The Beauty Myth, By Naomi Wolf
Although we have made progress in the world regarding women rights, after reading Naomi Wolf's “The Beauty Myth” it appears to me women are facing a whole new list of problems in today’s society. Even though people say “personality is what they look for” Wolf believes its the complete opposite. Beauty will get you everything, men only see woman’s looks, and magazines make women see there “flaws”.
Naomi begins her statement by saying if a woman has beauty then she will have a better chance of achieving success. "If a catalogue of primitive labour were made, woman would be found doing five things where men did one", which implies women work harder than men do no matter what part of the world they are in. In her book Wolf states that “Woman’s volunteer work in the United States amounts to $18 billion a year”, if women alone just stopped working both the economy and industrialized …show more content…
countries would collapse.
Naomi states that men "only see woman as beauties” The second a woman shows a little independence, or intelligence a man no longer finds her desirable.
Individuality and independence are something a woman can find, where as beauty is something she are born with, it is part of her genetics, it cant be changed. Society has formed two stereotypes for woman “beauty-without-intelligence or intelligence-without-beauty”. Women can either be smart or pretty but they can not be both. Wolf refers to the story in the old testament of Leah and Rachel. If you’re not familiar with the story the short version is that two sister, Leah and Rachel, end up marrying the same man, but the man was only in love with Rachel and only found her attractive and beautiful. Leah wants him to love her too so she prays to god that she will have a son. She ends up having a lot of children and Rachel envy’s her for it. Although having children does not makes Leah's husband love her. The two sisters grow very jealous of each other. Rachel for her sisters ability to bare children, and Leah for her sisters beauty. How
ironic.
In "50 years of Life magazine covers, though many showed woman, only 19 of those were not actresses or models” that's roughly 3,600 magazines in those 50 years. Only showing a specific kind of beauty in the media strongly effects a woman and sets their definition of beauty. What they don’t realize is that a woman most likely put it there in the first place. The women who work in media and are putting these images out there aren’t doing it to be mean, or make others feel bad they strictly do it for one reason... it sells. They are not directly stating “YOU HAVE TO DO THIS” or “YOU MUST LOOK LIKE THIS”, but when these image are what they put out there it is practically implied.
Before I read “The Beauty Myth” I didn't think about the standard of beauty as being a worldwide problem, and I didn’t think it had effects on as many things as it does. Wolf gives chapters over many different subjects that are effected by “the beauty myth”, work, media and culture, religion, and in sexual relations. She also talks about violence against women by men, and by women themselves in the form of plastic surgery and eating disorders. She made a good point, and throughout reading the book I couldn’t have agreed with her anymore. As a woman myself it opened my eyes to the problems that I myself face.
Naomi begins her statement by saying if a woman has beauty then she will have a better chance of achieving success. "If a catalogue of primitive labour were made, woman would be found doing five things where men did one", which implies women work harder than men do no matter what part of the world they are in. In her book Wolf states that “Woman’s volunteer work in the United States amounts to $18 billion a year”, if women alone just stopped working both the economy and industrialized …show more content…
countries would collapse.
Naomi states that men "only see woman as beauties” The second a woman shows a little independence, or intelligence a man no longer finds her desirable.
Individuality and independence are something a woman can find, where as beauty is something she are born with, it is part of her genetics, it cant be changed. Society has formed two stereotypes for woman “beauty-without-intelligence or intelligence-without-beauty”. Women can either be smart or pretty but they can not be both. Wolf refers to the story in the old testament of Leah and Rachel. If you’re not familiar with the story the short version is that two sister, Leah and Rachel, end up marrying the same man, but the man was only in love with Rachel and only found her attractive and beautiful. Leah wants him to love her too so she prays to god that she will have a son. She ends up having a lot of children and Rachel envy’s her for it. Although having children does not makes Leah's husband love her. The two sisters grow very jealous of each other. Rachel for her sisters ability to bare children, and Leah for her sisters beauty. How
ironic.
In "50 years of Life magazine covers, though many showed woman, only 19 of those were not actresses or models” that's roughly 3,600 magazines in those 50 years. Only showing a specific kind of beauty in the media strongly effects a woman and sets their definition of beauty. What they don’t realize is that a woman most likely put it there in the first place. The women who work in media and are putting these images out there aren’t doing it to be mean, or make others feel bad they strictly do it for one reason... it sells. They are not directly stating “YOU HAVE TO DO THIS” or “YOU MUST LOOK LIKE THIS”, but when these image are what they put out there it is practically implied.
Before I read “The Beauty Myth” I didn't think about the standard of beauty as being a worldwide problem, and I didn’t think it had effects on as many things as it does. Wolf gives chapters over many different subjects that are effected by “the beauty myth”, work, media and culture, religion, and in sexual relations. She also talks about violence against women by men, and by women themselves in the form of plastic surgery and eating disorders. She made a good point, and throughout reading the book I couldn’t have agreed with her anymore. As a woman myself it opened my eyes to the problems that I myself face.