"Beauty is a Depreciating Currency."

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. Today, my conversation is with Kaila Yu.

Kaila is an author based in Los Angeles. Her debut memoir, Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty, came out earlier this fall to a rave review in The New York Times. She's also a luxury travel and culture writer with bylines in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The LA Times, Condé Nast Traveler and many more. 

Kaila's memoir grapples with her experience growing up Asian and female in a world that has so many stereotypes and expectations about both those things. We talk about the pressure to perform so many different kinds of specific beauty labor, the experience of being objectified sexually —and we really get into how we all navigate the dual reality of hating beauty standards and often feeling safer and happier complying with them. 

I learned so much from this book, and this conversation with Kaila.

Don't forget that if you've bought Fat Talk from Split Rock Books, you can take 10% off your purchase of Fetishized there too — just use the code FATTALK at checkout. 

And if you value this conversation, a paid subscription is the best way to support our work!Join Burnt Toast!

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Episode 218 Transcript

Virginia

Well, I just couldn't put this book down. Your writing is so powerful. The storytelling is incredible. The research is impeccable. It's just a phenomenal book. 

You write that from a pretty young age, "I felt the straightest path to empowerment was through courting the white male gaze," which, oof. I felt that. So many women reading can feel that in our bones.

And iIn the great New York Times Book Review of your book, the writer asks, "How much can someone be blamed for their choices when those choices are predetermined by one's culture?"

I feel like this is what we're always reckoning with at Burnt Toast, and this is what runs through the book: So often, beauty work is a logical survival strategy for us.

Kaila

We're taught at such a young age that women are just prized for this thing we have absolutely no control over, really. We can get surgery and makeup but beauty is a currency that's depreciating from the moment you receive it, according to the patriarchy. Like, it shouldn't be considered depreciating, but it is.

And we learn this from like, Disney movies, right? In the book, I bring up my favorite, which is The Little Mermaid, which, because they recently came out with it again, has had a re-examination. And I think they edited it for current audiences. But The Little Mermaid wasn't unique. That was what every fairy tale was like. The beautiful princess wins a prince at the end, and that's the goal. 

Virginia

And it doesn't matter that she gave up her family, her home, her culture, her body, everything. 

Kaila

Yeah, she fell in love with him after seeing him one time. And him the same with her, without speaking a word to her, because it doesn't matter.

Virginia

It's purely