage.Hope you can help me.thanks.

Answer
Thanks for the question. I will give this my best shot and if it doesn't' help at all, write me back with the page numbers and I will try and find the book and look at the context. So, here goes.

The author seems to be claiming that women are defined by society purely as caretakers of their own personal looks. The author is assuming that there is something wrong with caring how one looks, and with wanting one's wife, girlfriend etc. to look good. The author goes on to claim that the same society that makes women spend much of their time grooming themselves immediately turns around and calls them airheads, and shallow because of how much time they spend.
The last stab this author takes at what she sees as a male chauvinist society is that this trap is one of the ways that men have kept women from fulfilling their true potential.

That is what the passage is saying. I suppose what I think about what the author is saying is irrelevant to your question, so I will leave it at this. I disagree.

I hope this helps you sort out this passage and the book.

DJT