Naomi Wolf's Beauty Myth

I first discovered Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth when my eighth grade science teacher handed me a copy to stick under a plank of wood for a project. At the time, I was mildly intrigued, and several weeks ago, I finally bought my own copy and began to read it.

The book is divided into chapters with general titles such as Sex or Violence, and with these chapters as her guide, Wolf carefully examines the major issues facing women today. These issues, according to Wolf, all lead back to the culture of beauty where women are forced into belonging.

The Beauty Myth (published in the 90's, but still relevant) is written rather dryly, with small tokens of wit and wisdom inserted. It's not meant to be a humorous book, but Wolf’s little jokes got my through the endless statistics. In addition, the book seemed only to focus on how these issues affect heterosexual whites. I would have liked to see how the “the beauty myth” affects other groups of people. Overall, however, the book was fascinating, dealing with many topics in a straightforward, immediate, way.