'But there are a lot of misreadings of this book going around right now. 'First, I want to say I honor and revere Betty Friedan and I owe my life to her,' Ms. Greer wrote in 1973), Louise Bernikow and Fay Weldon, the reactions of Ms. Although the cover of her book carries blurbs of praise from such respected feminists as Germaine Greer (who called it 'the most important feminist publication since 'The Female Eunuch,' ' the book Ms. Naomi Wolf, curled up on a sofa in her boyfriend's tiny apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, listens with interest to such criticism. Although I would add that if you want to call this a male conspiracy, you have to agree that women are co-conspirators in it.' I think the real danger lies in the new feminine mystique that tells women to go back home again, and that preoccupation with sidebars on beauty is a digression from the real need to address the terrible social problems women need to face.'Īnother well-known feminist author, Susan Brownmiller, has a different caveat about 'The Beauty Myth.' She says it's a book that reinvents the wheel: 'I wrote that book and published it in 1984 - it was called 'Femininity.' And while I think her points are valid I felt I covered all that material and did it very well. I don't think the great enemies of women today are beauty pornography or beauty preoccupation. Friedan, 'but I think the message is a bit distorted and it gives me some concern. 'I welcome the book as a new voice attacking some of the backlash against women's rights,' says Ms. Betty Friedan, the woman who in 1963 wrote 'The Feminine Mystique,' is one such dissenter. Wolf's argument that the beauty myth is the major hurdle facing women today comes from other feminists.

Interestingly enough, some of the resistance to Ms. Surgeons, called horrible names by people who sell cosmetics, called really evil things by people who run modeling agencies or charm schools or are involved in what I call beauty pornography - I still don't understand the more personal resistance.' It's either intense, intense resistance - what I would call denial - in which people say, 'What's wrong with people discriminating against women on the basis of their appearance?' Or it's a recognition that my argument is so persuasive that it changes the way you think.'Īnd while she understands the hostility shown by 'people whose livelihoods I threaten - I've been screamed at by cosmetic 'The response is completely conditional on a given woman's life experience. Wolf, in a voice that is soft but intense.

'No one seems to have a neutral response to the book,' says Ms.

The beauty myth author