The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women

“The Beauty Myth” is a cult work by American writer and journalist Naomi Wolf. In it, the author explains where stereotypical ideas about women’s beauty come from and why they restrict women’s freedom no less than patriarchal “domestic slavery.” Physical perfection becomes an obsessive idea for women, and not matching it becomes a source of suffering. But even when a woman reaches the ideal, she still loses, because she sacrifices her natural beauty, health, energy, sexuality, and sometimes her life to the accepted standard of appearance. The author argues that in the modern world a woman can decide for herself how she wants to live and look, without looking back at the dictates of the merciless “beauty myth.” Undoubtedly, the book can be interesting and useful for men as well, because in the course of its transformation the myth involves them more and more in the sphere of its influence, imposing even on them sometimes harsh and senseless rules. Translated into dozens of languages, “The Beauty Myth” became a bestseller in many countries around the world. To date, this is the loudest, most quoted, and most discussed feminist work.