The Beauty Myth, By Naomi Wolf

Naomi Wolf had written her book “The Beauty Myth in 1991. The book was written has a feminist platform to inform the world that there are laws and policies made up by the government had been given to women as somewhat of a cover up to the more harsher of women rights laws. Women at the time had rights but they weren’t as powerfully enacted until later years as women’s rights began to progress in change. It also inspects the repercussion against the feminist movement and the way in which old ideas about beauty are used as a political weapon against women's in their claim for equality.
Wolf explains how she wrote the book as means of a particular system in which a women’s worthiness isn’t measure by how beautiful she might look. But the
standards of being what is considered beautiful is quite different super unnatural in some ways to certain people. I think that the thought of beauty and what it should be is quite crazy. Beauty standards are too unreal honestly and what people portray it to be, Typical media add put a lot of pressure on women showing them models with skinny body’s saying that it’s the ideal way to look. Women try to meet the standards of that beauty is which destabilizes the abilities of women. Women have always been looked at as a commodity which creates an enormous amount of frustration on their minds.
Naomi Wolf says that the book is pretty much a system of how women should really look. The standards of what beauty is make women spends crazy amount of money in hoping effort that with the money they spent that they can achieve that ideal look. But women also have to take into consideration of aging. With age comes beauty I say because no matter what age you are at someone always thinks you’re attractive. People go out and find love at all times in their life with someone that visualizes them for who they are and not what their outer appearance seems to be. This ideal image comes from all types of main stream media such as television, advertisements on posters for clothing ads and what not along with all different types of magazines and pornography. These sources end up turning the concept of what beauty is into a weapon. These things make women feel badly about themselves when they fail to live up to the “ideal” standards of what women should look like.
Wolf really urges women to stay away from whatever the ideal standards of a women are to be. Women are always viewed as victims of male dominance and Wolf tells these women that don’t listen to main stream ideals of women embrace who are as person along with your beauty and take control and be prosperous. She says that feminism has to be open to all women and not just to the ones who go by the special ideological views. In order for this to become successful and changing, Wolf talks about how women need to acquire power and hold within the main stream world so that they can make feminist issues known. The movement has to be practical though so that it can adjust and work with all the policies that are currently practiced.
Wolf's research throughout the book show that there is a cultural repercussion against feminism that uses images of female beauty to keep women "in their place”.
Considering that cosmetic surgery was first invented in the twentieth century leaving a new way for women to enhance their looks. Wolf also makes the argument that throughout time women’s power and the amount of equality that they hold has grown. The rights that they have had has changed and improved. Women’s job positions in the workplace and independence alongside how they feel about their appearance (referring to their beauty) has changed. Wolf published the book at a time where women’s success was slowly but progressively changing in the exploration of equal rights and positions of employment. We live in a society where everyone is obsessed with looks and yet the very women who are worried about their own appearance shield the lengths they are willing and prepared to go so that they can alternate how they actually look. People only get the surgery to look better to other people not really for self-fulfillment for the most part. Within what every society women need to be appreciated regardless of how old they happen to be. Society’s also have to stop putting down women and discriminating against them because of how they look. Pressuring women like that only leads them to the opportunity of getting cosmetic surgery. The appeal of cosmetic surgery was quickly popularized by the emphasis on how young and good you should look. Wolf emphasizes in her book states that there is no historical justification about “The Beauty Myth”. She says that this is a new developing concept. Wolf goes on and says that “The Beauty Myth” is just today’s way of defense against women and what they can be. Women gained power outside the home as a result of the second-wave feminism that came about which allowed women to enter the workplace and be a lot more active in
society.
This book is very important to all of us because we need to become much more aware of how prevalent and damaging this kind of media influence can be towards people. Whatever people see in any type of media they will try to do or be like that’s why so many celebrities are idolized so much. Energy that could be used to further personal growth is having shade thrown on it leaving the feeling of self-hatred and doubt.
Society makes women feel bad about themselves, and that is a big cause for self-hatred and doubt. They think that if they don’t look a particular way guys won’t look at them. Everyone is beautiful to someone. There shouldn’t be a reason why you have to alter ones looks to fit into a society where you have to look like a size 0 to look “Beautiful”. Women who are not feeling good about themselves are a big reason and major leading cause to eating disorders and depression. Society it to focus on a body’s shape and looks but not how a person is personality and mind was. Forget about if you’re a smart outgoing women you need to look like an anorexic model to look good according to society. Once women are pressured to feel like that they feel the need to loose massive amount of weight or go under the knife to reach that ideal look. Society makes women and young girls feel inadequate and not beautiful if they don’t match up to "what is beautiful" according to the idealized standards. Everyone is beautiful in many different ways like I said before. Magazines and media aren't the only ones to blame for the warped idea of what it is to be beautiful but the face that there are other women and men say that you should look like this or like that. If wearing makeup and fancy clothes makes you feel beautiful nobody should take that away from you. Be free, be yourself, be who you are and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.