The next two years, or maybe two decades, may be just that. In fact, I feel empowered and ready for a fight. So 2018 has been the year of the woman for me, and I couldn’t be happier.
Here’s what I read:Īnother couple of books fit on the edge of this topic, and must be mentioned too. And this book was the perfect finale to an amazing list of books. I didn’t intend for this to be a year of feminist / women’s studies reading, but that’s what it became. If you have the slightest interest in women’s studies or feminism, this book is a must read! Wolf opened my eyes, while often making me cringe at behaviors and events. Every time I turned a page, I found a new “aha” or “holy crap” moment. The myth pits women against each other, when in fact they could and should join together and throw out this corrupt system. And god forbid you should get older next year. Because, as Wolf tells it, beauty is required for jobs, love, and sexual fulfillment.īeauty-achieving and maintaining it-is also a competitive sport. Somehow all of these things are going to make women more beautiful, which is a perceived requirement in life. Each of these is gigantic industry with each successive generation joining in the fray. Then, the myth offers them proposed solutions, such as diet, exercise, skin care, makeup, and plastic surgery. We may be reaching for a glass ceiling, but the beauty myth is a ton of concrete attached to our feet.īut how does it work? Well, by focusing women’s eyes on their faults. And what it does to women’s self-esteem is just pure patriarchal evil. It keeps women’s attention away from spheres that are typically male-dominated like politics and science.
More importantly, Wolf explains what motivates patriarchal society to develop a construct like the “beauty myth.” What is it that men gain when women invest time, money, and effort in meeting a specific beauty standard? Well, it’s a large part of what makes out economy go around. And specifically, she discusses how the demands and expectations of “being beautiful” have changed through the eras.
She analyzes the details of women’s lives across the centuries, focusing on the twentieth. Naomi Wolf is a scholar and philosopher, as well as being a feminist writer. But the nudges and whomps on my head from Wolf’s 1990 book feel as relevant today (or possibly more so) than it must have then. Oh wait, that’s how I always go to the gym or the pool for my workouts. And no makeup, my hair pulled back in a poof of raggedy curls on my head. Inspired by The Beauty Myth and by its author Naomi Wolf, I went to the gym this morning with a new set of eyes.
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