The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women - Softcover

Wolf, Naomi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060512180 ISBN 13: 9780060512187

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2002

Synopsis

The bestselling classic that redefined our view of the relationship between beauty and female identity.

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."

About this title

Review:

In a country where the average woman is 5-foot-4 and weighs 140 pounds, movies, advertisements, and MTV saturate our lives with unrealistic images of beauty. The tall, nearly emaciated mannequins that push the latest miracle cosmetic make even the most confident woman question her appearance. Feminist Naomi Wolf argues that women's insecurities are heightened by these images, then exploited by the diet, cosmetic, and plastic surgery industries. Every day new products are introduced to "correct" inherently female "flaws," drawing women into an obsessive and hopeless cycle built around the attempt to reach an impossible standard of beauty. Wolf rejects the standard and embraces the naturally distinct beauty of all women.

From the Publisher:

Explores the phenomenon of the violent backlash against feminism that uses images of female beauty as a political weapon against women's advancement.

"The Beauty Myth is a smart, angry, insightful book, and a clarion call to freedom. Every woman should read it." -- Gloria Steinem.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0060512180
• ISBN 13: 9780060512187
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368