Hilal Nakiboglu: Winona and her achilles heel: love of shopping

Winona Ryder is to be pitied.

Not necessarily because she recently spent her birthday on trial. Not even because she has subsequently been slapped with a felony theft conviction for shoplifting.

Winona Ryder ought to be pitied because she is ill.

Seeing security-camera footage of the Oscar nominee stuffing Saks Fifth Avenue merchandise into her purse last month really got me thinking. I didn't quite know what to make of it. Cutting tags off blouses in changing rooms? Despite being a female actor in Tinseltown, surely her paychecks didn't necessitate this sort of behavior.

Hollywood stars get a lot of free stuff. Actresses like Ryder reportedly receive designer clothing free of charge for "promotional purposes." If strapped for cash, then, couldn't Winona have called up some designer with a request for fresh duds? Why shoplift $5,500 worth of "high-fashion goods?"

"She came, she stole, she left. End of story," was Deputy District Attorney Ann Rundle's Caesar-esque closing argument during last week's trial. "Nowhere does it say people steal because they have to. People steal out of greed, envy, spite, because it's there or for the thrill."

Was Ryder making a "spiteful" statement by shoplifting then? Maybe something along the lines of "I hate expensive stores and will demonstrate this by stealing some Manolo Blahniks for myself." The reasoning here eluded me.

Perhaps it was a case of kleptomania.

Webmd.com describes kleptomania as an irrational "impulse control disorder," one that is anchored in some bed of "subconscious needs." Kleptomaniacs apparently aren't aware of their actions while engaged in a theft. Shoplifting for them is not premeditated. They steal only for the rush. Often, victims of this disorder are said to throw away or return the stolen goods.

I wanted to see the doe-eyed Winona as a victim of this bizarre condition. Yet, somehow I just couldn't.

If kleptomaniac episodes are indeed marked by such randomness and lack of control, then why did Winona only steal designer clothing that was in her size? We didn't see footage of Ryder shoplifting small kitchen appliances, water picks or flannel shirts.

I don't think this was a case of stealing for the simple sake of it. Ryder knew what she was doing. She reached straight for the Fendi.

So what else could it be?

I'm guessing it has something to do with a condition I'll call "ineedtobuythisitis." If you are a young woman living in the free world, chances are very high that you have at least a mild form of it. The condition is marked by a deep-rooted belief that the more things (purses, tubes of lipstick, pairs of Mavi jeans) you have, the better off you are.

Women today have more money, power and legal rights in this country than ever before. But arguably, we feel much worse about ourselves than our "unliberated" grandmothers did decades ago. Though we might be tapping against the glass ceiling in our fancy pumps, there runs within us a sad vein of self-hatred, a collective sense of inadequacy and a sick obsession with our physical selves.

Eating disorders continue to plague us. We are the reason why cosmetic surgery is labeled the "fastest growing medical specialty" today. We are doggedly convinced that if we could just lose some weight, get a nose job, buy that under-eye concealer and smell like J.Lo, our lives would be much happier.

The role the media plays in shaping our perceptions is nothing to be sneezed at. Glossy magazines let us know what beautiful is. It is these magazines that teach us to identify certain beauty products as essentials. In part, they infect us with "ineedtobuythisitis." Only if women are made to feel bad about themselves will they feel compelled to buy things as fixatives. Sadly, high-income women spend a whopping quarter of their paychecks on beauty products.

My sense is, then, Winona Ryder stole partly because she feels that same pressure we all do. She wanted to show up at the next premiere and outshine everyone. After all, having her picture figure prominently as Us magazine's "look of the week" would validate and boost her sense of self-worth. Perhaps that day, Ryder just didn't want to pay to look like, pardon the pun, a million bucks.

Not buying into what feminist Naomi Wolf calls the "beauty myth" is difficult. Resisting temptations to fix or improve yourself is nearly impossible and requires a resolute soundness of person few, including myself, have. Perhaps if women in the public eye, like Ryder, use their voices to tell the truth, things will change.

I wish Winona would stop telling reporters that she has "been framed" by Saks security and admit to being a victim of something larger here. Only through such declarations can "ineedtobuythisitis" receive the recognition necessary to be seen as a legitimate condition of epidemic proportions.

Hilal Nakiboglu is a second-year doctoral student in Higher Education Management from Ankara, Turkey.

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