In the struggle for women's equality, there is one subject still shrouded in silence - women's compulsive pursuit of beauty. The myth of female beauty challenges every woman, every day of her life.
Naomi Wolf exposes the tyranny of the beauty myth through the ages and its oppressive function today, in the home and at work, in literature and the media, in relationships between men and women, between women and women. With pertinent and intelligent examples, she confronts the beauty industry and its advertising and uncovers the reasons why women are consumed by this destructive obsession.
'A brilliant, bracing book...this remains essential reading' Guardian
The struggle for gender equality has played out alongside the unchanging belief that women must be beautiful. In this groundbreaking work of feminism, Naomi Wolf argues that our all-pervading emphasis on the importance of female beauty entraps women in the ceaseless pursuit of a physical ideal and colours perceptions of women at home, at work, in the media and in public life. With razor sharp insight and fascinating examples, Wolf exposes the tyranny of the beauty myth, its oppressive function and the destructive obsession in engenders.
See also: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
