“Some women have become far too proscriptive of other women's pleasures and private arrangements, and the definition of feminism has become ideologically… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
When I was a baby feminist, leading feminist thinkers were insisting that if women ran the world, there would be no sadism… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
We are in the midst of a violent backlash againist feminism that uses images of female beauty as political weapons against women's… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“[The ideology of beauty] has grown strong to take over the work of social coercion that myths about motherhood, domesticity, chastity, and… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
Victorian feminists made the mistake of making membership of the sisterhood conditional on signing up to a particular policy agenda. Marxist feminists… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
I argue that we deserve the choice to do whatever we want with our faces and bodies without being punished by an… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Beauty" and sexuality are both commonly misunderstood as some transcendent inevitable fact; falsely interlocking the two makes it seem doubly true that… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
When women are pessimistic about their political strength and feel hopeless about changing the conditions of their lives, it is almost as… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Men who read it [beauty pornography] don't do so because they want women who look like that. The attraction of what they… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Why should her lover, just because he is male, be in a position to judge her against other women? Why must she… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Men are visually aroused by women's bodies and less sensitive to their arousal by women's personalities because they are trained early into… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Self-denial can lock women into a smug and critical condescension to other, less devout women. According to Appel, cult members develop..."an attitude… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“In a sexual double standard as to who receives consumer protection, it seems that if what you do is done to women… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Where woman do not fit the Iron Maiden [societal expectations/assumptions about women's bodies], we are now being called monstrous, and the Iron… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“At least a third of a woman's life is marked with aging; about a third of her body is made of fat.… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Young women today feel vulnerable to judgment; if a harsh sentence is passed (or even suspected or projected), it is not her… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Women understand that there are two distinct economies: There is physical attraction, and then there is the “ideal.” When a woman looks… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Modern cosmetic surgeons have a direct financial interest in a social role for women that requires them to feel ugly. They do… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“A man is unlikely to be brought within earshot of women as they judge men's appearance, height, muscle tone, sexual technique, penis… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“You could see the signs of female aging as diseased, especially if you had a vested interest in making women too see them your… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
Demographically, I'm a hippie from San Francisco and I'm not culturally inclined to be sympathetic to states' rights. My cultural heritage is FDR and… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
There's been a systematic propagandizing of American citizens for 30 years to make us forget what America is supposed to be and what our… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
Maybe the less pain we inflict on our bodies, the more beautiful our bodies will look to us — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
“The rise of the beauty myth was just one of several emerging social fictions that masqueraded as natural components of the feminine sphere, the… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
The Victorian woman became her ovaries, as today's woman has become her "beauty. — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
“The anthropologist Margaret Mead concluded in 1948, after observing seven different ethnic groups in the Pacific Islands, that different cultures made different forms of… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
What becomes of a man who acquires a beautiful woman, with her "beauty" his sole target? He sabotages himself. He has gained no friend,… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
“Beauty” is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
“Rape and sexual assault ... should be understood not just as a form of forced sex, they should also be understood as as a… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
“The qualities that a given period calls beautiful in women are merely symbols of the female behavior that that period considers desirable: The beauty… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
To live in a culture in which women are routinely naked where men aren't is to learn inequality in little ways all day long. — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
a white person who claims to have no impediment of vision in this country is not, I think, telling the whole truth. And when… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
“The beauty myth sets it up this way: A high rating as an art object is the most valuable tribute a woman can exact… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share
“Societies tell themselves necessary fictions in the same way that individuals and families do. Henrik Ibsen called them “vital lies,” and psychologist Daniel Goleman… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share