I recently read Honey Money by Catherine Hakim, and it was a totally interesting read. I found some of the points she made about men a bit on the omg-that-is-almost-actually-quite-ludicrous side, but on the whole, several valid points were raised.
Basically the book is a discussion on erotic capital – being made up of sexuality, vivacity, good looks and good presentation – and how Hakim considers this to be of equal value to other forms of capital, economic (money), social (who you know) and human (what you know). It gave a totally whole new spin on the idea of a ‘gold-digger’ and I found myself agreeing with her more than I thought I would. Why shouldn’t someone young and beautiful exchange that youth and beauty for a great lifestyle, and when they do why is this considered immoral?
I totally hear what she’s saying when she argues that the distaste around using sexuality to get what you want has been constructed to make women in particular feel shame about exploiting an asset that they generally have much more of than men.
On the flip side, she totally pissed me off with some of her statements, making some pretty wild assumptions based on forty years of evidence. What I disagreed with Hakim about and a point that Caitlin Moran made so well in her book, How to Be a Woman, was that after a few thousand years of oppression, women are just going to sit around for a few decades, scratching their heads saying ‘Well what the fuck was that all about?’ before we get feminism right.
All in all, I’d recommend it if you’re in any way shouty inclined. This and Moran’s book have helped me consolidate beliefs that I knew I had, but that I couldn’t have articulated.
Get it in ya.
Hello Sam Goodbye Samantha 