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SUMMARY:Simone de Beauvoir and the Cult of Thinness in 2026
DESCRIPTION:Since The Second Sex\, feminist analyses of Western beauty standards in women have highlighted three currents: 1) self-objectification; 2) the thinness ideal; 3) the role of media in perpetuating stringent aesthetic norms. These analyses often draw on Beauvoir’s ideas about feminine narcissism\, according to which women are socialized into predicating their self-worth on their appearance. These ideas remain all too relevant\, as the flourishing of trends like the recently banned #SkinnyTok\, which encourage a repressive fixation on our bodies\, reveals. However\, the thinness norm within the “tradwife” movement suggests that we must look beyond The Second Sex’s “The Narcissist.” In 2026\, a “good” Christian woman should be slender\, but resorting to popular means to lose weight—like the cosmetic uses of GLP-1s—is frowned upon. Many “trad wives” view these as shortcuts. For them\, dieting to shape one’s physique merges with religious dedication. Indeed\, The Second Sex’s chapter on mysticism offers a better model for capturing the cult of thinness within this movement. Beauvoir’s mystic compensates for her feeling of insufficiency in a male-dominated world by devoting her life to God\, just as the “trad wife” justifies her dieting in the name of a higher power. \nCéline Leboeuf is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Faculty in Women\, Gender\, and Sexuality Studies at Florida International University.
URL:https://humanities.princeton.edu/event/simone-de-beauvoir-and-the-cult-of-thinness-in-2026/
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