A culture fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.
Naomi WolfRead
Looking back on 200 years of feminist agitation in this country, we've got to get it that the moral high ground doesn't get us anything. Pleading with powerful men never gets us what we need. Talking doesn't do it. Being right doesn't do it. Hardball politics does it ... and a political strategy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that moral arguments alone do not achieve change; effective political strategies are necessary.
Naomi Wolf argues that history shows that moral high ground and pleading for rights do not lead to tangible results in feminist movements. Instead, she advocates for a more aggressive and strategic approach to politics as a means of achieving true progress and securing women's rights, indicating that effective change requires action beyond moral debates.
Themes
FeminismPoliticsPowerChangeStrategy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech at a women's rights rally to emphasize the importance of political action.
More from Naomi Wolf
All quotes →The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon them.
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The woman wins who calls herself beautiful, and challenges the world to change to fit her vision.
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The beauty myth moves for men as a mirage; its power lies in its ever-receding nature. When the gap is closed, the lover embraces only his own disillusion.
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Our society does reward beauty on the outside over health on the inside. Women must not be blamed for choosing short-term beauty "fixes" that harm our long-term health, since our life spans are inverted under the beauty myth, and there is no great social or economic incentive for women to live a long time.
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Peaceful, lawful protest - if it is effective - IS innately disruptive of “business as usual.” That is WHY it is effective.
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