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The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women

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The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women

Paperback(Anchor Books ed.)

$13.95

Paperback(Anchor Books ed.)
$13.95

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Overview

In this controversial national bestseller, feminist scholar Naomi Wolf argues that there is one hurdle in the struggle for equality that women have yet to clear--the myth of female beauty. She exposes today's unrealistic standards of female beauty as a destructive form of social control and a reaction against women's increasing status in business and politics.

Product Details
About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385423977
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/20/1992
Edition description:	Anchor Books ed.
Pages:	348
Product dimensions:	5.24(w) x 7.97(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Naomi Wolf graduated from Yale in 1984 and won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University. The Beauty Myth was published in 14 countries (over 66,000 copies sold in paperback in Canada to date) and became an instant bestseller. Wolf has appeared on many talk shows and speaks to college audiences across North America.

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Editorial Reviews

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. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's 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 Re search Council Lib., Washington, D.C.

Library Journal

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. -- The New York Times Books of the Century, May 19, 1991

Margo Jefferson