During the past decade, women breached the power structure; meanwhile, eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing medical speciality. During the past five years, consumer spending doubled, pornography became the main media category, ahead of legitimate films and records combined, and thirty-three thousand American woman told researchers that they would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal. More women have more money and power and scope and legal recognition than we have ever had before; but in terms of how we feel about ourselves physically, we may actually be worse off than our unliberated grandmothers. (10)

Women are told that losing weight will make them feel sexier but it often has the reverse effect. A healthy amount of fat is a female characteristic contributing to stable hormones, fertility and sexual desire; b

For the woman who cannot locate in her worldview a reasonable objection to images of naked, "beautiful" women to whom nothing bad is visibly being done, what is it that can explain the damage she feels within? Her silence itself comes from the myth: If women feel ugly, it is our fault, and we have no inalienable right to feel sexually beautiful. A woman must not admit it if she objects to beauty pornography because it strikes to the root of her sexuality by making her feel sexually unlovely. (148)

There was the moment I stepped on a scale when I was ten and saw that I weighed 92 pounds. I didn't even know what that meant but it was too much. There were the half-naked bikini models on glossy paper, common decor of boys' school lockers visible to me when I was twelve and everyday after that. Or hiding in the library pouring over Seventeen magazine, trying to figure out how to be pretty and what sexuality was all about. Exercising to punish my body for what I'd ingested the day before, weeks of eating very few carbs and letting numbers determine my value. Being sexually harassed while waiting tables at a family diner when I was 22 and always blaming myself, never speaking up. Hating my body and being terrified of nakedness when I should have been over the moon with soon to be married bliss.I just read "The Beauty Myth" by Naomi Wolf and all these memories have been coming up, I've scribbled them into the margins of my thrift shop purchase. I don't agree with all of her conclusions but something has been torn open in my mind, some paradigm is shifting, some hope is being sparked. I was raised with a good amount of self-esteem for a girl growing up in small town America, attending a public school. I made pretty good choices, did well in academics and sports, got a four year degree from a liberal arts college and have traveled to a few amazing places. At 25 I met a boy and married him when I was 27; I have two children and my husband sees me as his equal in all ways. I have a community of people, across oceans and down the street, who love and care for me. I'm a privileged person and a confident, passionate, "liberated" woman. I wrote a love letter to my body which is one of my most widely read posts The premise of Wolf's book is that the more women break through historical hindrances, whether that be legal or material (the right to vote, the right to work outside of the home, positions of leadership) the more images of female beauty are used to constrict and control them. She writes this in 1990, when I was only a child, but I think many of these problems have only gotten worse:Wolf points to advertisers as the biggest players in determining what women think about themselves, because our economy is fairly dependent on their buying power. In the 1950s the "Feminine Mystique" told women that their value was in being a good wife, good mother and good homemaker and then sold them home products to help them achieve that mythical status. When women left homemaking for the workplace in the 60s, a new force was needed to compel 'insecure consumerism': if women were no longer buying more things for their house, could they be convinced to buy more things for their body?(66)Women's magazines that often featured pro-women content and had the potential to unite women for a common cause would lose large amounts of money from advertisers if they didn't also propogate the mythical ideal woman. The focus on beauty in magazines is primarily an economic one, where "what editors are obliged to appear to say thatwant from women is actually what theirwant from women."(73) Wolf goes on to say that it's not sex that sells in advertising as much asHello, retail therapy? It's a real thing and much more insidious than we think.Wolf's chapter entitled "Sex" is fascinating. I underlined about half of it and then read it all out loud to my husband. The images of women that we see in, what Wolf calls, "beauty pornography" shapes our understandings (and mostly lack of understanding) of women's bodies.ecoming thinner through hunger and dieting can decrease a woman's libido, especially when the motivation is self-deprecation, something never satisfied no matter what the scale reads.We agree that violent pornography and violence against women in the media has devastating affects on how we understand sex, rape and our own self-worth as humans, increasing violence and abuse in our families and relationships. But what about images of naked or near naked women who are not having any harm done to them? Why does this bother us so much? Wolf writes,"Beauty pornography", the stuff we see daily in magazines, billboards and posters in the mall, makes women feel inadequate. We will never look like her and therefore we will never reach the mythical status of 'beautiful'. The objectification and comparison of women's bodies publicly is such a normal part of our culture (while it is very different for male bodies) that we are trained as little girls to do this to ourselves. Women are asked to measure up to a hybrid ideal that, especially today, is computer generated (but we are convinced is real and possible even when we know better). The Beauty Myth operates in a way that says, "You too can be beautiful like her if you just wear this, eat this, put this on your face, have your hair coloured like this; if you are not like her it is your own fault." But models portrayed in beauty pornography will never look like real women because if they did then we would realize we don't need to buy the stuff they're paid to sell.This public and private comparison robs women of their own innate dignity and it robs women in relationships from receiving love from their partners.Early in our marriage I really struggled with the fact that I didn't suddenly feel beautiful and attractive all the time. I blamed Chris because if he would just say it more or say it in public or say it at the right moments, when my eyes are asking him what he thinks, THEN I would finally know that I was beautiful. We had quite a few arguments rooted in this and it was painful to feel forced to say "I want to know that you think I'm beautiful". It quickly turned to anger because why in the world did I so badly want him to judge me at all?That's the power of the beauty myth. It makes us be crazy and obsessive and fearful and competitive and it's not just our problem and it's not just "a mysterious hormonal woman thing"; it's a force that is trying to stop women from reaching their full potential.What is the path out of the beauty myth? Wolf closes her book with the question, "Whatwe see?" (291) So much of the beauty myth's power will be broken as we challenge ourselves to see anew, to redefine beauty as something that all women carry, that is non-hierarchical and non-competitive. Weenough and other women are too. We alreadybeautiful, we don't need to diet or get new clothes or cover up our acne or make love with the lights dim and we don't need to rank ourselves among other real or mythical women.Changing our habitual thought patterns takes time, maybe it takes years, but we must do it for our own selves and our communities but also for our daughters and sons. Sarah Bessey wrote over two years ago, "In which I promise not to call myself fat" and it's really resonated with me now that my children are growing and listening and telling our family's story with their own words. It may be a struggle throughout my whole life but I have so much hope that the next generation will have eyes to see what is truly there.*(thanks for the pictures, Spiro)Read Part 2 here: Breaking the Beauty Myth (with 16 Girls in a Turkish Bath)