Analysis of The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf Essay

Even though media vaunts an iridescent image of what every girl should look like, the simple fact is just, it is impossible. It is because the pictures in the media are not true—they all have gone through lots of Photoshop. Only 5 percent of women have the body type seen in almost all advertisements. Besides, most of fashion models are thinner than 98 percent of American women. However, women still continue to do whatever they can in order to fit into that idea of ‘perfection’. Eating disorders have harassed who want to feel like they are ‘beautiful’, for years. Women are willing to do anything even though it can cause harm to their own self due to low self-esteem. Do you want your sister, friends or girl friends always feel depressed and doing harm to themselves, as they feel dissatisfied about their

This essay is for women who believe their thighs are too big, their breasts are too small, their hair is boring, their skin is flawed, their body is shaped funny, or their clothes are outdated. This month's column is for women who believe their life would improve if they could lose 15 pounds; if they could afford contact lenses, that new perfume or anti-cellulite concoction; if they got a nose job, a face lift, a tummy tuck, etc. This month's column is for women who feel shame or unhappiness when they ponder some part (or all) of their body. In other words, this month's column is for 99.9% of the women reading it!

We are together but have been created physically different, we are equal when it comes to our rights to live, air, water yet not the same in certain issues. Both sexes are,“deeply ingrained in the codes of our society.” Stereotypes imposed on us by the society has shrewdly manipulated or brainwashed us into believing that being told how to comport ourselves and be is rather a liberation, not oppression. Unfortunately, we are unconscious of this conspiracy when trying to look and behave like those individuals we see in the media or magazines. For women, in particular, the assumption is that we wear beautiful clothes such as dresses and skirts, reveal some skin to attract men, wear makeup and keep our hairs long. Two different images of Grace Jones will be the source of comparison in this essay to illustrate gender stereotypes placed on women.

Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman tackle the countless legends and myths of the 21st century, but could they bust the Beauty Myth as well as Naomi Wolf? Her novel, The Beauty Myth, takes a look at Western sexism during the nineties, where the ‘Beauty Myth’ is defined as an impossible beauty standard put into place by men in power to continue the oppression of women. A decade later, the context of this book is still relevant; though some things have changed, there is still much to be done if women everywhere want to bust this myth for good.

The women in the 17th century were incorrectly accustomed to the necessity of becoming a picture perfect person; which is a bad habit that only a handful of people are able to fathom. Perfect is an expectation that you can’t achieve in life until you realize to accept yourself for who you are. The conjecture of beauty and our bodies is set at a level that is insurmountable. To fathom this we can look at today’s society, if we aren’t what society wants we aren’t accepted. Society’s idealistic view on beauty is something we should not tolerate because we should accept people for who they are within themselves. In the dramatic monologues “Barbie Doll,” “Cinderella,” and “Applicant,” they are expected to either be something they aren’t, or desiring someone who isn’t even real.

Broadly looking at the reading materials, I have found that they are related to each other in different ways, but they all mentioned human behaviors or characteristics based on their contexts. The four annotations are Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth, John Berger’s From Ways of Seeing, Susan Bordo’s Beauty (Re)discovers the Make Body and Michael Foucault’s Panopticism. I will summarize the bibliographies first and annotate them individually with the comparisons of each reading to the keystone reading.

Its form, however, has varied over time. In the early 1900s, the Beauty Myth restrained women from exercising their independence. Society expected the ideal woman to be meek, obedient, and submissive to men. Even as time passed and they garnered their constitutional rights, women remained inferior to men. When women gained their political freedom, the focus of the ideal woman shifted from her role to her appearance. Women were no longer expected to be submissive housewives, but rather bikini-clad supermodels with curves. In today's society, the Beauty Myth is more prevalent than ever. As women gained power and authority-both socially and politically-the Beauty Myth also gained authority. Today, the Beauty Myth suppresses women not only physically, but psychologically. Some of the most profound women lack self-confidence solely because they do not fit a specific image of beauty determined by society. Although women are no longer suppressed politically, the Beauty Myth continues to suppress them physically and sexually (Wolf

Plastered on the tops of taxi cabs and magazine covers, a slim beautiful women pouts down at the littering of people bustling around. Often her head is cut out of the frame, or she is reduced to her body parts with only her chest or back showing. With long legs and a voluminous form, she is the essence of womanhood and emulates the modern women. Except, she doesn’t. Her arm brushed skin and contorted body is nothing like the average women she stares down at, and that's because she is a culmination of the male gazes influence of how a women should look and act throughout history. Womanhood has been influenced by the male gaze because women are brought up with symbols of women that are created by men. In western culture there is only male subjectivity

Women today are often bombarded with countless images of highly distorted and photo shopped creations that are meant to represent the ideal woman. Every time we turn on a TV, open a magazine, or visit YouTube; we get forced into consuming these images. With ads running like Victoria’s Secret’s “Perfect Body” campaign, which featured very non diverse thin models in lingerie. Across the image of all the women were the words the perfect

In the class reading, “The Beauty Myth” by Naomi Wolf, it discusses how women compare themselves to unrealistic beauty standards

Today’s society has ingrained in the minds of young men and women unrealistic standards of beauty,

In “The Beauty Myth,” Wolf explains “Contemporary standards of feminine beauty have devolved to a point that can only be described as anorexic, and America’s young women are paying the price through a near-epidemic of bulimia and anorexia” (486). Girls today do not feel comfortable in their own skin and try so hard to become somebody else. She says, “The beauty myth tells a story: the quality called “beauty” objectively and universally exists. Women must want to embody it and men must want to possess women who embody it” (Wolf 488). Women should want to feel beautiful, but not for herself, but for the approval from the male population. In this essay it talks about how women must also compete with other

The Beauty Myth was written by Naomi Wolf. It was originally published by William Morrow and Company in 1990 and then was republished by Harper Perennial in 2002. Naomi Wolf is an author, social critic and political activist that raise awareness in society and politics. She also encourages people to take control of their lives and voice their concerns in order to take control of their lives. She has written many books with her landmark book being the beauty myth in which she challenged cosmetic and marketing companies about unrealistic beauty ideas.

Every women wants to have a perfect body as like as a model’s body because they believe that model do have a perfect and beautiful body as compared to their body. Most of the women think that only slim body with blonde hair can make women beautiful. If women are not slim, then they think themselves that they were not much beautiful as they have to be, so they worship the body image and struggle a lot to become a slim. In the article “The Beauty Myth,” Naomi Wolf writes that “During the past decade, women breached the power structure; meanwhile, eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing medical specialty” (Wolf 119). This sentence of Wolf elaborate that problem of physical disorders like eating disorders

There has been increasing controversy surrounding the idea of how women should be portrayed in the media. Although the perception of beauty tends to change throughout the decades, the issue we are currently facing is that women are not equally represented in the media. Since the 2000’s, women featured in the magazines, ads, etc. have continually gotten skinnier and it has become common to see their photos edited to the point where the models, themselves, are unrecognizable. Promoting these women sends the message to young girls and women everywhere, that in order to be considered beautiful in the public-eye, it is obligatory to have flawless skin and a perfect body.