The Beauty Myth Naomi Wolf Analysis

Naomi Wolf, in The Beauty Myth, addresses the unrealistic standards of beauty that are placed on women. This book was written in the late 1900s, around the same time as the rise of third wave feminism, and was directed mostly toward feminists. Wolf wanted to inform how beauty standards hurt women in society. However, she loses credibility and is unsuccessful in achieving that purpose. In her first chapter, “The Beauty Myth,” Wolf begins by comparing beauty to a currency system because both are “determined by politics, and...keeps male dominance intact” (12). This claim is not further explained and is left standing, which creates a flawed, empty argument. From the beginning, Wolf also places the word, “beauty” in quotations, to assert that beauty is not a real concept. The author fails to successfully make that point because there is a lack of consistency. In her second chapter, Wolf stops using quotations around beauty and returns to her use in the third chapter. The fourth
By not addressing minorities, Wolf alienates readers who are not middle-class, heterosexual, or white. Later, in the ninth chapter, “Violence,” a logical fallacy ruins the entire argument. Wolf argues that the modern surgical age is similar to the nineteenth century medicine that made women passive (220). This false analogy draws an improper comparison between surgery and medicine and decreases Wolf’s credibility. Wolf paints all cosmetic surgery as turning “woman-made women...into man-made women” (220). This statement is a hasty generalization, and assumes that all surgeons than men and all patients are women. This hasty generalization lacks evidence and lowers Wolf’s credibility even