SOURCE: Yalom, Marilyn. “Feminism's Latest Makeover.” Washington Post Book World (16 June 1991): 7.

In the following excerpt, Yalom offers a positive assessment of The Beauty Myth.

Periodically throughout our century the debate on women's position in society swells to daunting proportions. For the past two decades, it has pervaded the media in countless books, articles, films, plays and television shows, with no signs of abating. American women's gains in the workplace and homeplace are weighed against their losses. White middle-class women are contrasted to their working-class and minority counterparts. Feminist aspirations are evaluated in the context of antifeminist backlash and resurgent sexism. Economic, legal and psychological indices are cited to support visions of progress or despair. William Chafe, in his book The Paradox of Change, quotes the Dickensian “best of times, worst of times” phrase to capture this ambiguous assessment of American women's lives. …

In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf...