Marisa Meltzer > Quotes

“An avowed feminist activist and an outspoken bisexual, DiFranco has been candid about the necessity of women musicians identifying with the F-word. "Either you are a feminist or you are a sexist/misogynist," she once wrote. "There is no box marked 'other'".”
― Marisa Meltzer, Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music

“But wouldn't [the Spice Girls] have shown a little bit more solidarity if they had at least called themselves feminists? The feminist activist Jennifer Pozner was more dismissive,writing that it was "probably a fair assumption to say that 'zigazig-ha' is not Spice shorthand for 'subvert the dominant paradigm.”
― Marisa Meltzer, Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music

“Denial, particularly self-denial, is its own kind of pleasure.”
― Marisa Meltzer, This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World -- and Me

“Ani DiFranco or Ani, as she is universally know to her fans, was, to a certain kind of white, middle-class woman, girl power in the purest sense. At twenty, she founded her own record label, Righteous Babe. She's released dozens of albums (and has sold over four million copies), had a baby, documented her life on the road, and opened for Bob Dylan.”
― Marisa Meltzer, Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music

“it felt a bit like these companies were playing with the ideas of equity and advancement for women, which is not the same as actually doing it.”
― Marisa Meltzer, Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier

“An essential truth about being a woman is that we have so many internalized messages that we are not enough that we might spend our whole lives coming to terms with them. And weight is sometimes the physical relic left behind from this struggle. I have been afforded the privilege to concentrate on this unfairness, but those ideas have seeped into other parts of my life as well. Who gets to move through the world with ease? It shouldn’t just be those in the pinnacle of power, a white man of a certain socioeconomic status or a young woman who looks like a supermodel. Dieting usually requires us to choose to live smaller lives—and by smaller, I don’t mean in pants size, I mean in experience. Losing weight is a tithe you never quit paying. It’s relentless. You can sacrifice everything at the altar of the bitch goddess of weight loss and it ultimately won’t be enough.”
― Marisa Meltzer, This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World -- and Me

“Well into my mid-thirties I considered dieting my biggest secret. I wish I could say it was a thrilling one, like dating my college TA, but it’s more like waxing my upper lip—I didn’t ever want to talk about it, and I’d rather people thought I never had to worry about it in the first place.”
― Marisa Meltzer, This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World -- and Me

“One prominent source was the Instagram account Glossier Brown by blogger Devin McGhee that showcased Glossier fans of color. McGhee told Glamour, “Women of color, black women specifically, spend more money than any other demographic on cosmetics. I believe this is mainly because we”
― Marisa Meltzer, Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier

“Rather, I’m the kind of person who makes watercolors of sunsets in the summer while drinking cocktails on my roof, who reads a book a week and goes to French movies. My friends often cite my life as being an inspiration to them, and I have quite rigorously assembled something that looks really good from the outside. But that performance has always been a stark contrast to how I feel about myself.”
― Marisa Meltzer, This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World -- and Me

“I want my body to look good to me first and to the rest of the world second. I want to be someone whom I’d aspire to be if I were another woman or whom I would desire if I were a man. But I also want to reach some level of acceptance of the body I have, regardless of my weight.”
― Marisa Meltzer, This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World

“This is what feminist writers in books like Reviving Ophelia and Playing Big have talked about all along regarding women downplaying achievements in the classroom and now out in the business world. The problem Weiss found herself wrestling with was wanting to be both relatable and likable, which is a trap not just for female executives, but for all women.”
― Marisa Meltzer, Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier

“Tomorrow will have a diet in it, maybe not a go-for-broke diet or even one that involves tracking calories, but I will always be conscious of what I eat and how much I exercise. That’s why body neutrality doesn’t feel like a good fit: I’m never going to stop wanting to be thinner or to stop chasing it. I know my life will always be this way, and I’m okay with that. That acceptance, even if it’s an uneasy one, is my new normal.”
― Marisa Meltzer, This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World -- and Me

“My friends often cite my life as being an inspiration to them, and I have quite rigorously assembled something that looks really good from the outside. But that performance has always been a stark contrast to how I feel about myself. I had a gut feeling that Jean Nidetch knew all about that soul-killing mismatch.”
― Marisa Meltzer, This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World

“I know there are people who claim to enjoy dating, just like I know there are people who claim to enjoy a cold shower in the morning.”
― Marisa Meltzer, This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World -- and Me

“I can say that all this focus on appearance while I was on Weight Watchers kept me really busy—I filled my life with healthy busywork.”
― Marisa Meltzer, This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World -- and Me

“Glossier is about much more than aesthetic appearance; it has become a way for people to feel connected to bigger beliefs, to feel like their daily choices are having an impact, and that they are putting the money were their mouth is.”
― Marisa Meltzer, Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier

“The key to a product’s success lies not in being something entirely new. What makes a product successful is a combination of performance, price, marketing, and packaging. Is there a perceived sense of prestige? Are cool and influential people wearing the brand? Because, frankly, there’s not a great deal of difference on a chemical or ingredient level between many products, and many supposedly key or active ingredients have little scientific basis for their efficacy.”
― Marisa Meltzer, Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier

“I have been single for some time, and when I say “some time,” I mean so long that I have acquaintances who have gotten married, divorced, remarried, and had two children since I last had a serious boyfriend.”
― Marisa Meltzer, This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World -- and Me

“Weiss is a complicated woman who is admired more than she is liked.”
― Marisa Meltzer, Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier

“In online dating, I wonder if I have a nice enough face to get my foot in the door, but when they see my stomach and my thighs they’ll be disappointed. Including a full-body shot feels like selling an old couch online and having to include all the scrapes and tiny stains.”
― Marisa Meltzer, This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World -- and Me