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
The surgeons' market is imaginary, since there is nothing wrong with women's faces or bodies that social change won't cure; so the surgeons depend for their income on warping female self-perception and multiplying female self-hatred.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The beauty industry and societal standards create unrealistic expectations for women's appearances, leading to self-hatred.
Naomi Wolf's quote addresses the detrimental impact of societal expectations on women's self-perception. She argues that the market for cosmetic surgery is fueled by the manipulation of women's insecurities regarding their bodies and faces, suggesting that true change comes from social reform rather than surgical interventions. This highlights the need for a cultural shift to foster self-acceptance and combat the standards that perpetuate self-hatred among women.
Themes
WomenSelf-PerceptionBeauty StandardsSelf-HatredSocial Change
In practice
Example use cases
During a women's empowerment workshop, this quote could be used to spark a discussion on body positivity.
More from Naomi Wolf
All quotes →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.
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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.
Naomi WolfRead
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.
Naomi WolfRead
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