Summary Of The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo

“When I'm sometimes asked 'When will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court]? ' and I say 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that” (Bader Ginsburgh). Justice Ginsburg's words highlight major gender discrimination in America. This same issue can also be seen in the novel, ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid. In the late 1900s, there was widespread prejudice against women and people of color. Being both Cuban and a woman, Evelyn faced bigotry her whole life. Written in 2018, Reid tells a story that emphasizes these fallacies in hopes of preventing more discrimination in the future. Throughout the book, one can see that Evelyn Hugo uses her

She explained to Monique, her biographer, how she discovered it and how it grew with her. At the beginning of Evelyn’s story, she commented on her first relationship. The same guy was also the first person to sexually abuse her. At the time, she didn’t recognize the abuse, but still realized that she could get things from him in exchange. For the next year or so, she got free food in exchange for a little time with him. “He’d convinced himself that his wanting me was my fault. And I believed him. Look what I do to these poor boys, I thought. And yet also, Here is my value, my power” (Reid 43). In this quote, she acknowledges how she was gaslit into thinking that she was the problem. But from that, she also learned that she could take that idea and twist it so that it benefited her. Later in that chapter, Evelyn does something to the same effect. About a year later, she started to waitress at a diner. Sometime after that, a movie producer came to eat there. She saw her opportunity and made sure he watched her as she brought his food and drink. He was mesmerized and wanted to see more of her. So he got her a job in his studio and jump-started her acting career. This is just another example of how she wooed men and persuaded them to give her what she wanted. She set out to get something, and when she saw an opportunity, she pounced, with nothing to lose and everything to

She spent most of her childhood fighting to eat and sleep on a decent bed. So when she had the opportunity to leave, she took it. But in doing so, she lost the chance to get a good education, which impacted her later in life. Years later, she fought with her lover, Celia, because she didn’t want to come out as bisexual. Celia thought it was infuriating that she didn’t want to put their relationship on display and made an offhand comment about how Evelyn was “nice to look at and nothing more,” digging at her intelligence. Later, when Monique interviewed her, she asked if the comment stuck with her. Evelyn responded, “The only currency I had was my sexuality, and I used it like money. I wasn’t well educated when I got to Hollywood, I wasn’t book-smart, I wasn’t powerful, I wasn't a trained actress. What did I have to be good at other than being beautiful?” (Reid 238). Evelyn explained how she didn’t have all the opportunities that most actors and actresses had. She was limited by where she grew up and the amount of education she received. Celia’s comment was uncalled for and rude. However, as shown in the quote, Evelyn felt the same way. She acknowledged her lack of preparation for the life she wanted to live, but ultimately, she used what she had to get where she needed to be. She did what she could with what she had and just kept rolling from