Preview

The Beauty Myth, By Naomi Wolf

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
592 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Beauty Myth, By Naomi Wolf
Although we have made progress in the world regarding women rights, after reading Naomi Wolf's “The Beauty Myth” it appears to me women are facing a whole new list of problems in today’s society. Even though people say “personality is what they look for” Wolf believes its the complete opposite. Beauty will get you everything, men only see woman’s looks, and magazines make women see there “flaws”.
Naomi begins her statement by saying if a woman has beauty then she will have a better chance of achieving success. "If a catalogue of primitive labour were made, woman would be found doing five things where men did one", which implies women work harder than men do no matter what part of the world they are in. In her book Wolf states that “Woman’s volunteer work in the United States amounts to $18 billion a year”, if women alone just stopped working both the economy and industrialized
…show more content…
Individuality and independence are something a woman can find, where as beauty is something she are born with, it is part of her genetics, it cant be changed. Society has formed two stereotypes for woman “beauty-without-intelligence or intelligence-without-beauty”. Women can either be smart or pretty but they can not be both. Wolf refers to the story in the old testament of Leah and Rachel. If you’re not familiar with the story the short version is that two sister, Leah and Rachel, end up marrying the same man, but the man was only in love with Rachel and only found her attractive and beautiful. Leah wants him to love her too so she prays to god that she will have a son. She ends up having a lot of children and Rachel envy’s her for it. Although having children does not makes Leah's husband love her. The two sisters grow very jealous of each other. Rachel for her sisters ability to bare children, and Leah for her sisters beauty. How

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In “The Ways of Her Household” by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, we read about the daily work that three women did to keep their households running. In our class discussions we mentioned how a woman's work in the house was crucial to the household economy because if women did not do housework, men would need to stay home to get the housework done and would not be able to earn wages. In Jeanne Boydston’s article “To Earn Her Daily Bread: Housework and Antebellum Working-Class Subsistence” we again read about unpaid labor as a form of employment for women. Boydston writes, “Within the household, wives’ labor produced as much as half of the family subsistence.” Boydston also writes that a woman’s labor is, “necessary to produce a husband’s labor-power.” Ulrich and Boydston are both arguing that women's labor is important, even if they are not earning wages, which Lydia Maria Child would also…

    • 1969 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “That is the best part of beauty, which a picture cannot express,” Francis Bacon observes in his “Essay on the Subject.” And yet for centuries, we’ve attempted again and again to define beauty from social, cultural and religious perspectives. But in spite of establishing numerous theoretical definition, we continue to try for a substantial, solid and material structure to define women’s beauty. “Attitudes toward beauty are entwined with our deepest conflicts surrounding flesh and spirit,” Harvard’s Nancy Etcoff wrote in her article, “Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty.” Indeed, “beauty is a complex beast surrounded by our equally complex attitudes”, and “The Myth of the Latin…

    • 1011 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Humans are born without choosing gender; the men and women are equal. In fact, most people suppose that the women represent beauty from their bodies and faces. In addition, some people think that the women who are not strong and powerful, are suitable for housework and sewing. According to “Miss Representation” video, Jennifer Siebel Newsom helps people realize the real women’value, criticize deviant thoughts on beauty from the social media, and understand the women pressure in beauty which bases on the video content.…

    • 569 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Swastika Nights Patriarchy

    • 1842 Words
    • 8 Pages

    As the text states, “All memories of the time when women were considered beautiful have been expunged, because the power beauty gave them over men was considered an insult to manhood” (Burdekin 412). The men in the text understood that in order to maintain order and dominance, beautiful women cannot exist. This behavior is similar to the modern cultural practices of Middle Eastern countries, where females are restricted to clothing that obscures their beauty, whereas, women in the United States promote equality and freedom in dress, thus representing women’s fear of losing their identity and the ability to express their…

    • 1842 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Firstly exaplaining the term 'mystique' which means it is an aura of heightened value, interest, or meaning surrounding something, arising from attitudes and beliefs that impute special power or mystery to it. In 'The Feminine Mystique', Betty Friedan, a freelance writer and 1942 Smith graduate, intertwines anecdotes and observations from her own life with facts and analysis from her research, creating a work with which the feminine reader can readily identify. Her starting point was her own personal experience.…

    • 79 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dracula, a Gothic horror novel written by Bram Stoker in 1897, presents a clear depiction of how fatal it can be if society continues idealizing women. He writes about the idealistic woman, Lucy Westrena; a pure virgin woman that just submits to the males far more educated than her. She literally dies from her lack of knowledge about Dracula. On the contrary, he also writes about Mina Harker who represents the new woman arising in the Victorian Era and this woman is not just an accessory for males, but an educated woman who will end up bettering society. In society today woman are faced with a similar predicament. Society has formed a high class heel that many women struggle to walk around in, and as a result women want to step out of the shoe and say they look just as beautiful in their own. For example, a woman might not fit into size zero pants or she doesn't have the latest pair of UGGs, so she she makes a statement that she might be a little over weight and have cheaper shoes, but she is satisfied and better off like that. What's extremely ironic is that the same people we are supposed to look like tell us we are perfect "Just the Way You Are," as popular musician…

    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nature By Diane Ackerman

    • 287 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The author Diane Ackerman describes how the new age of human revolution begins to rises, as the changing effects of Earth's nature start to dies. The race of humans had created a wide terrestrial destruction on Earth, but the humans do have their economic capabilities and resource technologies to fix the entire ecosystems as possible. Then again, they cannot reverse the changing effects of the global warming and climates. Between the media news and the U.N., as the United Nations, are always doing many reports on the global warming, and it gets the human societies into thinking that earth is going be doom. They might be feeling the depths of fear growing inside their conscious minds as if the world is going to finally end. Nevertheless, the…

    • 287 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In today’s modern culture, many men and women suffer from a variety of psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety and anorexia. Many of these psychological disorders can be prevented if society did not have preset standards for us to follow. For example, our society from an early age tells us that all women have to have a slim waist and be curvy. The controversial issues amongst women and their outward appearance can be found in “The Ugly Truth About Beauty” by Dave Barry as well as “The Pitfalls of Plastic surgery” Camille Paglia. In these two essays both writers put an emphasis on how the media often demoralize women by having preset standards of beauty, that threaten the female identity.…

    • 531 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Even though, the modern media has had many positive impacts on our lives, when it comes to women’s image, especially in commercial advertisements and programs, it usually has such misleading interpretations about the perfect images of beauty and the happiness of women. Thus, many women who have already been struggling with their uncertain self-identities have become even more insecure and unsatisfied with their “imperfect” physical appearances and their unrealized “ideal” life styles. Therefore, the conflict about who they really are and whom they wish to be has caused such confusions that some women would lose touch with reality, and make decisions which can never bring them true happiness. In this paper, I will discuss the impact…

    • 287 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Every girl has seen a woman in the media stick thin, sun kissed, envy of the way she looks “perfect”. Women that are put on television, a magazine or advertisements is ultimately fake with Photoshop, makeup and plastic surgery. This is a dangerous perception of beauty which has resulted in a decline in self-acceptance. Many girls any age struggle with their image believing that they are not thin enough, their hair is not long enough, or even they believe that they are ugly. I believe that the social stereotype of beauty should go back to the 50’s.…

    • 423 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    We see stereotypes everywhere; from the news, to tv shows, to commercials, to movies, to magazines, and even in social media. The media alone put so much emphasis on attractiveness that they are reinforcing this idea that it is beauty and not brains that matter. This results in young girls being unhappy with the way they look. They start to compare and contrast their looks to what they see in the media at such an early age and I believe this is what contributes the most to negative body image. Being told that you are not tall enough, or short enough, or skinny enough, or fat enough, is detrimental to not only our physical health but our mental health as well. In the media, we see successful women being undermined and rather than focusing on their accomplishments, the media decides to focus on her appearance. One example was of a comment made by President Barack Obama about California Attorney General Kamala Harris. He stated that “You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake. She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country.” This comment by one of the most powerful and influential men in the world, sadly…

    • 1888 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    With popular culture setting the norms for society women are left at a large disadvantage as far as how they are viewed and treated in society. As stated in the lecture “These sources have created many different cultural norms and expectations as well as have affected sexuality and sexual behavior. These sources have dictated many gender expectations and have subjugated women in many aspects of social life.” (Reali, 2017) In popular culture beauty among women is one of the most romanticized topics.…

    • 1730 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Wolf, Naomi. “The Beauty Myth.” The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. New York: HaperCollins, 1991. Rpt. in Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. 5th ed. Ed. Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 486-494…

    • 1393 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Stereotypes Of Women

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The portrayal of women in media has created an idealistic and unachievable standard for women. Stereotyping women means associating a specific image with a women. This suggests that when I think of a woman, an idealistic image will come into my mind. This is the image that has been drawn by media into our minds through various ways. However, it is important to realize that each women is beautiful in her own way, irrespective of her looks. It does not matter what body, what size, what color or what type of clothes she wears. Women cannot be associated with an idealized image; rather every woman is strong and beautiful in her own way.…

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The main idea of Dave Barry 's essay is the media puts too much emphasis on beauty. Women are lead to believe that they need to look like something that is not physically impossible, because we 're not all born to be super models. I agree with the points Barry is trying to get across.…

    • 859 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics