Popular ideology on what a woman should look like and how she should behave have changed numerous times throughout history. In the past century women have gone from struggling into binding corsets, to burning bras. With body preference ranging from the voluptuous figures of the fifties, inspired and immortalized by Marilyn Monroe, to the waifish physique embodied by the appropriately named Twiggy. And as the ideals change so do many women who adapt their hair, clothes, make-up, even their body parts to become what the media projects.

Pink Think: Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons written by Lynn Peril is a historical journey through mid-centuries most alarming literature and products of the time used to produce a specific type of woman.

It poses an interesting connection between consumer and commodity. Peril points out that historically problems have been created to sell products to women; ones designed to make women feel insecure. She sites in her book a 1929 advertisement for Lysol that suggested if a woman was experiencing marital problems it could be her fault because of inadequate feminine hygiene. Lysol’s solution? Using their product diluted with water as a douche. A 1952 advertisement was even bolder, using a doctor/female patient scenario in which the doctor calls in the husband to ask him if the wife’s feminine odor is the source of their problems, which the husband confirms and once again the answer is using Lysol.

Additionally, women during the mid-century - Peril’s time of expertise - were indoctrinated to believe the only purpose in life for a woman was to get married. However you had to catch the man, he must be caught, which meant teaching women how to make themselves more desirable to men. And if there was any question whether men admired intelligence one only has to look in any of the several teen guidebooks for girls available at the time.

In McCall's Guide to Teen-Age Beauty and Glamour (1959) they explain the phenomenon of the "isolated egghead…She isn't unpopular because she is brainy; it is because she's unpopular that she is so intensely intellectual.” Intelligence and beauty was rarely perceived to go hand and hand and if only one were feasible, beauty is the clear preference. In fact Zsa Zsa Gabor summed up the strategy with her quote, “The best way to attract a man is to have a magnificent bosom, a half-sized brain and let both of them show.” When the female teen icons for young girls today are parading around adamantly following Ms. Gabor’s advice, it begs the question: has anything really changed? Who is buying what and what is being sold?

Women may want to examine the media’s role in who they are and see if they are comfortable with what they find.

So, how can women take accountability for how they are perceived? Peril believes that knowing your own mind and being honest with yourself is the best way to accomplish it. And not succumbing to a group mentality of femininity -- defined as “pink think” by Peril - can help women stay true to themselves. There is an example from the introduction of the book which Peril uses to illustrate her theory, “If a woman is afraid of mice she is not necessarily following the dictates of ‘pink think’, but if a woman pretends she is afraid of mice because she believes it will increase her femininity and desirability then she is.”

One of the key approaches for anyone dealing with the external pressures of conformity is to constantly question the motivations of others and then the motivations of yourself. Peril admits that this territory can get tricky and she would like to believe she loves lipstick and beauty products for herself and not others, but then again she cannot say for sure because societal forces have been there all along. This is where a judgment call can be made by the individual, where they determine how destructive a behavior really is, and find comfort in their decisions.

The “pink think” mentality transcends time and certainly its parameters will continue to shift and morph into the future. Peril’s Pink Think informs how media pressures worked in the past and it is up to the girls and women of today to decide whether they will question how the media inspires conformity presently, how it will in the future and how much of it is dangerous.

© Melt Magazine 2002