Naomi Wolf

Good arguments but presented really poorly. The first couple of chapters talk about the beauty myth like a conspiracy, as if there's a group of men holding meetings going "Hmm, how shall we make women feel inferior this time?" Naomi Wolf never clearly identifies "the oppressors" (which I infer from the text that it's a combination of various factors, including social hierarchy, the economy, and so on) though she does mention much later in the book that regular men are not into the thinness and beauty standards set by the beauty myth. For most of the book she writes as if women are victims with no agency of their own, and her very brief discussion of eating disorders reduces the women who suffer from them to victims who caved into societal and cultural pressure, whereas it comes from a combination of things including depression and genetics, rather than simply aggressive advertising. It's really a shame, since this is such an important topic that everyone, male or female, should read about, but it's just written about so poorly here, with little evidence to back things up. Despite these flaws, Wolf does, however, paint a very clear and precise picture of the ways that women's minds and bodies are attacked (psychologically, metaphorically) on a daily basis.… (mer)

I've never been a supporter of the ACLU, specifically because they tend to make news when they've helped free a known guilty party on some flimsy technicality, and it offends my sense of right and wrong. And the ACLU will say, I'm sure, that they perform an essential service in our Democracy and protecting the rights of all citizens by keeping the Government from gradually encroaching upon our Constitutionally guaranteed rights. Naomi Wolf, in her book, seems to make the case of the importance of the ACLU without ever mentioning them. The point of her book, as I see it, is that our freedom and democracy can only be maintained by being vigilant and watchful, and protective against gradual government incursions into our guaranteed freedoms. The book is somewhat dated reading it in 2012, since the target of most of her barbs are directed at the Bush Administration. While sounding something like a Handbook of Paranoia, Naomi Wolf cites example after example of how our post-9/11 government has started on a path of restricting individual liberty through passing the Patriot Act, giving authority to the President to designate anyone, citizen or non-citizen, an enemy combatant and lock him / her away without safeguards, by setting up Guantanamo and secret renditions of suspects, by intimidating professors or political opponents, etc. And she then goes on to show how various totalitarian governments in the past such as Stalin's Soviet Republic, Hitler's German Republic, or Mussolini's Fascist Italy used similar tactics to gradually restrict individual liberty in those countries, and impose their will over the people in their individual power grabs. Her point being that we have to be mindful of these encroachments, not passively accept them, and be vigilant in order to protect our freedom and liberties.… (mer)