The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women [Paperback]

Think women are finally equal? Think feminism is passe? Think again. In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf puts forward startling and controversial arguments to suggest that women are still, even now, obstructed and held back by society in a systematic and organised way. The key idea in this book is that as women fought for freedom and equality, and broke down so many barriers in the mid twentieth century, society responded by creating the Beauty Myth: an increasing obsession with beauty and appearance which consistenly hampers women from fulfilling their potential. The Beauty Myth, suggests Wolf, is the one single lasting inequality that holds back women today. This obsession with beauty arose massively in the last half of the century as a direct reaction and back-lash to the emancipation that women were finally achieving in other areas of their lives. In a enlightening and sometimes shocking read, Wolf answers questions like: why do women wear make-up? Why are so many women obsessed with their weight and constantly dieting? Why are there no greying, older women in respectable positions in the media? Why are women so afraid of ageing? Why, above all, are these preoccupations seen to be normal and correct, even obligatory to have the 'proper' experience of womanhood? The Beauty Myth diverts women's time, money, energy and intelligence into something that does not challenge the status quo. $20 billion a year is wasted on trying to achieve the impossible goal of 'beauty'. Women living in western society have an extra burden imposed on them that men do not have: they must be beautiful to succeed in work, love, sex, and life. The myth affects all aspects of a woman's life. It affects the way women are treated in work, it affects the way female sexuality is viewed, it affects young girls psychologically, it infuses our culture totally. Striving after the myth, a woman shows all the signs of being taken in by a cult religion. Under the myth, femaleness is inherantly wrong and flawed and must be continually corrected. The female body is seen as an ugly mistake. Alone, it is just not good enough and needs artificial methods to make it acceptable. The amazing thing is that this fact has not been realised by women in modern society who in every other way consider themselves free individuals. Reading this book may at last open our eyes. 'Men' in general are not to blame here, the myth debilitates them too. It surely must be true that if women, more than half of the population, are not free, then men are not really free also. They are shut out from having relationships with women as they really are. Wolf also points out that the myth may be starting to attach itself to men. It is in their interests to demolish it. This book was published in 1990, and perhaps some things have changed a decade on (however I doubt it - the ludicrous furore about Julian Roberts' armpits(?!), herion chic, the recent ad for eyeshadow "shout without opening your mouth"). I also think that Wolf does not always succeed in convincing the reader of her more controversial ideas; I could not always relate to some of the more extreme claims. However, I guarantee that if you are a woman there are parts in this book that are so blindingly true you will be almost shouting out agreement as you read. The book opens our eyes, it is a wake up call, reading it takes us out of our own culture to see its craziness from the outside. After reading this book I promise you will see western culture differently and hopefully you will be inspired to change things, even in your own life. I recommend this book to everyone, male or female. If you are a man, reading this book may shock you and make you see women differently. If you are a woman, this book will probably change your life.

So, Wolf's basic argument is that much of the direct sexism of the past has been replaced with sexism based on the nebulous idea of "beauty" - while women have theoretically gained virtual legal equality with men, the structure of patriarchy has increasingly deployed myths about "beauty" as a means of preventing women from realising this equality in any real sense. What is promoted as a universal ideal of beauty is in fact linked to particular kinds of behaviour - kinds of behaviour, of course, useful to the perpetuation of male dominance - and so freedom and success for women are constructed to be at odds with the ability to meet this ideal. As long as we accept the idea that our worth is defined by our attractiveness, and that this attractiveness is defined according to the imperatives of patriarchy, we can never achieve freedom.

All of which is a perfectly fine argument - a little self-evident in ways, but Wolf fleshes it all out reasonably competently, with a decent sprinkling of the kind of shocking examples and statistics that aren't particularly difficult to find in a world which remains deeply sexist (which fact I'd have thought is pretty obvious, but which can easily be proven by a zillion studies for anyone who remains doubtful of it).

However, beyond this, Wolf's privilege shows painfully. It is impossible to create a meaningful discourse around the way in which the idea of "beauty" has been constructed without having at its core the ways in which sex and gender intersect with race, class, sexuality, disability etc. The false universal ideal of beauty isn't only one which constructs women as passive, subservient etc. - it is also one which is very strictly white, middle-class, heteronormative, non-disabled and cisgender. Wolf pays the barest amount of attention to any of this; indeed, she often specifically talks only of middle-class women, and her first significant mention of race amounts to little more than "sure, Black people have it bad, but women have it *worse*". Playing different kinds of oppression against each other, and ignoring that for example "Black" and "female" are not mutually exclusive, and that Black women are in fact uniquely affected and excluded by the beauty myth? Not cool, Naomi.

Moreover, Wolf lacks any analysis of the role of capitalism in patriarchy and the beauty myth, even though many of the examples she gives make it painfully clear. She makes clear at numerous points that her ideal world leaves capitalism and the class structure fundamentally untouched and relies on the idea of absolute meritocracy - so while someone doesn't deserve less in life because of her appearance, it's totally okay to penalise someone for less natural aptitude (or quasi-natural aptitude; Wolf gives no indication of awareness that the class structure for men is anything other than entirely meritocratic, with inherited privilege, educational advantages etc. playing no significant role) at creating wealth.

The identification of the beauty myth is, then, a necessary part of feminist analysis. However, in her virtual erasure of those who aren't white, middle-class etc., and her refusal to acknowledge anything exploitative about the existing capitalist system, Wolf's work is in many ways a fundamentally conservative one.

I loved this book. I completely recognise the world that Naomi examines as being where I live even though she is American and I am English. I already knew a lot of what she wrote (esp. about the diet cycle) but had felt that my feelings must be to do with excusing my failure to fit the mould - you know size 10 (US6), hoards of male admirers, job to die for, facial features just so, boob size just so, bottom size just so, the list is endless, etc. I am now confident that I am not a failure - far from it, I am succeeding at not being manipulated and bullied by the institutions and organisations that are ultimately only interested in making money out of people (mostly, but not only, women) by playing on artificially created insecurities.

This book should be a must read for all women and they should re-read it over the years. As you age it is more difficult to fit your body (and mind) into the beauty mould and the truth of the beauty myth becomes more apparent.

As a reasonably politically aware woman who is financially self supporting this book was fantastic cos it articulated so well the constant pressure on women that affects my life all the time. If you protest against this pressure you are labelled as a woman with a chip on her shoulder. This is not the case. There is a conspiracy - however inadvertent most of the conspirators are.