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riti aggarwal
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“Today, looking back on the moment I made the decision, I am aware that had I been twenty years younger, I probably wouldn’t have dared request that the case be heard in open court. I would have been too afraid of the looks: those damn looks that women of my generation have always had
to contend with; those damn looks that make you waver in the morning between a dress and trousers, that follow you or ignore you, flatter you or embarrass you; those damn looks that seem to tell you who you are or what you’re worth, only to forsake you as you age. It was exactly that nerve
Dominique pressed when he told me I should be glad my husband still desired me whenever he photographed me coming out of the bathroom. I
was, no doubt, still susceptible to it. It’s foolish, but that’s how we were freer, more autonomous women, yet still afraid of being abandoned, still
longing to be saved. Maybe the shame lifts once you hit seventy and no one looks at you any more. I don’t know. I wasn’t afraid of my wrinkles or my body.”
― A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides
to contend with; those damn looks that make you waver in the morning between a dress and trousers, that follow you or ignore you, flatter you or embarrass you; those damn looks that seem to tell you who you are or what you’re worth, only to forsake you as you age. It was exactly that nerve
Dominique pressed when he told me I should be glad my husband still desired me whenever he photographed me coming out of the bathroom. I
was, no doubt, still susceptible to it. It’s foolish, but that’s how we were freer, more autonomous women, yet still afraid of being abandoned, still
longing to be saved. Maybe the shame lifts once you hit seventy and no one looks at you any more. I don’t know. I wasn’t afraid of my wrinkles or my body.”
― A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides
“... symbolic capitalists are professionals who traffic in symbols and rhetoric, images and narratives, data and analysis, ideas and abstraction (as opposed to workers engaged in manual forms of labor tied to physical goods and services). For instance, people who work in fields like education, science, tech, finance, media law, consulting, administration, and public policy are overwhelmingly symbolic capitalists.”
― We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite
― We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite
“I loved triggering that momentary reversal of power between us as I drew the limits on how far I would actually go to serve them. More than that, though, I just loved saying no when I could”
― Aggregated Discontent: Confessions of the Last Normal Woman
― Aggregated Discontent: Confessions of the Last Normal Woman
“That mythical being, the most beautiful woman in the world, now has light skin chemically darkened with dihydroxyacetone, the chemical used in artificial tanner. (It is important that she begins as light before the darkening – she cannot simply be dark.) She has had her nose broken and reconstructed to be straight and small, and her lips injected with synthetic hyaluronic acid, whilst fat has been beaten out of her body and redistributed to her hips, bum and breasts to create a more exaggerated curve, not dissimilar to that of Sarah Baartman. Everywhere else she is athletic and lean – her stomach is flat and tight. She cannot simply be curvaceous or lean, she must be both and neither. She must be constructed. All of the hair on her body has been removed with a laser whilst her teeth have been filed down into fangs and replaced with porcelain, electric white. She wears the hair of an Asian woman sewn close to her scalp, and her eyes have been stapled up at the outer corner.
Where is she from, people ask. Where does the most beautiful woman in the world call home?
She laughs coyly, flashing her dazzling smile, but says nothing. She says nothing when women are murdered by their governments for showing their long, luscious hair. Or when dark-skinned women, the ones with no use for the chemical dye, are killed in their homes by those meant to protect them. She does not discuss the teeth knocked out of women’s skulls by their partners or the little girls sexualised for the same features she parades, created from artifice. She is quiet when girls are bullied for their body hair, for their belly rolls and their burdensome bodies. She does not comment on the women of colour calling out for somewhere to belong, a space that’s truly theirs. She claims nowhere whilst taking everywhere, and she says nothing. She has no politics, no culture, no real stance on anything. She consumes but she does not contend (unless it can be made into content). Why should she? She’s the most beautiful woman in the world.”
― Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women
Where is she from, people ask. Where does the most beautiful woman in the world call home?
She laughs coyly, flashing her dazzling smile, but says nothing. She says nothing when women are murdered by their governments for showing their long, luscious hair. Or when dark-skinned women, the ones with no use for the chemical dye, are killed in their homes by those meant to protect them. She does not discuss the teeth knocked out of women’s skulls by their partners or the little girls sexualised for the same features she parades, created from artifice. She is quiet when girls are bullied for their body hair, for their belly rolls and their burdensome bodies. She does not comment on the women of colour calling out for somewhere to belong, a space that’s truly theirs. She claims nowhere whilst taking everywhere, and she says nothing. She has no politics, no culture, no real stance on anything. She consumes but she does not contend (unless it can be made into content). Why should she? She’s the most beautiful woman in the world.”
― Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women
“What is objectification? From Simone de Beauvoir to Martha Nussbaum to Catharine MacKinnon, feminist philosophers have long been interested in analysing the concept. Broadly speaking, to objectify a woman is to treat or represent her as a partly or wholly dehumanised, de-mentalised object. There are various ways to do that. Fashion and advertising offer several possibilities for doing so visually. You can represent her as a dazed, passive thing to be fucked, with a vacant expression and glazed eyes, as in many high-end fashion advertising campaigns. Extending this, you can represent her as sexually dominated, with her personal autonomy diminished or removed: bound or gagged, for instance. You can dress her up in animal skins or leopard print and represent her as a kind of wild, highly sexualised animal, something the fashion industry has been particularly fond of doing to black women over the years. You can dress and pose her as a stereotype: the Capable Housewife (in domestic setting, comfortable clothes, tolerant rueful smile), the Brainy Scientist (white coat, stern expression, glasses on end of nose), the Little Girl (kneesocks, pigtails, blowing bubblegum), the Sexy Vamp (cleavage, tongue on front teeth, wink). You can place her in a row with other similarly shaped, similarly adorned women, visually emphasising what they all have in common in looks and dress, so that individuality is rhetorically diminished, and one woman looks replaceable with any other. You can make her just a pair of legs, or breasts, or an arse, focusing the camera on body parts and even omitting the head and face. In all such cases, the thinking mind, personality, autonomy or particular individuality of the woman in the image is downplayed, diminished and ignored, to a greater or lesser extent. She’s ‘objectified’ in the sense she’s made more like an object and less like a fully individuated human being: less rational, less individual, less present, less important for who she actually is. In extreme cases, she can even be used as if or pictured as an inanimate object: a ‘table’ for men’s feet, or as a ‘plate’ for food– as in the Japanese practice of Nyotaimori, using a woman’s naked body as a receptacle for sushi in restaurants.”
― Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism
― Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism
riti aggarwal’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at riti aggarwal’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1,274 books
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392 friends
776 books
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4,998 friends
2,925 books
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42 friends
425 books
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52 friends
1,491 books
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548 friends
492 books
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5 friends
9,938 books
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1,280 friends
448 books
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18 friends
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