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A review by willowbiblio
The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf
4.0
"The terrible truth is that though the marketplace promotes the myth, it would be powerless if women didn't enforce it against one another."
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At times this was a really painful read (emotionally). This was written in the 1990's, so some of the stats and attitudes contained within are definitely dated. Wolf does mention non-white, non-cis, non-hetero women but mostly as a way to correlate harms against white cis hetero women.
I supposed I'd never thought this deeply about the beauty industrial complex and aim to keep women self-hating and positioned as in direct competition with one another. it was heartbreaking to see how the situation has progressed in the time since this was written and our violence against ourselves has absolutely increased.
Wolf's correlations to religion and filling that societal gap were sort of a reach to me, but her examination of the cosmetic/plastic surgery complex was spot on. It's incredible to consider the amount of money being spent to keep up with an ever-moving goalpost of "beauty", while there is so much need in the world that could benefit from that wealth instead.
This book has encouraged me to seek more feminist texts, but I'll probably look for authors that are more modern and intersectional in their approach.
----------
At times this was a really painful read (emotionally). This was written in the 1990's, so some of the stats and attitudes contained within are definitely dated. Wolf does mention non-white, non-cis, non-hetero women but mostly as a way to correlate harms against white cis hetero women.
I supposed I'd never thought this deeply about the beauty industrial complex and aim to keep women self-hating and positioned as in direct competition with one another. it was heartbreaking to see how the situation has progressed in the time since this was written and our violence against ourselves has absolutely increased.
Wolf's correlations to religion and filling that societal gap were sort of a reach to me, but her examination of the cosmetic/plastic surgery complex was spot on. It's incredible to consider the amount of money being spent to keep up with an ever-moving goalpost of "beauty", while there is so much need in the world that could benefit from that wealth instead.
This book has encouraged me to seek more feminist texts, but I'll probably look for authors that are more modern and intersectional in their approach.