Ema Nevřelová
November
Have you ever desired to free yourself from patriarchal and capitalist ideas about how you should live? Florence Given has an answer for you: joy. Indeed, Women Living Deliciously, the third book by British author and illustrator Florence Given, provides a 300-page step-by-step guide for achieving a ‘delicious life.’ It may appear as an oversimplified cliche, yet before cringing at the phrase and dismissing the book completely, it provides and incentive to contemplate its meaning.
Living deliciously is different to every person, yet, as Given explains, it starts with women refusing to belittle themselves to meet expectations of taking up almost no space. The main themes of the book are body image, self-esteem and finding joy. Another prominent topic in Women Living Deliciously is feminism. Given intertwines feminist ideas with criticism of the essentialization and misrepresentation of feminists as being angry, hyper-independent and resentful of men. Those familiar with Roxane Gay’s essay “Bad Feminist” will find Given’s criticism similar. The main appeal of the book is its cover, an allusion to pink, slightly crazy paradise with abundance of flowers, sakuras and mountains. During the process of writing, Given had visited Japan, Tokyo, and so the sakuras and mountains (inspired by Mount Fuji) are not accidental. Perhaps even more eye-catching are the illustrations of half-naked women enjoying life which challenges a certain discomfort around naked female bodies. It is truly refreshing to get realistic and non-sexualized or fetishized drawings of ‘women living deliciously.’ They are sat on chaises-longues surrounded by pink furniture in the comfort of their homes, often having pink hair tied with ribbons resembling the author. It is apparent how much of herself Given has put into the book, as her magnetic pink personality fitting all and no labels radiates from the pages.
Why pink personality? About a year ago, I managed to get out of the Instagram loophole of vegan recipes and I stumbled across a reel of a pink-haired woman carrying flowers and wandering through the streets of Prague. She was describing the little joys of life, throwing in occasional “f**ks,” yet her words flew so beautifully and had a liberating power. Floss, as she refers to herself on her Instagram, is the unapologetically authentic woman that many of us strive to be. Everything, from her hair and dresses to the smallest home decoration, is covered in pink, floral or leopard prints. She encourages playfulness and confronts the patriarchal view that women have to take themselves seriously to be able to assert themselves in society. Her creative spirit radiates through the screens and a testament to that is that at the age of 25, she is the author of 3 books (Women Don’t Owe You Pretty, Girl Crush and Women Living Deliciously) and has hosted a successful podcast called Exactly. She is also known for launching a petition to cancel the Netflix series Insatiable because of fat shaming. The latter gained over 100,000 signatures, along with testimonies of celebrities and parents of children who struggled with eating disorders.
Body image and the beauty standards imposed by patriarchy are not just the main themes of “Women Living Deliciously,” but were also previously discussed in her first book “Women Don’t Owe You Pretty.” In the subsection “Beauty Hurts” of the first chapter “Excavating: What’s stealing your joy?” Given says: “It is so hard for us to exist FULLY inside our own bodies when we are taught to constantly observe them.” I cannot but make reference here to Simone de Beauvoir’s Woman as Other, where she famously stated: “She [woman] is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other.” What could be a beautiful homage to de Beauvoir is then turned into a book full of compilations of feminist ideas. The issue is that while Given does put a lot of herself, sprinkling the book with personal recommendations, examples and anecdotes, she cannot cover the unpleasant tension of feminism and sometimes unrelated ideas from other self-help books. In this case, the self-help book commercialization of feminist liberation just does not seem to work. Rather, it creates a dichotomy between a feminist essay on female liberation and a $15 paperback claiming to change your life in one day, from an airport shop.
Even though the book is made to empower women, Given does not shy away from addressing topics like female animosity. She argues that because we no longer can insult each other about our bodies we are now labeled as ‘problematic.’ In another section, she criticizes the lack of sisterhood within feminism and talks about women holding each other back by criticizing and gossiping about one another. This is particularly powerful because it emphasizes that not every woman is a feminist, and even within feminism, the “sisterhood” has its flaws. What is perhaps omitted is the fact that it was historically the white feminists who often chose not to make space for black feminists or women of color in general.
Given also talks about her personal experience of feeling judged by ‘the movement’ although it is not clear what exactly she means by “the movement.” In the podcast Happy Place, Given expanded on this by saying: “I wanted to talk even about the way feminism has evolved into something I don’t like anymore; I don’t like that it has become this moral Purity Olympics, where everyone just cares about being the most woke and saying the most woke thing […].” She balances between denouncing the so-called ‘political correctness’ and addressing the issue of policing women for their opinions.
While everyone is entitled to their opinion there is definitely a pressure on celebrities and public figures to take a stance on certain topics. It seems rather unpopular as it can lead to backlash, loss of brand deals or followers. As was already mentioned above, Given is vocal about body image and feminism but she has for example chosen not to speak out about the mass murdering of Palestinians or any other war, genocide, etc. At times it seems Given does not want to address anything “politically charged”---arguably also a somewhat political stance. Moreover, throughout the pages, she is defending herself for not “being the perfect feminist” yet “the movement” does not require perfection from feminists. On the contrary, it is often those who do not have a clear image of feminism that tend to criticize women for not behaving per feminism or, more so, the image they have been fed of it (by the media, patriarchy, etc.). There are, of course, radical feminists within the movement nevertheless there is a place for ‘moderate feminists’ and arguably, it is more the radical feminist that can often feel alienated. This has been, for example, described by Bell Hooks in her works as she addresses the lack of space for black feminists within the white and often upper-class-issues-dominated movement. On top of that, it should not be forgotten that white privileged women can afford to step back from radical feminism or activism. This is not the case for other marginalized groups, especially those with intersectional identities because they are often fighting for their fundamental rights. In that sense, a person’s solidarity towards any cause is almost, if not fully, a commodity that can be incredibly powerful. From some of the remarks made by Given, it seems she seeks the solidarity from other women without having the desire to grant it herself. This latent hypocrisy is giving the book a bittersweet taste covered in pink aesthetic.
To move on to the book's second half, which emphasizes self-help, I want to talk about ‘joy’. I understand that self-help books tend to be dismissed and subject to mockery, yet I believe that “Women Living Deliciously” could really have a radical impact on women's lives. I believe women can benefit from the combination of feminist ideas with joy and femininity, especially in regards to dismantling the patriarchal ideas about what it means to be a woman. Given urges women to go beyond, to dig deeply into themselves and redefine their view of womanhood by using the concept of joy. “The joy is a state of being. It is the delicious feeling of connection, curiosity and wonder present in all human beings which lies behind that running commentary of the mind. […] This joy almost refuses to be defined,” the author says. I believe most of us have, at some point in our lives, experienced this state of mind; but what is revolutionary about the joy in Given’s interpretation is one–agency and two–action. I found it surprising how much the thought of me, a woman, having agency over the joy in my life never crossed my mind.
The author struggled with depression and burnout, so reading about her experience and the steps that led to her recovery provides an additional insight. Her vulnerability and the strength of her expression are particularly captivating to witness in her Instagram account. Given did not just write a book about joy; she is the living and breathing embodiment of joy. Moreover, she does her best to romanticize life, as romance in her interpretation lies in “intention and creativity.” To illustrate that, she describes her mornings because the first step to creating joy is finding the things that bring it to us. She is extra careful to point out that contrary to capitalist ideas of joy as coming from material things, it is usually found in the things that are priceless. Given does not have a perfect morning routine that she would post on TikTok or Instagram; rather she wakes up early to soak up in the delicious moments of solitude and people-watching from her window, pouring a cup of tea in her pink tea set. In her Instagram, she usually has a coffee and a bouquet of flowers. In the book, she reveals that for a long time, she only ever received flowers as a form of apology during her abusive relationship. To change this, she started buying flowers herself. In the words of Miley Cyrus “I can buy myself flowers”—a phrase symbolizing that women can reclaim agency over their lives.
In her social media, Given often addresses manifestation and affirmations; her book is no different. Before reading it, I understood manifesting as a TikTok trend that made everyone envision their desires obsessively and repeatedly. What I did not know is that manifesting is supposed to be accompanied by action—it is taking the little steps towards the life we want or the woman we want to be that make us ‘manifest it.’ My cynical self was at first doubtful of this whole process, but Given provides affirmations for cynics, essentially convincing anyone that it is a powerful tool.
While the book is a little fragile on the part of feminism and reveals Given’s somewhat complicated relationship with it, it is nonetheless an important book on the way to female liberation that provides, at times obvious but crucial, ideas helping women realize the constraints stemming from either systems of oppression or limits created by themselves. A testament to that can be that while I was writing this article, I sat by an open window and listened to a street artist play Perfect by Ed Sheeran. It was the first time in a long time that I embraced the gratitude, smiled broadly and sang out loud—I stopped policing myself and just fully enjoyed the “delicious f*cking moment,” as Given would say.