Trick Mirror

by Jia Tolentino

The root of this trouble is the fact that mainstream feminism has had to conform to patriarchy and capitalism to become mainstream in the first place. Old requirements, instead of being overthrown, are rebranded. Beauty work is labeled “self-care” to make it sound progressive. In 2017, Taffy Brodesser-Akner wrote a story for The New York Times Magazine about the new vocabulary of weight loss, noting the way women’s magazines replaced cover lines like “Get lean! Control your eating!” with “Be your healthiest! GET STRONG!” People started “fasting and eating clean and cleansing and making lifestyle changes,” Brodesser-Akner wrote, “which, by all available evidence, is exactly like dieting.” It sometimes seems that feminism can imagine no more satisfying progress than this current situation—one in which, instead of being counseled by mid-century magazines to spend time and money trying to be more radiant for our husbands, we can now counsel one another to do all the same things but for ourselves.