Feminism and glamour

This video is about glamour in a Hollywood film; Rita Hayworth in Gilda.

Glamour: Women, History, Feminism

by Carol Dyhouse (Zed Books, £19.99)

Monday 10 May 2010

by Nathaniel Mehr

This is an entertaining read, full of fascinating social history and revealing insights into the myriad ways in which notions of “glamour” have been constructed and reinvented across the decades.

An important subject, not least because it is entwined with questions of gender-based hierarchy in capitalist societies.

The author’s research draws on candid surveys of women’s opinions down the ages and shows women locked in a complex relationship with glamour and fashion, both questioning its precepts and following them with dedication.

But the book‘s main drawback is a rather dismissive treatment of feminist critiques of glamour, which Dyhouse paints as dogmatic and disempowering. It’s a fashionably post-modern approach, applied with little consideration for nuance, so the book lacks a strong critical edge.

This failing is far from disastrous, since this is more of a descriptive study rather than a theoretical or critical one.