Western women have been controlled by ideals and stereotypes as much as by material constraints. Naomi Wolf More Quotes by Naomi Wolf More Quotes From Naomi Wolf To live in a culture in which women are routinely naked where men aren't is to learn inequality in little ways all day long. So even if we agree that sexual imagery is in fact a language, it is clearly one that is already heavily edited to protect men's sexual - and hence social - confidence while undermining that of women. Naomi Wolf men long culture To me, my version of feminism, it's co-extensive with human rights and democracy. It's just part of the same fight for everyone being free, and having autonomy and dignity. It's not pitting one gender against another, it's not saying anything is better, it's just clearing away injustice. Naomi Wolf democracy fighting rights We as women are trained to see ourselves as cheap imitations of fashion photographs, rather than seeing fashion photographs as cheap imitations of women Naomi Wolf imitation fashion photograph For I conclude that the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; that we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious--or whatever we please; we are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution. Naomi Wolf cowboy guilt enemy The woman wins who calls herself beautiful, and challenges the world to change to fit her vision. Naomi Wolf challenges winning beautiful A cultural fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience. Naomi Wolf women motivational beauty A Mother who radiates self-love and self-acceptance actually VACCINATES her daughter against low self-esteem. Naomi Wolf daughter self-esteem mother Culture stereotypes women to fit the myth by flattening the feminine into beauty-without-intelligence or intelligence-without-beauty; women are allowed a mind or a body but not both. Naomi Wolf body mind culture Only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth, and that is not speaking. Naomi Wolf women-empowerment empowering-women truth Women who are beautiful or who achieve beauty according to the imposed standards are rewarded; those who cannot or choose not to be beautiful are punished, economically and socially. Naomi Wolf standards achieve beautiful 'Beauty' is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West is is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact. Naomi Wolf self-esteem gold age 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. Naomi Wolf perception hatred self-esteem Sexiness is no longer defined just as whether we are desirable, but also what we desire. The more liberated women become - economically, politically, and personally - the more erotic we are. Freedom is a lot sexier than dependency. Naomi Wolf sexiness erotic desire When [beauty pornography is] aimed at men, its effect is to keep them from finding peace in sexual love. The fleeting chimera of the airbrushed centerfold, always receding before him, keeps the man destabilized in pursuit, unable to focus on the beauty of the woman--known, marked, lined, familiar—-who hands him the paper every morning. Naomi Wolf morning men hands Women who love themselves are threatening; but men who love real women, more so. Naomi Wolf real self-esteem men I argue that we deserve the choice to do whatever we want with our faces and bodies without being punished by an ideology that is using attitudes, economic pressure, and even legal judgments regarding women's appearance to undermine us psychologically and politically. Naomi Wolf body choices attitude Peaceful, lawful protest - if it is effective - IS innately disruptive of “business as usual.” That is WHY it is effective. Naomi Wolf protest peaceful usual Cosmetic surgery processes the bodies of woman-made women, who make up the vast majority of its patient pool, into man-made women. Naomi Wolf majority self-esteem men Is the beauty myth good to men? It hurts them by teaching them how to avoid loving women. It prevents men from actually seeing women. It does not, contrary to its own professed ideology, stimulate and gratify sexual longing. In suggesting a vision in place of a woman, it has a numbing effect, reducing all senses but the visual, and impairing even that. Naomi Wolf self-esteem teaching hurt What becomes of a man who acquires a beautiful woman, with her 'beauty' his sole target? He sabotages himself. He has gained no friend, no ally, no mutual trust: She knows quite well why she has been chosen. He has succeeded in buying something: the esteem of other men who find such an acquisition impressive. Naomi Wolf no-friends beautiful men
