You've Come a Long Way, Baby - Book Review

This compilation of essays, edited by Lilly J. Goren, has been on my to-read list for a long time. I was excited to read it because, judging from the title, I thought it was going to be a look at the way things were compared with the way things are now, more of a history of women's rights as opposed to stand-along essays that look at different topics in the world of women's studies.

I must admit that I didn't enjoy the book when I first started. I sort of got the feeling that there were things I needed to know before reading this book, but I missed out on taking the pre-requisite course. Seriously.

The very first chapter compares the crucifixion of Jesus Christ with women's willingness to undergo extreme plastic surgery. The second chapter is all about chick flicks.

But then I got to the third chapter about women in music, and that essay still has staying power today. The chapter about TV presidents is kind of a sad one, given the fact that there are still no good representations of women as president on TV today. How far have we come since 2008? Well, I know that there's Julia Louis-Dreyfuss on Vice, a show I've never watched. But is her character portrayed as competent? I'm not sure. And then there's Robin Wright's Claire on House of Cards. She's kind of an evil soul, and would she have been made president if the show hadn't needed to write Kevin Spacey out?

There's also a chapter about "mommy manuals" and how they have evolved to reflect the changing times over the years. Honestly, I don't remember my version of What to Expect When You're Expecting to be off-putting in terms of women returning to work or men not taking on more roles around the house. So maybe that has changed since 2008?

The chapter about chick lit is also very interesting. Why is there a genre called chick lit? Why separate women's writing in such a way and cause dissension among women writers? The author writes that women have always starred as characters in successful novels, that women writers are the most popular, and women readers outnumber men. The novel in all its forms belongs to women!

And then there is the chapter about women's magazines. Yes, I read many of these magazines that some people deem too fluffy. I actually stopped reading Cosmo and similar titles because I did get tired of every issue being about sex and men. My life does not revolve around those things. But I do enjoy Real Simple, Parents, and Redbook because they offer a nice mixture of topics that interest me. They are well-rounded. And I think that is the takeaway from that essay, that we need to see these magazines for what they are: a crucial means of getting information to a large population of women.

This book is not easy to find anymore, unfortunately. I received a used copy for Christmas. But if you can find a copy on Amazon and you want to further your feminist education, especially during Women's History Month, then this could be the book for you. It's a little out of date, having been printed in 2008. But I actually think that reading it now offers a juxtaposition and makes you think about how far we really have come.