The beauty myth : how images of beauty are used against women
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 329-335) and index.

In the struggle for womenʼs equality, there is one hurdle that has yet to be fully cleared-the myth of female beauty. It challenges every woman, every day, by seeking to undermine psychologically and covertly the material freedoms that feminism has achieved for women. And, fueled by new technology in media and medicine, its ravages are reaching epidemic proportions. The Beauty Myth cuts to the root of the ʺbeauty backlash,ʺ exposing the relentless cult of female beauty--antierotic, averse to love, and increasingly savage--as a political weapon against womenʼs recent advances, placing women in more danger today than ever before. Naomi Wolf tracks the tyranny of the beauty myth throughout its history and reveals its newly sophisticated function today, in the home and at work; in literature and the media; in relationships, between men and women and between women and women. With an arsenal of sometimes shocking examples, Wolf confronts the beauty industry and its influence and uncovers the ominous, hidden agenda that drives this destructive obsession. In a searing timely analysis, The Beauty Myth indicts the new forces coercing women into participating in their own torture--starving themselves and even submitting their bodies to the knife. A direct descendant of the Feminine Mystique and The Female Eunuch, this book is a cultural hand grenade for the 1990s.

Also includes information on adolescence, advertising, anorexics, anorexia, beauty pornography, beauty sadomasochism, breast implants, bulimia, clitoridectomy, clothes, cosmetics, cosmetic surgery, cults, deaths, diets, discrimination, double standard, eugenics, fatness, fat, Feminine Mystique, food, Betty Friedan, Great Britain, guilt, health, housework, housewives, hunger images of women, Industrial Revolution, Iron Maiden, medicine, men, New York Times, orgasm, pornography, power structure, rape, professional beauty qualification (PBQ), religion, Rites of Beauty, self esteem, sexual harassment, sexuality, sexual behavior, Sweden, Victorianism, weight loss, womenʼs magazines, World War II, etc.