Beauty Myth

First of all, I love when things I read can relate to other classes. Recently in Women in America, we have been studying advertisements on how women were and are portrayed, from the 1800s until modern times.
I know that this essay was written in 1991, so it would be interesting to see how Naomi Wolf would rewrite it now.
I always love when writers use statistics because it seems more credible, but I was shocked at the statistics in the third paragraph. Especially the follow up on statistics on page 492. I know that anorexia and bulimia has been rising more than it has ever been. I also have had the opportunity to talk to girls who are this way, and it’s shocking to hear what they have to say. One quote that struck me was on page 487, “American women . . . would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal”. I battled with my weight last year and was a lot smaller than I should be, and I can say that now I’m so much happier. But it’s shocking to me that some women would rather lose weight than achieve a goal of lets say getting a raise at work, or accomplishing something in the work world. Instead of being powerful, women would rather be pretty.
I thought it was interesting to see how Wolf wrote about beauty. I loved the paragraph on page 489 that said that beauty was related to their behavior. I had never thought about it that way until now, and she gives some great examples.
One thing I disagreed with is when she says that “strong men battle for beautiful women” isn’t true. I believe that it is entirely true, but maybe this is just a generation gap that I feel this way. As much as I hate it, I do think it is true that the strongest men always want the most beautiful girl.
I think that advertisements were women’s downfall. I liked how Wolf said that this “beauty myth” wasn’t really a thing until the 1830s because this was the first time things were being reproduced and mass marketed. I would have loved to live before the 1830s just to see what it was like to be a women.
Another thing that related to my Women in America class was the “Iron Maiden” reference. We studied how Hilary Clinton was seen as an “Iron Maiden” while Sarah Palin was seen as the more beautiful one. In their campaign, the news only really covered their outfits and how they looked, rather than their actual politics. Because Hilary wasn’t “the prettiest” by media standards and since she was a powerful woman, she was seen as an iron maiden and nagging wife. I loved that this article gave the history of the Iron Maiden from medieval Germany.
I’m a bit confused by the title “Beauty Myth” though. Maybe there is something that I wasn’t picking up in the article, but I feel that beauty is not a myth. Being a teenager, these ideals of beauty are thrown in my face everyday. If I go to the store or turn on tv, the ideals of the perfect woman are everywhere! So I’m not sure why she says it’s a myth, that’s the only clarification that I need.
Other than the bit of confusion, I really liked this piece. I thought it was well written and informative, and I really loved how I can relate it to my other class, as well as relate it to my life by being a teenage girl.