Slaying the Mermaid: Women and the Culture of Sacrifice - Softcover

Golden, Stephanie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0609804359 ISBN 13: 9780609804353

Publisher: Three Rivers Press, 1999

Synopsis

Slaying the Mermaid addresses the great numbers of women of all ages who find themselves constantly disregarding their own well-being to put the needs of others first.

Drawing on the experiences of a diverse array of women, Stephanie Golden examines the dichotomy between selfhood and sacrifice, enabling women to become conscious of self-defeating behavior. Using the image of Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid, the ultimate ideal of the self-sacrificing woman, Golden offers a new paradigm: in order to run with the wolves, you must first slay the mermaid.

Slaying the Mermaid uncovers the mythic and archetypal roots of the need felt by women to sacrifice their personal potential for the good of others. This book will help women reclaim their energy, creativity, and identity, while rediscovering the original, empowering meaning of sacrifice as an expansive and self-fulfilling act.

About this title

Review:

Ah, the nobility--or is it futility?--of sacrifice. Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid willingly traded her voice and sensual, seagoing tail for feet that bled pitifully as she trailed her oblivious, beloved Prince. French philosopher Simone Weil was literally consumed by her fervid wish to be one with all suffering souls. And ordinary women sacrifice piece after piece of their bodies, dreams, and lives every day in search of acceptance or in service of others.

The fluid, engaging prose and high-mindedness of Slaying the Mermaid is a welcome approach to subject matter that could have been the centerpiece of a talk-show trauma fest ("Women Who Give Too Much and Keep Too Little for Themselves"). Stephanie Golden sheds light on the roots of sacrifice and the pleasures reaped from denial while shuttling between myths and religious mysticism, popular culture, and psychology. The women she interviews speak more often of selfless, often depressingly pointless, sacrificial acts than of feminist--or, rather, human--desires for self-realization. The ideal, Golden suggests, is to live mindfully, as in the teachings of Buddhism, walking away from sacrifices that leave one utterly empty and choosing those that connect us to a larger world through a replenishing cycle of nurturance. --Francesca Coltrera

From the Back Cover:

"Given women's history for the past 5,000 years, it's not surprising that just about every woman I've ever met, myself included, has to deal with and work through how to balance serving others versus finding self-fulfillment. This book has a great deal to offer women and I highly recommend it."                
--Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom

"Slaying the Mermaid is in effect an active, thinking women's guide to mental health and right living."        
--Women's Review of Books

About this edition

• Publisher: Three Rivers Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0609804359
• ISBN 13: 9780609804353
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 324