Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion

Tolentino begins with a discussion of how society's current ideal woman has turned leisure activities into a form of work. Currently, this ideal is "always optimizing" (63), trying to improve herself through technology, money, and time. Her body is shaped by exercise and highly controlled. Tolentino looks at historical images of the ideal woman, writing that this ideal has always been "engineered to look natural" (64) and just barely allows for individuality. Today, she writes, there is the illusion of independent thought in the current ideal. However, Tolentino notes, when women rebel against something (for example, the overuse of Photoshop on female images), the aesthetic changes, but the ideal still exists. This works hand-in-hand with popular feminism.

Tolentino further situates women's self-improvement, "a ridiculous and often amoral project" (65), within capitalism. The ideal always being out of reach encourages this optimization. As an example, Tolentino writes about the salad chain Sweetgreen that provides efficient nutrition quickly. Tolentino describes her own relationship to vegetables and exercise, which she writes only became a large part of her life after she returned from the Peace Corps at age 21. On her return, she noted that being around the women in American yoga studios brought up mixed emotions for her. Later, she tried a Pure Barre Class with an instructor "who looked like Jessica Rabbit" (71). The exercises were hard and sexualized, as well as "manic and ritualized" (72). Tolentino recounts looking at herself in the mirror through the darkened classroom, only to realize later that she was looking at a classmate.

Tolentino then traces the rise of barre classes. Lotte Berk invented barre classes based on her dance training in London. Her student, Lydia Bach, brought barre classes to New York later, where they were kept small and high-priced. In early 2000s, backlash against the classes started to come from their instructors just as they started to seem dated. Around this time, Core Fusion became popular, and other instructors began to found their own studios around 2010, leading barre classes to become a popular trend. Now, these courses are available nationwide; Pure Barre is the biggest, with 500 locations.

Tolentino notes that her own realization with Pure Barre was that it allowed her to control her body inside and out. Though it was too expensive for her budget, she kept going with these classes because they felt like an investment. She notes that this did help her physical endurance, but also her also psychological endurance. This aspect she links to capitalism: these types of courses encourage participants to endure agony, such as the pain of constant work. At the same time, participation feels worthwhile because it focuses on appearance. 

The rise in this beauty mandate has increased as women have become more independent economically and self-optimization has taken the place of housework. Tolentino asks why people fall for it, citing Naomi Wolf, who claims that there are three necessary conditions for acceptance: the idea that beauty is "legitimate and necessary" (78) for women's power; the ability to ignore elements of luck and discrimination, seeing beauty instead as earned; and the belief that requirements increase as an individual woman gains power, meaning that success requires even more beauty. Tolentino writes that popular feminism aligns with these claims. She further notes that society's focus on individual success makes criticism of any aspect of a woman seem un-feminist if it makes her more successful. Because of this, Tolentino positions mainstream feminism as still reliant on capitalism and patriarchal structures.

Tolentino then traces the history of the term "optimization" to 1844, when it had a different meaning related to optimism. Shortly thereafter, it became an economic concept related to the utility of different options and how to maximize them. Today, the term means to make something as perfect as possible. Tolentino gives the example of athleisure, describing its history and the ways in which it has produced different looks and brands, and has recently been adapted by designers. Tolentino notes that even to fit into clothes by brands like Lululemon, women need to already have optimized their bodies. She references the phenomenon of "enclothed cognition” (84), in which clothes with cultural associations change the way we think, before recounting her own unpleasant experience with using Spanx beneath a bridesmaid's dress.

Tolentino characterizes barre class as a "bizarrely and clinically eroticized experience" (86). She notes that some studios capitalize on this in ads. However, in most places, barre is sold as being about control and discipline. Tolentino comments that barre also eroticizes the work and money around it. Especially in terms of its expense, barre relates to the wedding and athleisure industries, both of which position the female body as an asset. Tolentino recalls an experience buying Lululemon clothing in 2016 by necessity and how different it made her feel in her barre class.

Tolentino then recounts various depictions of fractured selfhood as shown in media: the TV show Black Mirror, the movie Ingrid Goes West, and the books My Not So Perfect Life and Sympathy. In these depictions, Tolentino notes the binary nature of women's positions: they either succeed or fail. Though this framework may seem escapable, women are actually caught at the meeting point of "capitalism and patriarchy" (91).

Tolentino presents the argument Donna Harway makes in her 1985 essay "A Cyborg Manifesto," that women's lives are irretrievably ruined, and they need to find freedom within that space. To do so, Harway presents the vision of the cyborg, which is partly mechanical and can become radicalized. Tolentino identifies this trope in popular novels, TV shows, and movies. However, Tolentino differentiates the cyborg's narrative from real life, where she writes that rebellions are smaller because of women's obedience. Some women do balk at Instagram, but by leaving the platform, resistance is still on the platform's terms (leave/stay). Meanwhile, technology has increased demands on the body through developments like plastic surgery and birth control. At the same time, society has failed to respond to issues affecting women's lives, such as equal pay and universal childcare.

Tolentino sees a possible solution in following the model of the cyborg and undermining the systems controlling women's lives. However, she wonders if anyone who's succeeded in becoming a version of the ideal woman would actually do this.