I want to read something about the pressure women are under to be attractive

[Queeniethecorgi]

Something about how we're all conditioned to think that beauty is power and that being attractive is the most important thing a woman can be. Also about women's weight. Does this book exist? I thought about Fat is a Feminist issue but would like something a bit more contemporary.

I'd say the three main books that cover this area are:

Naomi Wolf - The Beauty Myth
Natasha Walter - Living Dolls
Sheila Jeffries - Beauty and Misogyny

Pornland (Gail Dines) shows how porn affects society including changing beauty practices (although it mainly deals with sexuality and can be quite harrowing in places so I wouldn't start off with this one!)

Cinderella ate my daughter (Peggy Orenstein) may also cover this.

Living Dolls is brilliant.

The Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard covers this issue too.

Female Chauvinist Pigs, by Ariel Levy is really great too.

The bible is full of stories where women are put down for one reason or another!
There is a guide on the web somewhere that highlights the relevant passages!

Naomi wolf beauty myth is an interesting read

Yes, fab book. Totally ripped-off from Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, mind, and Wolf's subsequent stuff is very disappointing. Beauty Myth is great though.

I've just ordered Living Dolls, thanks for the recommendation.

Read The Beauty Myth years ago and while it raises some interesting and valid points, I was always very conflicted over the author. Naomi Wolf received a hell of a lot of media attention at the time, in part I'm sure down to her excessive good looks.

Now maybe she was right to exploit her looks for the cause, I don't know but to my insecure 16 year old self, she seemed horribly disingenuous.

I find Naomi Wolf rather disappointing as a feminist role model, tbh. She seems to have gone pretty far off the rails after The Beauty Myth- some of her comments on rape, and her support of Julian Assange have really disillusioned me.

Her latest book, Vagina, was a lot of hokum-I had to agree with Suzanne Moore's memorable hatchet job of it in The Guardian here. Well worth a read.

She was somewhat eviscerated for the dodgy biological determinism and the fundamentally rich white privilege the book embodied in the mumsnet webchat she gave about it, too .

Whoops, I cocked up there. Try this- it was very interesting.