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"BEAUTY MYTH, THE" (NAOMI WOLF).
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Review of book critiquing society's emphasis on importance of women's appearance.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Review of book critiquing society's emphasis on importance of women's appearance.
Paper Introduction:
Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth takes on the backlash against the women's movement which is embodied in the view of women as possessing worth in direct ratio to their possession of beauty. It is an urgent, angry book and the subject merits the urgency and the anger. But it is also a poorly written book in many respects and Wolf often does her subject a great disservice. Any reader who is already as angry about the subject as Wolf will simply have her/his ideas confirmed. That audience already understands Wolf's basic premises and, while there is much to be learned here even for those most interested in the subject, she is essentially preaching to an already converted audience. But there are also a great number of potential readers who do not engage in the same analytic and critical processes that Wolf and her already-converted audience use to arrive at these
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Makeup, Showalter writes, is kept in the ward box with its "stump of lipstick" and "box of blossom-pink powder." "It is not surprising," she [Showalter] concludes, "that in the female narrative [of schizophrenics] [Wolf's brackets] the hectoring spirit . And she is especially good whenshe is dealing primarily with a series of facts and sticks to them withoutstriving to find examples of dubious value. He delivers the running critique of appearance and performance that the woman has grown up with as part of her stream of consciousness" (99).Wolf then notes that "continual surveillance is used against politicalprisoners for similar reasons" and begins her next paragraph with "Thisritual use of surveillance is a vivid example of the real motivation behindthe myth" (99). Which "ritual use" is that? In many ways this is the kind of class andin-group bias that has often been a problem for feminism. After all, and this is an important point for Wolfwhen she remembers it, the voices of unknowingly coopted women--friends,mothers, teachers--are a major part of that endless stream that carries thepatriarchal message to the individual woman. As Wolf reiterates many times, it is women who buy into orunthinkingly accept the wider society's view of them who are incapable ofdeveloping a self-concept that is not based on these distortions. But it is also a poorlywritten book in many respects and Wolf often does her subject a greatdisservice. And surely schizophrenic menare driven by internal voices--which makes it seem highly suspect to assignthe patriarchal imperative as the reason that male voices speak toschizophrenic women. The paragraph continues, quotingShowalter, "In the asylums . . an asylum?). Do mentalhospitals not employ the same methods of surveillance to keep male patientstractable? Surely Showalter advances some intelligent argument inwhich this state of affairs is made plain. And surely the internal, driving voice ofschizophrenic women is a poor example of the internalizing of thepatriarchal imperative. Yet,without an attempt to explain the critical method used in the feministanalysis of patriarchal hegemony the novice reader will gather nothing butsome disconnected facts--which will be interpreted willy-nilly in casualconversation (and based on the most sensational examples) but will, in mostcases, have no lasting effect on how that individual looks at society andat her/himself. Thus when she says that "to beanorexic or bulimic is to be a political prisoner" there is nothinghyperbolic about the statement (2 8). New York: Anchor, 1992.NOTE TO CLIENTThe indented quotations from page 99 have to retain all their punctuationmarks because they indicate Wolf's quotations from Showalter and Fonda.This makes it look as though the indented quote is improperly placed inquotation marks, but the extent of Wolf's quoting is an important part ofthe argument and they must, therefore, be left in place if you choose to doany examples of this kind. Like so manyaspects of contemporary industrialized societies' notion of the femininethe weight factor also has a strong economic aspect--women who are unfitare incapable of moving into many of the areas traditionally limited tomale employment. But there are also a greatnumber of potential readers who do not engage in the same analytic andcritical processes that Wolf and her already-converted audience use toarrive at these conclusions. Any reader who is already as angry about the subject as Wolfwill simply have her/his ideas confirmed. It is an urgent, angry bookand the subject merits the urgency and the anger. Good examples of Wolf's extreme rhetorical difficulties can be foundin her chapter on the cult-like 'religion' that women make of their anxietyover their appearance. . She offers no details aboutprisoner surveillance (and why "political" prisoners and not criminals?)and so the "ritual" must refer to the surveillance of women in asylums (allasylums? This is one of the bestexamples of Wolf's ability to get to the politicized core of the oppressionof women. . This anxiety develops out of the social demand thatwomen place a premium on their appearance and behind that demand lies thepatriarchy's need to subject women to close control. . is almost invariably male. That audience alreadyunderstands Wolf's basic premises and, while there is much to be learnedhere even for those most interested in the subject, she is essentiallypreaching to an already converted audience. But she fails to achieve atone that is a reasonable balance between angry shouting and pedanticscholarship. But without an explanation Wolf has nothing to offer but the somewhatsensational comparison of women in asylums and women who subject themselvesto the relentless self-scrutiny and social scrutiny that truly constitutesconstant surveillance. This isnot to claim that Showalter may not be perfectly correct in all her points. Industrialprofit-makers generously 'allow' women to set themselves against eachother, subjecting themselves to an endless surveillance that underminestheir sense of self. The section on theadoption of high-class pornographic imagery as a tool for selling to womenis, for example, especially well managed. Presumably Showalter's book explains in some detail how women inasylums are, while being observed, "taught" to "watch themselves" and,thereby render themselves attractive objects "by being surveyed" (99). There aremany cases where a person, a religion, or a profession might claim thatdiscipline is liberation; one liberates oneself, for example, from earthlysnares by disciplining oneself to think only of the next life in heaven.Since the remark is offensive only in the very specific context of beingspoken by Fonda there is no point to the sarcastic "war is peace." And inthe context of feminist arguments it seems almost silly to assume that "waris peace" is equivalent to "work is freedom." She should be careful towhom she is speaking when she mocks the notion that work is, or can be,freedom. (This is another point that Wolf fails to makeexplicitly enough--the fact that most men are as brainwashed as women intobelieving that their socialized efforts to repress women are, somehow,natural types of behavior.) But, having begun to make her point about constant surveillance, Wolfoffers an example from a book about the incarceration of supposedly insanewomen in which the author (Elaine Showalter) "describes how surveillance isused in modern mental hospitals to keep women patients tractable" (99)."Women patients?," the reader asks. But when her words are takenout of context the whole passage is merely confusing. Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth takes on the backlash against thewomen's movement which is embodied in the view of women as possessing worthin direct ratio to their possession of beauty. Butany explanation of how the subject in Showalter's example becomes theobject of her own gaze, while also being the object of the hospital's gaze,is omitted by Wolf. The chapter on women's eatingdisorders is especially fine in the way it builds on the accumulation ofstatistics and the manner in which the obsessive focus on food and weighthas distracted women from more important matters. But she means to do nothing of the sort and the passage is justanother example of the way Wolf constantly stumbles over herself in tryingto heighten her arguments with eye-catching references to a prominentfemale scholar (Showalter), a sensational subject (asylums), and a patheticcelebrity victim/victimizer of the beauty myth. In this instance, Wolf's vividstatement is fully earned and deeply felt. . No onewould mistake her general ideas--or mistrust her good intentions. The concept is difficult toconvey but its impact, even on an audience brought up on the consumption ofsuch imagery, is bound to be eye-opening. This is a very importantpoint since it goes to the ways in which women are socialized into exertingthis type of unending surveillance over themselves and over each other and,not incidentally, the ways in which men are socialized into operating fromthis same point of view. The general argument of the book--that the beauty myth was invoked asa means of repressing women who had begun to rise from oppression--is solidand Wolf certainly lays out the main terms of the proposition well. Wolf'sarguments are very often cogently, lucidly presented. . The assumptionthat one's reader shares one's experiences, body of knowledge, criticalapproach, and educational background is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And many women internalize Big Brother's eye: Weight Watchers lets women pay for mutual surveillance (99-1 ).But what, precisely, is wrong with the statement she quoted? This is an excellent point that simply gets lost inWolf's muddied series of examples that demonstrate very little. Wolf's subject is so important that herideas should be made available to the widest possible audience. And often, very often, Wolf uses examples or demonstrativecases that are ill-chosen, ill-focused, irrelevant or seemingly irrelevant,and distract from her essential, reasonably thought-out points. Wolf amplifies her point by discussing the"sense of constant surveillance" under which women find themselves; everycalorie, every bulge, every lapse in appearance is--they come to believe--being counted up against them somewhere (99). women are encouraged, persuaded, and taught to become surveyors, 'to watch themselves being looked at,' and to make themselves attractive objects by being surveyed" (99). This possible audience is either willing tolearn or is suspicious--but curious--and needs to be included if the bookis going to do more than re-convince everyone who has already thought,known, assumed, discussed, or acted upon information and ideas of the typefound in the book. This is extremely poor polemical writing because the already-convinced audience is distracted by the inadequacy of Wolf's details whilethe novice audience will be either confused or misled by them. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used against Women. Work CitedWolf, Naomi. who jeers, judges, commands and controls . After explaining that women are watched in order to "make sure thatthey know they are being watched" (surely Showalter's lost point), Wolfengages in one of her sarcastic asides that is blunted by its lack of wit.Again, she quotes, "Discipline is liberation," writes exercise guru Jane Fonda, deaf to its echo: War is peace, work is freedom. The concise remark about WeightWatchers beautifully gets the whole subject down in one phrase. But when Wolf makes the transition back to her subject she shows howmuch punch her arguments can provide. Perhaps there is something different about the kind ofsurveillance used against women. This is a valid andvital point and there is nothing wrong with the religion metaphor or thebasic thinking behind it. ButWolf's book offers too little opportunity for more than a few women toincorporate its critique into their own lives. This is not an unusual moment in the book. Showalter may alsoexplain how the legitimate observation of the women in asylums (observed,surely, much as men in asylums are observed) is somehow excessive or isdifferent, in quantity or quality, from the observation of men. She doesnot sensationalize the topic in terms of the critical inferences she drawsor the magnitude she assigns to the problem. Wolf does an excellent job of displaying the relentlessbarrage of images, ideas, and orders given to women about their appearanceand relating them to questions of power. The ability to disable womenphysically or by means of the guilt the idea induces in them renders themless capable of looking out for their own best interests. On what points are men hectored by these voices ifwomen are given a "running critique of appearance and performance"? What about male patients? While Wolf's barrage of examples usually provideoverwhelming confirmation for the already-convinced, she provides no meansof access for the unprepared. At suchtimes Wolf looks much too narrowly at what appears in her immediate visionand does not seem to realize that she is undercutting the effectiveness ofher argument. She constructs her chapter carefully around the inherentlydisabling nature of the widespread belief that women need to weigh lessthan is healthy or normal for them. The book is written in a popular style (but with notes fordocumentation) and this is good.
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