The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women
Naomi Wolf, 1991
HarperCollins
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060512187
Summary
In today's world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women's movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife.
It's the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society's impossible definition of "the flawless beauty." (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 12, 1962
• Where—San Francisco, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University; Oxford University, England
(Rhode Scholar)
• Currently—lives in New York, NY
At a relatively young age, Naomi Wolf became literary star of what was later described as the "third-wave" of the feminist movement and she is also known for her advocacy of progressive politics.
She became famous because of her first book The Beauty Myth (1991), which became an international bestseller. In the book, she attacked what she characterized as the exploitation of women by the fashion and beauty industries. Wolf argued that women deserve "the choice to do whatever we want with our faces and bodies without being punished by an ideology that is using attitudes, economic pressure, and even legal judgments regarding women's appearance to undermine us psychologically and politically." The book examines five areas in which Wolf believed women were under assault by the beauty myth: work, religion, sex, violence, and hunger.
Wolf's book became an overnight bestseller, garnering not only praise from feminists but from the public and mainstream media. Second-wave feminist Germaine Greer wrote that The Beauty Myth was "the most important feminist publication since The Female Eunuch." British novelist Fay Weldon called the book "a vivid and impassioned polemic, essential reading for the New Woman."
Wolf was involved in Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election bid where she brainstormed with the Clinton-Gore team about ways to reach "soccer moms" and other female voters. During Al Gore's unsuccessful bid for the 2000 US presidency, Wolf was hired as a consultant to target female voters, reprising her role in the Clinton campaign. Wolf's ideas and participation in the Gore campaign generated considerable media coverage and criticism. According to a report by Michael Duffy in Time magazine, "Wolf [was] paid a salary of $15,000 a month…in exchange for advice on everything from how to win the women’s vote to shirt-and-tie combinations." This article was the original source of the widely reported claim that Wolf was responsible for Gore's "three-buttoned, earth-toned look." The Duffy article did not mention "earth tones."
The Time article and others also claimed that Wolf had developed the idea that Gore is "a beta male who needs to take on the alpha male in the Oval Office". In an interview with Melinda Henneberger in the New York Times, Wolf denied ever advising Gore on his wardrobe. Wolf herself claimed she mentioned the term "alpha male" only once in passing and that "it was just a truism, something the pundits had been saying for months, that the vice president is in a supportive role and the President is in an initiatory role...I used those terms as shorthand in talking about the difference in their job descriptions."
Departing from the anti-pornography emphasis of such second-wave feminist writers as Andrea Dworkin, Wolf suggested in 2003 that the ubiquity of Internet pornography tends to make males less libidinous toward typical real females. She later followed up on this theme with the assertion that Saturday-night parties with significant alcohol consumption tended toward an increase in one-night stands, which she refers to as "hooking up." (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Beauty is such a strange thing—it's a fantasy, a pastime and a profession...we bring a daunting range of emotions and associations to it...The Beauty Myth shows us yet again how much we need new ways of seeing.
Margo Jefferson - New York Times (Books of the Century, 5/19/91)
This valuable study, full of infuriating statistics and examples, documents societal pressure on women to conform to a standard form of beauty. Freelance journalist Wolf cites predominant images that negatively influence women—the wrinkle-free, unnaturally skinny fashion model in advertisements and the curvaceous female in pornography—and questions why women risk their health and endure pain through extreme dieting or plastic surgery to mirror these ideals. She points out that the quest for beauty is not unlike religious or cult behavior: every nuance in appearance is scrutinized by the godlike, watchful eyes of peers, temptation takes the form of food and salvation can be found in diet and beauty aids. Women are "trained to see themselves as cheap imitations of fashion photographs" and must learn to recognize and combat these internalized images. Wolf's thoroughly researched and convincing theories encourage rejection of unrealistic goals in favor of a positive self-image.
Publishers Weekly
Journalist and poet Wolf presents a provocative and persuasive account of the pervasiveness of the beauty ideal in all facets of Western culture, including work, sex, and religion. In showing how this myth works against women and how women sabotage themselves by their complicity with this impossible standard, she discusses at length two unfortunate consequences: the growth in the number of bulimic and anorexic women and the increasing popularity of cosmetic surgery. The facts are certainly stacked to prove her thesis but, for the most part, provide convincing evidence. In her final chapter, Wolf instructs women on how to crack the beauty myth. Recommended, especially for women's studies collections. —Anne Twitchell, National Research Council Lib., Washington, D.C.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
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