26 December 2008

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf




This book was recommended to me by my Criminology tutor when we were talking about feminism in class. No I am not a radical feminist or anything but I do believe that women and men are entitled to equal rights.
This book was separated into chapters such as Work, Sex, Hunger etc. The Hunger chapter especially interested me I suppose because I had and still do have an eating disorder. Although I don't agree with Wolf's tendency to blame it all on the media I can definitely see where she was coming from and it was illustrated brilliantly with her style of writing.
The chapter on Work shocked me, simply hearing about cases women have filed (and lost) in the USA, getting fired for being "too womanly" or "not womanly enough" or even better allowed to be sexually harassed because of the uniforms they were made to wear.
The Violence chapter also made me learn a lot simply about the sheer amount of it that is going on, I mean of course you hear about it every day in the paper etc etc etc but you never realise the enormity of it until it is put before you.
I think it's a good book to read purely for educational purposes, even if you see yourself as a radical anti-feminist. It's purely focused on the USA and there was a lot I didn't know.