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mchl_btt's review against another edition
5.0
Un saggio incredibile su come l’idea di dover essere belle canonicamente, di un canone irraggiungibile, induca nelle donne una costante insicurezza e impossibilità di vivere veramente libere come i movimenti femministi avrebbero voluto.
Ho trovato affascinante e anche inquietante quanto sia ancora tristemente molto attuale questo saggio, il capitolo sul lavoro potrebbe tranquillamente essere stato scritto nel 2021 e non nel 1991.
Il capitolo sulla violenza, in cui si parla dettagliatamente e in modo molto crudo degli interventi chirurgici, veramente molto difficile da leggere e digerire.
Alla fine Wolf fa anche un’ipotesi di quello che sarebbe potuto succedere se anche gli uomini fossero stati vittima del mito della bellezza. Spoiler, Naomi Wolf ci ha azzeccato in pieno.
La bellezza è l’unico lavoro a tempo pieno che non sono non prevede uno stipendio, ma richiede anche pagamenti costanti e ingenti da parte delle donne.
Ho trovato affascinante e anche inquietante quanto sia ancora tristemente molto attuale questo saggio, il capitolo sul lavoro potrebbe tranquillamente essere stato scritto nel 2021 e non nel 1991.
Il capitolo sulla violenza, in cui si parla dettagliatamente e in modo molto crudo degli interventi chirurgici, veramente molto difficile da leggere e digerire.
Alla fine Wolf fa anche un’ipotesi di quello che sarebbe potuto succedere se anche gli uomini fossero stati vittima del mito della bellezza. Spoiler, Naomi Wolf ci ha azzeccato in pieno.
La bellezza è l’unico lavoro a tempo pieno che non sono non prevede uno stipendio, ma richiede anche pagamenti costanti e ingenti da parte delle donne.
aaliyahwalker's review against another edition
3.0
There were a lot of good qualities about this book and I highly recommend it to all women who want to understand themselves and society better. My only critique is that there is a lot of repetitiveness within the chapters.
crystalstarrlight's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
A seminal feminist work, "The Beauty Myth" digs into the ways that the pursuit of beauty has hampered feminism. How many women rush to pursue the next makeup line instead of equal pay for equal work. How many women are in a Catch-22 at work - you must be pretty and feminine, but not TOO pretty and feminine, else it's your fault for sexual harassment! At a time when many are saying there is no need for feminism, Wolf shows that sexism is still alive and well and how trying to adhere to the Perfect Woman is holding women back.
As I dig more and more into feminism, particularly the portion where women take great pains to look the part that society tells them (sexual, but not TOO sexual, smart but not TOO smart), I kept seeing this book. Every current feminist work brings it up; therefore, it must be amazing right? Up there with Friedmam's "The Feminine Mystique" and Gloria Steinem? (OK, so I haven't read either, but I DO plan on rectifying that at one point!) So when a friend of mine recommended we buddy read this, I figured, "Why not!"
But - and you knew this was coming - I had a great many problems with this book, from writing style to over-generalizations to some of the messages to how dated it seems now. That is not to say this book has no good points or wasn't influential at the time. I'll bet back in the early 90's, there wasn't as much information about the push for women to be beautiful over their rights. Nowadays, practically every feminist work talks about how women are forced to adhere to a certain beauty stereotype - hence how I discovered this book in the first place!
But just because a book is a "classic", doesn't mean it's above criticism. I can appreciate what it meant to the feminist movement, while also A) not liking it and B) specifying how and why.
First off, the good. Let me allow Wolf's words to speak for herself:
As I dig more and more into feminism, particularly the portion where women take great pains to look the part that society tells them (sexual, but not TOO sexual, smart but not TOO smart), I kept seeing this book. Every current feminist work brings it up; therefore, it must be amazing right? Up there with Friedmam's "The Feminine Mystique" and Gloria Steinem? (OK, so I haven't read either, but I DO plan on rectifying that at one point!) So when a friend of mine recommended we buddy read this, I figured, "Why not!"
But - and you knew this was coming - I had a great many problems with this book, from writing style to over-generalizations to some of the messages to how dated it seems now. That is not to say this book has no good points or wasn't influential at the time. I'll bet back in the early 90's, there wasn't as much information about the push for women to be beautiful over their rights. Nowadays, practically every feminist work talks about how women are forced to adhere to a certain beauty stereotype - hence how I discovered this book in the first place!
But just because a book is a "classic", doesn't mean it's above criticism. I can appreciate what it meant to the feminist movement, while also A) not liking it and B) specifying how and why.
First off, the good. Let me allow Wolf's words to speak for herself:
"Whenever we dismiss or do not hear a woman on televisison or in print because our attention has been drawn to her size or makeup or clothing or hairstyle, the beauty myth is working with optimum efficiency."
"If a single standard were applied equally to men as to women in TV journalism, most of the men would be unemployed."
"The myth urges women to believe that it's every woman for herself."
"...to tell a woman she is ugly can make her feel ugly, act ugly, and, as far as her experience is concerned, be ugly, in the place where feeling beautiful keeps her whole."
"If the public woman is stigmatized as too 'pretty', she's a threat, a rival - or simply not serious; if derided as too 'ugly', one risks tarring oneself with the same brush by identifying oneself with her agenda."
"Few women have a strong sense of bodily identity, and the beauty myth urges us to see a 'beautiful' mask as preferable to our own faces and bodies."
"Women's bodies are portrayed as attractive packaging around an empty box...each woman has to learn for herself, from nowhere, how to feel sexual (though she learns constantly how to look sexual)."
"What women look like is considered important because what we say is not."
Young women now are being bombarded with a kind of radiation sickness brought on by overexposure to images of beauty pornography, the only source offered then of ways to imagine female sexuality."
"Men are visually aroused by women's bodies...because they are trained early into that response, while women are less visually aroused and more emotionally aroused because that is their training."
Each and every one of these, I can agree with a hearty, "YES!" How many of our newsanchors are old white guys? How many times must we hear about Katie Couric's hair, when we heard next to nothing about Dan Rather's or Tom Brokaw's? What about how critical we are of other women's appearances and the popularity of "What Were They Thinking?" (Almost exclusively populated with WOMEN BTW - and most as if the stars themselves picked out the garments instead of a publicist!). With quotes like these, how can this book be so bad?
How about ruining it with wild, baseless accusations, generalizations run amok and the most confusing, rambling, never-ending narrative? For each time that Wolf says something great like this, we have to hear things like:
+ "Studies of a users show that violence, once begun, escalates. Cosmetic survey is the fastest-growing 'medical' speciality." -> This was NOT edited; this is how it appeared in the book.
+ Plastic surgery being compared to a violation of human rights, Nazism genocide, and female genital mutilation (no, I am not kidding). Last I checked, plastic surgery was a CHOICE, maybe a "poor choice" women feel like they need to make to keep a youthful appearance, but a choice nonetheless. NO ONE is making women do them - compare that to female genital mutilation, which is NOT a choice by any means!
+ The conspiracy theory that women don't have a choice (such as for plastic surgery or buying makeup). That is, until women DO have a choice and can choose to unite with other women. First off, who is at the head of this conspiracy? Those evul menzfolk? The government? Society in general? Secondly, while some women will cave to society's pressures, many do not. Most days, I don't wear any makeup or use any skincare products. I know tons of women who are likewise.
+ "Women are feeding their skins as a way to feed themselves the love of which many are deprived." Maybe they have acne???
+ No distinction between losing weight FOR HEALTH and to adhere to the skinny model. (In fact, in this day and age of obesity, this book overlooks eating disorders besides anorexia - which the author had as a teenager - and bulimia.)
+ Vilifying cancer patients for breast implants (even though these patients may have had mastectomies!!).
+ "...our portions testify to and reinforce our sense of social inferiority." Uh, no, I eat smaller meals to be healthy. If I ate everything I wanted until I was full, I'd look like a whale (especially with the way the food industry designs food so that we eat more!).
+ "The demonic characterizations of a simple body substance do not arise from it's physical properties but from old-fashioned misogyny, for above all fat is female..." Some fat is unhealthy too? And in this day and age, with obesity on the rise...
+ "Where are the woman activists of the new generation, the fresh blood to infuse energy into second-wave burnout and exhaustion?...up to a fifth of them are so quiet because they are starving to death." Jumping to conclusion much?
+ If you are woman of color or outside the upper-/middle-class bracket, well, I guess you don't suffer from The Beauty Myth, or not like "us poor middle-/upper-class white women". The book is so overwhelming biased towards the white middle-/upper-class woman, it's embarrassing.
And this goes on and on. Generalization followed by conspiracy theory followed by "Woe is me, poor over-privileged middle-class white woman" followed by dubious assertion, all told in the most challenging language possible! It just irritates me to no end to see these great ideas buried and undermined by such faulty sentiments.
There were so many times in my nearly 5 months of reading this that I was tempted to give up. I honestly was doubting I'd ever finish it. If you absolutely must read all feminist works, then you should pick this up, but there have GOT to be better non-fiction books on the subject than this - which is somewhat ironic, given its status as the "go-to manual" for women and beauty.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Eating disorder
pinacbeth's review against another edition
2.75
“Iron Maiden” is the term Wolf used throughout that deemed as the encapsulation of the constant adjustments women had to go through whether by choice or not but either is encouraged psychosocially, wherein in order to fit and in order to succeed the inconsistent and never ending raising female standards (that is a myth) and expectations by the society from women, they had to change whatever that is that is discreetly pushed upon them and fed— the importance of beauty; and how it should be something women have to keep in mind and revolve themselves around to, bcs that is the only weapon patriarchy has against women but with of effectivity so great us are not able to pinpoint it, therefore fight against, as it deduces us to reflect on ourselves instead creating those decisions they have given us.
understanding all of these felt really amazing and relieving. the last few pages of the book were things we could slowly change to fight beauty myth, and it mainly highlights the importance of solidarity and the practice of empathy, community, and understanding that although it can be also naturally learned through the environments we are in the satisfaction of beauty and being beautiful, but it should also come from within and internally satisfactory rather than from an external validation that perpetuates shame otherwise and lead to a harmful cycle of constant external approval which are then weaponized upon us. the practice of female friendships and appreciation are also important since such divisiveness are usually caused from hostility and rivalry and the competition for beauty.
rlly good as my introduction to non-fic feminist texts. however, i just find some of parts of it too lengthy, especially the presentation of real-life examples and readings. but oh well, it is an angry book.
rlly good as my introduction to non-fic feminist texts. however, i just find some of parts of it too lengthy, especially the presentation of real-life examples and readings. but oh well, it is an angry book.
vexyspice's review against another edition
3.0
Though informational, I almost felt like it was TOO informational. Seemed like a lot of info for just one book. It did open my eyes to thinks i didnt really notice like how society/ media redefines how women look at ourselves. this includes but is not limited to our earnest search of bodily perfection when we were naturally made as such.
sreddous's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book (and about this author, I suppose). On one hand, I believe it deserves to be rated relatively highly because it sure does put descriptions and words to a lot of experiences I've had where I was thinking, "Oh, yeah, that totally happened to me! THAT'S what's going on with that??" and it was very helpful in helping me personally put words to my experiences where I toed the line with societal pressures and frantic calorie-counting and the other unhealthy beauty-related habits I struggled with over the decades. In that regard, I think this book was very helpful and enlightening about a lot of topics that are otherwise easy to just dismiss as "the way it is".
Not everything in this book has aged super well either though, and there are a lot of points that didn't sit right with me even back when I first read this as a high school student in 2004 -- for example, I think the passages about comparing plastic surgery to violence aren't well-researched readings into how people choose to have plastic surgery. There are of course people who do it for 'unhealthy coping society pressure' reasons, but there are also plenty of people who, eh, just weren't born looking the way they wanted to and want to tweak. I think this book doesn't leave quite enough room for people of any gender to say "my body is my masterpiece I'll do what I want with it" which I think is a feminist idea worth exploring!
Still, even if not every idea presented in this book sits right with me, there are still plenty of points that do. I think this is a text worth reading even if you read with a few grains of salt, and it's a good centerpiece for further discussion and critique, which is what I want out of a philosophical-type book anyway.
Not everything in this book has aged super well either though, and there are a lot of points that didn't sit right with me even back when I first read this as a high school student in 2004 -- for example, I think the passages about comparing plastic surgery to violence aren't well-researched readings into how people choose to have plastic surgery. There are of course people who do it for 'unhealthy coping society pressure' reasons, but there are also plenty of people who, eh, just weren't born looking the way they wanted to and want to tweak. I think this book doesn't leave quite enough room for people of any gender to say "my body is my masterpiece I'll do what I want with it" which I think is a feminist idea worth exploring!
Still, even if not every idea presented in this book sits right with me, there are still plenty of points that do. I think this is a text worth reading even if you read with a few grains of salt, and it's a good centerpiece for further discussion and critique, which is what I want out of a philosophical-type book anyway.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Physical abuse
elisevpb's review against another edition
informative
4.5
This was fascinating and extremely informative and thought-provoking. I think all women should read this, and probably men too now that a lot of these issues are spreading to men because society and capitalism gains from making us hate ourselves and always shifting the goalposts to make us change (hint: don’t). Would love to see an updated version/extension detailing the developments since this was written!