The world has changed - a bit - over the past decade and a half, but not enough: this remains essential reading.

'Or you could tell the truth: 75% of women are shaped like that, and soft, rounded hips and thighs and bellies were perceived as desirable and sensual without question until women got the vote.' Ouch! A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers. 'When you see the way a woman's curves swell at the hips and again at the thighs, you could claim that that is an abnormal deformity,' writes Wolf. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. It might have benefited from some robust pruning. And why? Because 'advertisers are the west's courteous censors'. They have done more to bring feminism to the female masses than any feminist periodical, she says, but 'the formula must also include an element that contradicts and then undermines the overall pro-woman fare: in diet, skin care, and surgery features, it sells women the deadliest version of the beauty myth money can buy'. Wolf argues that women's magazines have played a pivotal role in the selling of the beauty myth. (Men, as Wolf notes with some prescience, would be well advised to listen up: powerful industries have a vested interest in them feeling old and ugly too.) An 'anti-ageing' cream, say, or a blouse very little different from the blouses they already have. rating 22,333 Ratings The bestselling classic that redefined our view of the relationship between beauty and female identity. Then big money makes an entrance, and it all gets nice and clear: women who feel old and ugly will buy things they do not need. The Beauty Myth (Vintage Feminism Short Edition) - Naomi Wolf - Google Books Vintage Feminism: classic feminist texts in short formWITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOREvery day, women around.

Wolf uses the phrase 'cultural conspiracy' it's hard to imagine exactly who the conspirators might be.

Author the beauty myth