Naomi Wolf The Beauty Myth Quotes & Sayings

The mass depiction of the modern woman as a "beauty" is a contradiction: Where modern women are growing, moving, and expressing their individuality, as the myth has it, "beauty" is by definition inert, timeless, and generic. That this hallucination is necessary and deliberate is evident in the way "beauty" so directly contradicts women's real situation. — Naomi Wolf

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. — Naomi Wolf

Vogue began to focus on the body as much as on the clothes, in part because there was little they could dictate with the anarchic styles ... In a stunning move, an entire replacement culture was developed by naming a 'problem' where it had scarcely existed before, centering it on the women's natural state, and elevating it to the existential female dilemma ... The number of diet-related articles rose 70 percent from 1968 to 1972 ... The lucrative 'transfer of guilt' was resurrected just in time. — Naomi Wolf

Since middle-class Western women can best be weakened psychologically now that we are stronger materially, the beauty myth, as it has resurfaced in the last generation, has had to draw on more technological sophistication and reactionary fervor than ever before. The modern arsenal of the myth is a dissemination of millions of images of the current ideal; although this barrage is generally seen as a collective sexual fantasy, there is in fact little that is sexual about it. It is summoned out of political fear on the part of male-dominated institutions threatened by women's freedom, and it exploits female guilt and apprehension about our own liberation
latent fears that we might be going too far. — Naomi Wolf

I have three copies of the first edition, which sold in double figures, speaking loosely; there was a moment when Blond's 'Lord Malquist and Mr Moon' sold 67 copies, or some such number, in Venezuela - a mystery I never solved. I have never been to Venezuela. I remember going into Foyles' bookshop in 1966 and being gratified to see a stack of Malquist-and-Moons on the New Fiction table. I counted them; there were twelve. A week or two later I went in again; there they were. I counted them again; there were thirteen! I saw at once what was happening. People were leaving my book at bookshops. — Tom Stoppard

the central rule of the myth: For every feminist action there is an equal and opposite beauty myth reaction. — Naomi Wolf

As women demanded access to power, the power structure used the beauty myth materially to undermine women's advancement. — Naomi Wolf

Spokespeople sell women the Iron Maiden and name her "Health": if public discourse were really concerned with women's health, it would turn angrily upon this aspect of the beauty myth. — Naomi Wolf

Words that are full of hurt sometimes need to be left in the air where they have been spoken. — Alexander McCall Smith

The beauty myth moves for men as a mirage; its power lies in its ever-receding nature. When the gap is closed, the lover embraces only his own disillusion. — Naomi Wolf

There is no legitimate historical or biological justification for the beauty myth; what it is doing to women today is a result of nothing more exalted than the need of today's power structure, economy, and culture to mount a counteroffensive against women. — Naomi Wolf

The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behaviour and not appearance. — Naomi Wolf

I'm a really good cook. I bake a lot. I cook dinner most nights. I cook everything from Italian food to Mexican food. But if I'm going to some place and it's a potluck, I'm always the one to bring dessert! — Amanda Schull

The beauty myth of the present is more insidious than any mystique of femininity yet: A century ago, Nora slammed the door of the doll's house; a generation ago, women turned their backs on the consumer heaven of the isolated multiapplianced home; but where women are trapped today, there is no door to slam. The contemporary ravages of the beauty backlash are destroying women physically and depleting us psychologically. If we are to free ourselves from the dead weight that has once again been made out of femaleness, it is not ballots or lobbyists or placards that women will need first; it is a new way to see. — Naomi Wolf

The beauty myth posited to women a false choice: Which will I be, sexual or serious? We must reject that false and forced dilemma. Men's sexuality is taken to be enhanced by their seriousness; to be at the same time a serious person and a sexual being is to be fully human. Let's turn on those who offer this devil's bargain and refuse to believe that in choosing one aspect of the self we must thereby forfeit the other. In a world in which women have real choices, the choices we make about our appearance will be taken at last for what they really are: no big deal. — Naomi Wolf

As soon as a woman's primary social value could no longer be defined as the attainment of virtuous domesticity, the beauty myth redefined it as the attainment of virtuous beauty. It did so to substitute both a new consumer imperative and a new justification for economic unfairness in the workplace where the old ones had lost their hold over newly liberated women. — Naomi Wolf

Only then will women be able to talk about what "beauty" really involves: the attention of people we do not know, rewards for things we did not earn, sex from men who reach for us as for a brass ring on a carousel, hostility and scepticism from other women, adolescence extended longer than it ought to be, cruel aging, and a long hard struggle for identity. And we will learn that what is good about "beauty" - the promise of confidence, sexuality, and the self-regard of a healthy individuality - are actually qualities that have nothing to do with "beauty" specifically, but are deserved by and, as the myth is dismantled, available to all women. The best that "beauty" offers belongs to us all by right of femaleness. When we separate "beauty" from sexuality, when we celebrate the individuality of our features and characteristics, women will have access to a pleasure in our bodies that unites us rather than divides us. The beauty myth will be history. — Naomi Wolf

Kelly?" Owen called, "You want breakfast?"
"Does Gabe have pants on yet?"
"I'm on it," Gabe promised.
"Then yeah. — Olivia Cunning

Your ideas, thoughts and intentions are the seeds of creation, and your attention is the powerful tool that drives energy toward the object or outcome that you want to create. Your positive emotion and passionate action add power to the creative process. — Ilchi Lee

All human beings are born with equal and inalienable rights and fundamental freedoms. The United Nations is committed to upholding, promoting and protecting the human rights of every individual. This commitment stems from the United Nations Charter, which reaffirms the faith of the peoples of the world in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations has stated in clear and simple terms the rights which belong equally to every person. These rights belong to you. They are your rights. Familiarize yourself with them. Help to promote and defend them for yourself as well as for your fellow human beings. — United Nations

I think there will be PCs at every price point. — Bill Gates

I want to play Wonder Woman really badly. I want them to make the movie of 'Wonder Woman', and I want to play Wonder Woman so bad. That'd be really fun. — Jennifer Love Hewitt

It is more important to be a good person than a good player. — Toni Nadal

I just miss it. Reading. I miss reading." Stiles' face is turned in the other direction now. Away from Derek. Derek, who has never contemplated that reading isn't a given for everyone in this country. Up until now, he has assumed that some people love to read and those who don't like it deserve longer jail sentences if they ever commit a crime. — Vendelin

The beauty myth is not about women at all. It is about men's institutions and institutional power. — Naomi Wolf

One is only happy in proportion as he makes others feel happy and only useful as he contributes his influences for the finer callings in life. — Milton S. Hershey

Is the beauty myth good to men? It hurts them by teaching them how to avoid loving women. It prevents men from actually seeing women. It does not, contrary to its own professed ideology, stimulate and gratify sexual longing. In suggesting a vision in place of a woman, it has a numbing effect, reducing all senses but the visual, and impairing even that. — Naomi Wolf

Their imperfect record at awards shows was disappointing, sure, but the best prize of all came when, on February 4, 1986, President Ronald Reagan name-checked and quoted directly from the movie - where we're going, we don't need roads - in his State of the Union address. — Caseen Gaines

A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women's history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one. — Naomi Wolf

Saying it's hard is ultimately a justification to do what seems like the easiest thing to do
have the affair, stay at that horrible job, end a friendship over a slight, keep loving someone who treats you terribly. — Cheryl Strayed

No one would ever cast me as an aristocrat. I think the big thing about being an Irish artist is access to melancholy. Especially the American Irish. The availability of loss, some kind of pain, is an important part of who we are. I think my Irishness gave me that. — Brian Dennehy

We need to insist on making culture out of our desire: making paintings, novels, plays and films potent and seductive and authentic enough to undermine and overwhelm the Iron Maiden. — Naomi Wolf

No matter what a woman's appearance may be, it will be used to undermine what she is saying and taken to individualize - as her personal problem - observations she makes about the beauty myth in society. — Naomi Wolf