A culture fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.
Naomi WolfRead
It is important to distinguish between the power of the internet to make the great change it can, and the limits and vulnerabilities of that change without real-time political mobilization deployed globally to protect those who venture out, especially in closed societies, into the heady new vistas it offers.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The internet has the potential to drive significant change, but it requires global political support to protect individuals in restrictive environments.
Naomi Wolf's quote emphasizes the dual nature of the internet’s impact on society. While it can facilitate profound transformation and open new opportunities, this potential is limited by the political landscapes in which individuals operate. In closed societies, the freedoms offered by the internet are overshadowed by the risks faced by those who dare to explore its benefits. Real-time political action and mobilization are crucial to safeguarding these individuals and ensuring that the internet can be a force for positive change.
Themes
InternetChangePoliticsGlobalSociety
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about digital rights, one could quote this to emphasize the need for political mobilization.
More from Naomi Wolf
All quotes →Looking back on 200 years of feminist agitation in this country, we've got to get it that the moral high ground doesn't get us anything. Pleading with powerful men never gets us what we need. Talking doesn't do it. Being right doesn't do it. Hardball politics does it ... and a political strategy.
Naomi WolfRead
The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon them.
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The woman wins who calls herself beautiful, and challenges the world to change to fit her vision.
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The beauty myth moves for men as a mirage; its power lies in its ever-receding nature. When the gap is closed, the lover embraces only his own disillusion.
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Our society does reward beauty on the outside over health on the inside. Women must not be blamed for choosing short-term beauty "fixes" that harm our long-term health, since our life spans are inverted under the beauty myth, and there is no great social or economic incentive for women to live a long time.
Naomi WolfRead
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