Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth is a keystone work of the third-wave feminist movement and an incredibly important book for modern society. As women have gained more power and respect in society, Wolf asserts, beauty ideals have constricted in an effort to control them. Wolf argues that the myth of female beauty is used to actively oppress them, exploiting their insecurities and forcing them to spend enormous amounts of time and effort maintaining their looks. As women make more and more progress in society, Wolf contends, they are peddled more and more beauty products, rates of eating disorders continue to rise, the cosmetic surgery industry grows and culture increasingly reinforces impossible standards. While some may presume the text to be a self-help book or superficial story, it is actually a blisteringly accurate, trenchant analysis of beauty ideals in the modern society. Though the book was originally published in 1991, its content remains saddeningly relevant. The Beauty Myth surpassed my expectations, proving itself to be poignant, relevant, and incredibly insightful.

Wolf’s purpose is clear from the start: to explore, document, and analyze the way that beauty ideals are used to control women. Wolf bases her writing on the premise of the “beauty myth”, the impossible standards of beauty to which women are expected to conform. Wolf separates her writing into seven sections dedicated to specific facets of society. “Work” explores womens’ roles in the modern workplace, and examines how much harder women are expected to work to compete with men. Wolf asserts that women have always been required to work two “shifts”: the work shift, and the (unpaid and under-recognized) home shift. Further, social pressures have added a third shift to women’s work: the beauty shift, womens’ exhaustive efforts to beautify themselves and the time and energy they lose to anxiety and obsession over their appearance. “Culture” explores depiction of beauty in magazines and media, specifically scrutinizing the role of advertisers who peddle beauty products. Wolfe argues that these advertisers profit off of womens’ shame and insecurity and, as they fund magazines and other media, have come to control culture. “Religion” explores how beauty has morphed into a bona fide religion in recent years, encouraging a cult-like adherence to beauty standards and creating a modern dichotomy of sin and chastity. Food has become the new temptation, and breaching their diets (“cheating”) is the new sin. Food-inspired beauty products have sprung up- milk and honey lotion, mousse, body butter, eye cream, pomegranate-hued lipstick, cocoa butter deodorant- allowing women to nourish their skin with the pleasures she cannot afford to consume through her mouth. “Sex” explores shifting views of womens’ sexuality and the negative effects of pornography on contemporary culture, as its tremendous growth has outpaced that of legitimate media and it often promotes violence and two dimensional views of women. “Hunger” explores the rise of eating disorders, dieting, and negative body image for women across generations, specifically shedding light on the growing rates of anorexia and bulimia in adolescents. Wolf contends that the best way to oppress your people is to starve them (as history has proven many times), and it seems that modern society is bent on keeping women underfed. “Violence” reflects on the harm not inflicted on women by others, but rather the harm they inflict on themselves when they participate in the booming cosmetic surgery industry. Wolf’s final section, Beyond the Beauty Myth, is a call to action and plan to abolish the beauty myth’s grip on women. By splitting her work up into specific sections, Wolfe keeps her arguments focused and concise, diving into a thorough and meticulous analysis of her subject matter. Her writing is congruent and layered, building upon previous assertions and making references to past chapters to reenforce her ideas and exemplify the beauty myth’s pervasiveness in society. I found every section to be sharp and discerning, every couple of pages conferring a new insight and challenging my assumptions. Though the book was in many ways incredibly expansive, I was disappointed at the exclusion of commentary on racial issues. Women of color are faced with another whole set of standards, and are subject to incredible pressure to be beautiful- perhaps more so (or at least differently) than their white counterparts. Wolf’s book had the potential to raise awareness for racial issues and promote intersectionality, but instead continued the frustrating lack of inclusion of racial issues in mainstream feminist discourse.
Wolf supports her argument with an abundance of evidence, both analyzing contemporary society/popular culture and presenting concrete statistics. Wolf makes an exhaustive catalogue of examples: she curates examples of even the smallest details (like phrases used to advertise lotion) to prove her points. Though the book was right to raise awareness and visibility for subjects like eating disorders, further reading has revealed that some of Wolf’s numbers were deeply flawed and inaccurate: one study showed that rates of anorexia in the country were actually one eighth of Wolf’s figure. Additionally, she didn’t always effectively weave statistics in with the text; she often presented them in huge blocks of text, making the findings dense and somewhat hard to follow. I think that the book would have been just as startling and effective without the extreme figures presented, and I hope that they were a legitimate mistake rather than an intentional effort to mislead readers and breed hysteria (beyond the appropriate levels of outrage elicited by the book).
Wolf makes particular use of the ethos - pathos - logos structure, helping establish her credibility and make a stronger argument. In just the first nine pages of the book - the introduction in which Wolf introduces the concept of the beauty myth - Wolf establishes herself as historically knowledgable and knowledgable of the feminist movement. Wolf makes several allusions to previous feminists figures and their works, quoting Betty Freidan (established author one of the visionaries of second wave feminism) and referencing Gremaine Greer’s bestseller The Female Eunuch. Wolf coins several terms within the first section, introducing and defining her concepts of the Beauty Myth, the Iron Maiden, the Rites of Beauty. Though I found the officialization and capitalization of these terms somewhat distracting, it helped her argument by having her book reference itself like it would a historical document. In the 2002 edition, the book starts with an introduction discussing the book’s success and popularity. Telling the readers how successful and influential the book has been automatically builds trust and makes the book more credible. Wolfe also raises and responds popular counter-arguments she has faced since the publication of the book, making her seem secure and in touch with her readers. The bulk of the book is logos, full of critique, commentary, and analysis. The book ends on an ethos appeal for women to take action against the myth, embrace their natural beauty, and disregard the standards forced on them by men; this emotional note gives a personal, direct touch to the collection of facts and suggests solutions for the problems Wolf has so expertly identified.
I would recommend The Beauty Myth to any reader even casually interested in women’s rights, politics, advertising, or social issues. Wolf’s work opened my eyes to a host of social issues and made me a much more informed person, and I believe that everybody has something to learn from this book. Wolf’s writing is focused, direct, and razor-sharp; her statistics are astounding and infuriating. The Beauty Myth is informative, interesting, and an impactful read for anyone interested in a freer, more equal society.