The Beauty Myth

Wolf begins the chapter by describing, in graphic detail, anorexia and bulimia affecting promising young men on college campuses. She uses terms like “well-born living skeleton,” “tailbones protruding,” and “papery skin” (179). She warns that “the sons of privilege are the future; the future is committing suicide” (180). Of course, this is not true: These illnesses primarily affect women. This antithetical device is meant to contrast the way the audience would react to what she considers more valuable victims—men. In the case of women, these ailments are accepted almost as a matter of fact and are usually attributed to individual issues and family circumstances rather than societal problems.

When Wolf first published The Beauty Myth, the work was hailed as a definitive text for third-wave feminism and an important text for the feminist movement at large. Since then, however, some have criticized Wolf for what they call a loose interpretation of statistics. The “Hunger” chapter is one of these instances. The author names her sources in two ways. One way is by citing the relevant publications or studies in the text by using their name, institution, and date. These references include Joan Jacobs Brumberg’s Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Modern Disease, which argues that between 5 and 10% of women in the US are affected by this illness. Roberta Pollack Seid’s Never Too Thin uses the same figures for young women in the US. Many of Wolf’s statistics, however, are not cited in the text or footnoted. The reader must consult the “Notes” section at the back, where references for each chapter are cited by page number.

Writing in The New Republic in June 2021, journalist Liza Featherstone questions Wolf’s approach to statistical information:

One of the elements of the book I remember as most persuasive was all the statistics. It turns out, however, that they’re highly questionable. To take just one instance, Wolf gives the reader the impression that eating disorders are an existential threat to the female human. Twice within two pages, she says such disorders have increased “exponentially,” but a 2012 review of historical epidemiological data since 1930 found no such thing. A 2004 academic paper demonstrated that more than two-thirds of Wolf’s anorexia stats were wrong; the author coined the acronym WOLF to describe her approach: “Wolf’s Overdo and Lie Factor.” Citing the 2004 paper at The New York Times, Parul Sehgal singled out one harrowing example: Where Wolf placed deaths from eating disorders at 150,000 annually, the actual number at the time was closer to 50 or 60. For comparison, 150,000 was the number of coronavirus deaths in the United States that had occurred by the end of July 2020; 38,000 is the number of car accident deaths annually in the U.S. In a patriarchal society, women do tend to be overlooked, but a mass extinction event is hard to miss (Featherstone, Liza “The Madness of Naomi Wolf,” The New Republic,).

Featherstone argues that exaggerating statistical information for shock value undermines Wolf’s overall argument. Such exaggeration is also unnecessary because real—smaller—numbers still make a powerful point. To her credit, Wolf does state that statistics on eating disorders are difficult to track at the time of writing, whereas the studies Featherstone cites came later.

Considering the way Wolf links women’s identity and self-perception with the beauty myth and dieting, her book would have benefitted from examining the other side of the coin: obesity. Wolf briefly touches upon this subject by citing a report from the Loyola University Sexual Dysfunction Clinic. This research states that heavier women experience less sexual anxiety and dysfunction than women with weight-loss disorders. This would indicate that the sort of all-consuming anxiety associated with anorexia and bulimia does not affect heavier people. However, more recent studies link childhood sexual abuse in girls—a subject also mentioned by Wolf in the Beauty Myth—with adult obesity. Olga Khazan wrote about this research in The Atlantic in 2015, sharing that childhood sexual abuse can be so traumatizing that it affects psychology and metabolism, and many survivors cope via food addiction (Khazan, Olga “The Second Assault,” The Atlantic). By analyzing both semi-starvation conditions and obesity—food as a source of fixation—The Beauty Myth would have presented a broader view of the problem.

Another issue is the Western art historic tradition. Wolf primarily searched for the portrayal of “plump” women from the Renaissance until the late 19th century. It is true that painters from different countries and periods, such as Rubens and Ingres, portrayed women in this way. Some art historians argue that being plump and pale was a sign of belonging to an upper class: having no need to work in the fields, thereby turning tan in the summer, and having access to more than a sufficient amount of food. In the 20th century, slender and often tan women appeared in consumer advertising, signaling their access to financial resources and leisure instead. However, Western art’s historic tradition is more nuanced. For example, High and Late Medieval manuscripts often depicted thin, pale noble women, as if they had been trapped in their castles. In contrast, classic Greco-Roman sculptures portrayed women with a fit muscle tone. Showing the diversity of women’s body types throughout the history of Western art would make Wolf’s argument of cultural specificity even stronger: The evolution of beauty standards across time and cultures highlights that these standards are arbitrary and meaningless.

Finally, in this chapter, the author relays many personal experiences with weight fluctuation. Her opening up about her struggles is a way to connect with the reader. Making herself vulnerable and providing personal anecdotes makes Wolf seem like she is not just a far-removed intellectual but an ordinary woman who shares similar experiences to other ordinary women.