Free The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf Essay Sample

In this article, Naomi describes the manner in which the modern women has been carried away by physical beauty to the extent that she has forgotten all about equal rights including the right to vote, the right to work and the right for equal employment. After the rejuvenation of feminism in the early 1970s, the Western women acquired the rights to participate effectively in the growth of the economy when they acquired rights to higher education and pursue careers previously preserved for men. This was all replaced by the beauty myth in which women believe that the most beautiful women are successful in finding suitable mates while the most successful men compete for them. The beauty myth was however, a social fiction in which hard-working women were described as workaholic and not fit to sustain families. Women who did not concentrate on their beauty were cheap commodity in the marriage market and were shunned. The woman was expected to remain at home and her value only increased depending on her physical attraction. The beauty myth further gained grounds when industrialization and urbanization compelled one member of the family to work in the industries while leaving the others at home. In this case, the man was leaving for the workplace while leaving the woman at home.

The rise of the middle-class Western women however, disapproved the beauty myth. The women are wealth which has made men attempt to weaken them psychologically by using the beauty myth. The women have proved that they are serious and forces to reckon with towards industrial development and the growth of the economy. The beauty myth has thus been proved to a weapon used by men against the wealthy women to weaken them and demoralize them at the workplace. Naomi concludes by advising the women and the community at large to abandon the beauty myth. This is because the myth is just a fictional creation to weaken the women and hinder them from becoming production members of the society.