Food
Wolf identifies food as the ultimate symbol separating the various lines of socio-economic strata; the wealthier one is, the better they eat. But as she pursues her arguments, it becomes clear that food as a symbol of wealth is no limited just to quantity or quality available. The richer also have greater access to food as a tool for pursuing the beauty myth. They can afford healthier food or they can afford expensive weight-loss programs or institutions. Those with access to wealth are given an advantage to exploiting the beauty myth which those without that access cannot.
“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”
The tagline of an infamous beauty product commercial is situated as a powerful symbol of a fundamental tenet of the myth: engendering among a woman a misguided belief in a phony idea that competition exists between them to look more attractive. By creating this competition, women are spending time competing unnecessarily against each other to look more attractive when this time and effort could and should be applied to cooperating to work against the men who are exploiting their lack of self-esteem also constructed by the myth for the purpose of protecting their own empowerment.
Twiggy
Twiggy was the first “waif” supermodel. In the 1960’s her thinness was shocking and an antithesis to the voluptuous hourglass figure of the ideal of beauty at the time. She ushered in the still-continuing epoch of the ever-dwindling size of what is considered normal by the fashion industry. More than a merely a symbol of the thinning of the model, however, Twiggy’s “look” becomes a symbol of male dominance in the construction of the ideal of the myth: “Under-nurtured, subject to being overpowered by a strong wind, her expression the daze of the besieged” is the symbolic antithesis of the strong, powerful feminist who gets it.
The Iron Maiden
A medieval instrument of torture, the Iron Maiden was “body-shaped casket painted with the limbs and features of a lovely, smiling young woman” while a real woman was trapped inside until she slowly died. This image becomes the symbol of the way the beauty myth allows women to either be trapped or trap themselves into a similar fate of presenting a false but pleasing image on the outside while being tortured to death inside.
Christine Craft
Christine Craft is the living embodiment of the symbolic way manner in which the beauty myth works on a number of levels. Craft was a perfectly average-looking woman employed as a television news anchor who was fired because she didn’t meet expectations by her employer of a certain standard of attractiveness. Worse, however, is the way Craft symbolizes the pernicious effects of the myth upon the self-esteem of a woman who feels compelled to pursue an ideal of beauty set by others and induce feelings of shame, guilt and self-loathing when that goal is inevitably incapable of being met.
