“The beauty myth sets it up this way: A high rating as an art object is the most valuable tribute a woman… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Women are mere "beauties" in men's culture so that culture can be kept male. When women in culture show character, they are… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“The beauty myth of the present is more insidious than any mystique of femininity yet: A century ago, Nora slammed the door… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“She may resent Playboy because she resents feeling ugly in sex--or, if "beautiful," her body defined and diminished by pornography. It inhibits… — 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
“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
“We do not have to spend money and go hungry and struggle and study to become sensual; we always were. We need… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Why does the social order feel the need to defend itself by evading the fact of real women, our faces and voices… — 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
“Women could probably be trained quite easily to see men first as sexual things. If girls never experienced sexual violence; if a… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Sadly, the signals that allow men and women to find the partners who most please them are scrambled by the sexual insecurity… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Whatever is deeply, essentially female--the life in a woman's expression, the feel of her flesh, the shape of her breasts, the transformations… — 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
“Never," enjoins a women's magazine, "mention the size of his [penis] in public...and never, ever let him know that anyone else knows… — 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
“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
“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
“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
“A consequence of female self-love is that the woman grows convinced of social worth. Her love for her body will be unqualified,… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Sexual satisfaction eases the stranglehold of materialism, since status symbols no longer look sexual, but irrelevant. Product lust weakens where emotional and… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“For the first time in history, children are growing up whose earliest sexual imprinting derives not from a living human being, or… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Our society does reward beauty on the outside over health on the inside. Women must not be blamed for choosing short-term beauty… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have… — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“Their [girls] sexual energy, their evaluation of adolescent boys and other girls goes thwarted, deflected back upon the girls, unspoken, and their… — 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Maybe the less pain we inflict on our bodies, the more beautiful our bodies will look to us — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“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 Image
The Victorian woman became her ovaries, as today's woman has become her "beauty. — Naomi Wolf Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
