The book “The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women” by Naomi Wolf explains the forced standards of beauty on women. Naomi explains how the amount of power gained by women can affect the more beauty standards they also gain. Naomi puts these standards in six different categories: Work, Culture, Religion, Sex, Hunger, and Violence. She does state that the book is not so much about the women, but more so about men’s power and industrialization. Naomi explains the beauty myth as “... Physical appearance, bodies, faces, clothes-matter so much…” (Wolf 9). The explanation is that physical appearance is a main measure of self-worth for multiple women. Although not every woman sees' appearance, in the same manner, all women see it
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Children learn that those women are the definition of strong when in history books there are women like Harriet Tubman who freed slaves or Rosie the Riveter who recruited female workers for the munitions' industry during World War II. “Culture stereotypes women to fit the myth by flattening the feminine into beauty-without-intelligence or intelligence-without-beauty; women are allowed a mind or a body but not both” (Wolf 59). In stories like The Wizard of Oz where there are two female characters with one “beauty-without-intelligence” and one “intelligence-without-beauty”, in this case, Glenda and the Wicked Witch of the West, beauty always wins in the end. This defines “one winner and one loser in the beauty myth” (Wolf 60). In stories and books, writers reverse the beauty myth making an intelligent and beautiful lady who is also the winner of the book. In those books, the protagonist cares more about her friends or family than her beauty so gives it up or shows how low of importance her beauty is over anything else. Not only is the beauty myth involved in television, but it is also involved with most magazines. In one of Naomi’s interviews, a young woman stated “... I feel like throwing out all my clothes and everything in my refrigerator and telling my boyfriend to never call me again and blowtorching my
Children learn that those women are the definition of strong when in history books there are women like Harriet Tubman who freed slaves or Rosie the Riveter who recruited female workers for the munitions' industry during World War II. “Culture stereotypes women to fit the myth by flattening the feminine into beauty-without-intelligence or intelligence-without-beauty; women are allowed a mind or a body but not both” (Wolf 59). In stories like The Wizard of Oz where there are two female characters with one “beauty-without-intelligence” and one “intelligence-without-beauty”, in this case, Glenda and the Wicked Witch of the West, beauty always wins in the end. This defines “one winner and one loser in the beauty myth” (Wolf 60). In stories and books, writers reverse the beauty myth making an intelligent and beautiful lady who is also the winner of the book. In those books, the protagonist cares more about her friends or family than her beauty so gives it up or shows how low of importance her beauty is over anything else. Not only is the beauty myth involved in television, but it is also involved with most magazines. In one of Naomi’s interviews, a young woman stated “... I feel like throwing out all my clothes and everything in my refrigerator and telling my boyfriend to never call me again and blowtorching my