The Power of Beauty

Beauty is a power hierarchy, especially when we're talking about standardized, industrialized beauty. It's like this one-dimensional standard of how your physical face and body look. Empowering makes it sound really nice; Confused power makes it sound like what it is.

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Today's episode throws it back to a concept I first wrote about several years ago: The Hot Girl Hamster Wheel. It refers to the expensive maintenance that “traditional female beauty ideals” prescribe: haircuts, manis/pedis, spray tans...the list goes on. But why is this never covered in personal finance sector, despite how much these costs add up?

We dig into the numbers, the effects beauty has on our self-esteem and the world around us, and how to do a Hot Girl Detox to reclaim your time (and wallet). I'm joined by Jessica DeFino, a beauty culture critic, author of The Unpublishable (https://jessicadefino.substack.com/), and journalist who's been called "the woman the beauty industry fears."

Transcripts can be found at podcast.moneywithkatie.com

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Mentioned in the Episode

How 'Empowerment' Became Something for Women to Buy by Jia Tolentino, from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/magazine/how-empowerment-became-something-for-women-to-buy.html
The average American woman spends $3,756 on her beauty and personal care regimen: https://swnsdigital.com/us/2017/06/women-spend-a-quarter-of-a-million-dollars-on-their-appearance-in-a-lifetime/
Self-Care Culture is Making Us Broke, with Chelsea Fagan: https://podcast.moneywithkatie.com/self-care-culture-is-making-us-broke-with-chelsea-fagan/
Studies on "Pretty Privilege": https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1822&context=theses
The Age of Instagram Face by Jia Tolentino in The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/decade-in-review/the-age-of-instagram-face

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