ABSTRACT

As a colloquial referent, “the glow” is almost exclusively tied to cis-women’s experiences of what are considered to be the three major rites of passage in the heteronormative frame: when she falls in love, when she marries, when she is pregnant (typically with her first child). In this, the glow is temporally bound; it marks the moment out of time, the non-quotidian, when something special and supposedly singular occurs. We often hear of blushing brides and luminous expectant mothers; we rarely hear of women who glow due to the personal accomplishments of a degree earned or a raise secured. In the broader aura that is hegemonic femininity, the glow is not only temporally bound; it is for the young. The dew of youth. Yet, across media, women of all ages and orientations are hailed to “develop your glow,” to “awaken the glow” and to let the glow be the solution for the problem you didn’t know you had. The glow, and other light-filled words indicating luminosity such as “sparkle,” “brilliance,” “brightness,” and “shine,” constitute a normative birthright. This chapter examines several key transatlantic mediated sites that interpellate female audiences in relation to weddings – ads, magazine copy, beauty blogs, and reality television – to begin to account for the complexity of these mandates that women make glowing objects of themselves.