Editing Naomi Wolf (section)

====Reception====
[[Second-wave feminism|Second-wave feminist]] [[Germaine Greer]] wrote that ''The Beauty Myth'' was "the most important feminist publication since ''[[The Female Eunuch]]''" (Greer's own work), and [[Gloria Steinem]] wrote, "''The Beauty Myth'' is a smart, angry, insightful book, and a clarion call to freedom. Every woman should read it."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780385423977-7 |title=The Beauty Myth|publisher=Powells.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629041335/http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780385423977-7|archive-date=June 29, 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> British novelist [[Fay Weldon]] called the book "essential reading for the New Woman".<ref name=peopleMagazine>Kim Hubbard, [http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20115393,00.html The Tyranny of Beauty, To Naomi Wolf, Pressure to Look Good Equals Oppression] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303194421/http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20115393,00.html |date=March 3, 2016 }}, ''[[People (American magazine)|People]]'', June 24, 1991.</ref> [[Betty Friedan]] wrote in ''Allure'' magazine that "''The Beauty Myth'' and the controversy it is eliciting could be a hopeful sign of a new surge of feminist consciousness."

[[Camille Paglia]], whose ''[[Sexual Personae]]'' was published the same year as ''The Beauty Myth'', derided Wolf as unable to perform "historical analysis" and called her education "completely removed from reality".<ref>Paglia, Camille. ''Sex, Art, and American Culture.'' New York: Random House, 1992. p. 262</ref> These comments touched off a series of debates between Wolf and Paglia in the pages of ''[[The New Republic]]''.<ref>Naomi Wolf. "Feminist Fatale". ''The New Republic''. March 16, 1992. pp. 23–25</ref><ref>Camille Paglia. [https://web.archive.org/web/20141017203234/http://business.highbeam.com/4776/article-1G1-12037599/feminist-fatale-reply-camille-paglia "Wolf Pack."] ''The New Republic''. April 13, 1992. pp. 4–5</ref><ref>Naomi Wolf and Camille Paglia. "The Last Words." ''The New Republic''. May 18, 1992. pp. 4–5</ref>

[[Caryn James]] wrote in ''The New York Times'':<blockquote>No other work has so forcefully confronted the anti-feminism that emerged during the conservative, yuppified 1980's,<!-- sic --> or so honestly depicted the confusion of accomplished women who feel emotionally and physically tortured by the need to look like movie stars. Even by the standards of pop-cultural feminist studies, ''The Beauty Myth'' is a mess, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.<ref name=JamesReview>{{cite news|last=James|first=Caryn|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/07/books/critic-s-notebook-feminine-beauty-as-a-masculine-plot.html|title=Feminine Beauty as a Masculine Plot|work=The New York Times|date=May 7, 1991|access-date=April 29, 2021|archive-date=April 29, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210429144523/https://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/07/books/critic-s-notebook-feminine-beauty-as-a-masculine-plot.html|url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote> James also wrote that the book's "claims of an intensified anti-feminism are plausible, but Ms. Wolf doesn't begin to prove them because her logic is so lame, her evidence so easily knocked down."<ref name=JamesReview /> [[Marilyn Yalom]] in ''[[The Washington Post]]'' called the book "persuasive" and praised its "accumulated evidence".<ref>{{cite news|last=Yalom|first=Marilyn|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1991/06/16/feminisms-latest-makeover/53f364f0-0094-448c-9cd6-77bda8ae86ad/|title=Feminism's Latest Makeover|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=June 16, 1991|access-date=May 20, 2022}}</ref>

Revisiting ''The Beauty Myth'' in 2019 for ''The New Republic'', literary critic [[Maris Kreizman]] recalls that reading it as an undergraduate made her "world burst open", but as she matured, Kreizman saw Wolf's books as "poorly argued tracts" with Wolf making "wilder and wilder assertions" over time. Kreizman "began to write [Wolf] off as a fringe character" despite the fact that she had "once informed my own feminism so deeply."<ref name="KreizmanWolf" />