Biography
Wolf was born in San Francisco, California in 1962 of Jewish descent. Her mother is Deborah Goleman, an anthropologist and the author of The Lesbian Community. Her father is the Romanian-born horror scholar Leonard Wolf. She attended Lowell High School and debated in regional speech tournaments as a member of the Lowell Forensic Society. She attended Yale University, where she received in 1984 her Bachelor of Arts in English literature; she was a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford from 1985 to 1987.
Wolf was married to the former Clinton speechwriter David Shipley. They had two children, Rosa (b. 1995) and Joseph (b. 2000). Wolf and Shipley divorced in 2005.
Works
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| Naomi Wolf speaking at Brooklyn Law School, January 29, 2009. |
The Beauty Myth
In the early 1990s, Wolf garnered international fame as a spokesperson of third-wave feminism as a result of the success of her first book The Beauty Myth, which became an international bestseller. In the book, she argues that "beauty" as a normative value is entirely socially constructed, and that the patriarchy determines the content of that construction with the goal of reproducing its own hegemony.
Wolf posits the idea of an "iron-maiden," an intrinsically unattainable standard that is then used to punish women physically and psychologically for their failure to achieve and conform to it. Wolf criticized the fashion and beauty industries as exploitative of women, but claimed the beauty myth extended into all areas of human functioning. Wolf writes that women should have "the choice to do whatever we want with our faces and bodies without being punished by an ideology that is using attitudes, economic pressure, and even legal judgments regarding women's appearance to undermine us psychologically and politically". Wolf argues that women were under assault by the "beauty myth" in five areas: work, religion, sex, violence, and hunger. Ultimately, Wolf argues for a relaxation of normative standards of beauty.[9] In her introduction, Wolf positioned her argument against the concerns of second-wave feminists and offered the following analysis:
“ 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 us... During the past decade, women breached the power structure; meanwhile, eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing specialty... Pornography became the main media category, ahead of legitimate films and records combined, and thirty-three thousand American women told researchers that they would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal...More women have more money and power and scope and legal recognition than we have ever had before; but in terms of how we feel about ourselves physically, we may actually be worse off than our unliberated grandmothers. ”
Wolf's book was a bestseller, receiving polarized responses from the public and mainstream media, but winning praise from most feminists. Second-wave feminist Germaine Greer wrote that The Beauty Myth was "the most important feminist publication since The Female Eunuch, and Gloria Steinem wrote, "The Beauty Myth is a smart, angry, insightful book, and a clarion call to freedom. Every woman should read it." British novelist Fay Weldon called the book "essential reading for the New Woman". 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."
However, 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". Her comments touched off a series of contentious debates between Wolf and Paglia in the pages of The New Republic.
Likewise, Christina Hoff Sommers criticized Wolf for publishing the claim that 150,000 women were dying every year from anorexia. Sommers wrote that the actual number is closer to 100, a figure which others, such as Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, claimed to be much too low. In the same interview, Sommers stated that Wolf had retracted the figure.
In the mainstream press, The New York Times published a harshly critical assessment of Wolf's work: Caryn James lambasted the book as a "sloppily researched polemic as dismissible as a hackneyed adventure film...Even by the standards of pop-cultural feminist studies, 'The Beauty Myth' is a mess." In a comparatively positive review, The Washington Post called the book "persuasive" and praised its "accumulated evidence."
Promiscuities
Promiscuities reports on and analyzes the shifting patterns of contemporary adolescent sexuality. Wolf claims that literature is rife with examples of male coming-of-age stories, covered autobiographically by D. H. Lawrence, Tobias Wolff, J. D. Salinger, and Ernest Hemingway, and covered misogynistically by Henry Miller, Philip Roth, and Norman Mailer. Wolf insists, however, that female accounts of adolescent sexuality have been systematically suppressed. She adduces cross-cultural material to demonstrate that women have, across history, been celebrated as more carnal than men. Wolf also argues that women must reclaim the legitimacy of their own sexuality by shattering the polarization of women between virgin and whore.
Promiscuities received, in general, negative reviews. The New York Times published a review that characterized Wolf as a "frustratingly inept messenger: a sloppy thinker and incompetent writer. She tries in vain to pass off tired observations as radical aperçus, subjective musings as generational truths, sappy suggestions as useful ideas".Two days earlier, however, a different Times reviewer praised the book, writing, "Anyone--particularly anyone who, like Ms. Wolf, was born in the 1960s--will have a very hard time putting down 'Promiscuities'. Told through a series of confessions, her book is a searing and thoroughly fascinating exploration of the complex wildlife of female sexuality and desire." In contrast, The Library Journal excoriated the work, writing, "Overgeneralization abounds as she attempts to apply the microcosmic events of this mostly white, middle-class, liberal milieu to a whole generation....There is a desperate defensiveness in the tone of this book which diminishes the force of her argument."
Misconceptions
Misconceptions examines modern assumptions surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. Most of the book is told through the prism of Wolf's personal experience of her first pregnancy. She describes the "vacuous impassivity" of the ultrasound technician who gives her the first glimpse of her new baby. Wolf both laments her C-section and examines why the procedure is commonplace in the United States, and advocates a return to more personal approaches to childbirth such as midwifery. The second half of the book catalogs a series of anecdotes about life after giving birth, focusing in particular on inequalities that arise in men and women's approaches and adjustments to child care.
The End of America
In The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Wolf takes a historical look at the rise of fascism, outlining the 10 steps necessary for a fascist group (or government) to destroy the democratic character of a nation-state and subvert the social/political liberty previously exercised by its citizens:
Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.
Create secret prisons where torture takes place.
Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens.
Set up an internal surveillance system.
Harass citizens' groups.
Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
Target key individuals.
Control the press.
Treat all political dissidents as traitors.
Suspend the rule of law.
The book details how this pattern was implemented in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and elsewhere, and analyzes its emergence and application in American political affairs since the September 11 attacks.
The End of America was adapted for the screen as a documentary by filmmakers Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern, best known for The Devil Came on Horseback and The Trials of Darryl Hunt. It had its worldwide premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival on October 17, 2008. It has since been screened at Sheffield DocFest in the UK, as well as in limited release at New York City's IFC Center. The film became available online on October 21, 2008 at SnagFilms.com. End of America was favorably reviewed in the New York Times by Stephen Holden[28] as well as in Variety Magazine.
Give Me Liberty
"Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries" was written as a sequel to The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot.
In the book, Wolf looks at times and places in history where citizens were faced with the closing of an open society and successfully fought back, and looks back at the ordinary people of the Founding Fathers of the United States' generation, the ones not named by history, all of whom had this "vision of liberty" and moved it forward by putting their lives on the line to make the vision real. She is an outspoken advocate for citizenship and wonders whether younger Americans have the skills and commitment to act as true citizens.She wrote in 2007:
“ This lack of understanding about how democracy works is disturbing enough. But at a time when our system of government is under assault from an administration that ignores traditional checks and balances, engages in illegal wiretapping and writes secret laws on torture, it means that we're facing an unprecedented crisis. As the Founders knew, if citizens are ignorant of or complacent about the proper workings of a republic "of laws not of men," then any leader of any party -- or any tyrannical Congress or even a tyrannical majority -- can abuse the power they hold. But at this moment of threat to the system the Framers set in place, a third of young Americans don't really understand what they were up to. ”
Other writings
Wolf's other books include Fire with Fire on politics, female empowerment and women's sexual liberation. The New York Times assailed the work for its "dubious oversimplifications and highly debatable assertions" and its "disconcerting penchant for inflationary prose," nonetheless noting Wolf's "efforts to articulate an accessible, pragmatic feminism, ...helping to replace strident dogma with common sense." The Time magazine reviewer dismissed the book as "flawed," noting however that Wolf was "an engaging raconteur" who was also "savvy about the role of TV -- especially the Thomas-Hill hearings and daytime talk shows -- in radicalizing women, including homemakers." The reviewer characterized the book as advocating an inclusive strain of feminism that welcomed abortion opponents.
In 2005, Wolf published The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom from my Father on How to Live, Love, and See, which chronicled her midlife crisis attempt to reclaim her creative and poetic vision and revalue her father's love, and her father's force as an artist and a teacher.
Feminist positions
Wolf considers herself a liberal feminist.
Abortion
All about: Abortion
In publishing an article in The New Republic that criticized contemporary pro-choice positions, Wolf argued that the movement had "developed a lexicon of dehumanization" and urged feminists to accept abortion as a form of homicide and defend the procedure within the ambiguity of this moral conundrum. She continues, "Abortion should be legal; it is sometimes even necessary. Sometimes the mother must be able to decide that the fetus, in its full humanity, must die."
Wolf concluded by speculating that in a world of "real gender equality," passionate feminists "might well hold candlelight vigils at abortion clinics, standing shoulder to shoulder with the doctors who work there, commemorating and saying goodbye to the dead." More recently, in an article on the subtle manipulation of George W. Bush's image among women, Wolf wrote "Abortion is an issue not of Ms. Magazine-style fanaticism or suicidal Republican religious reaction, but a complex issue."
Pro-life commentators said Wolf "fails to carry through fully in her analysis...this simply is not, or should not be, the unqualified response of our society to the destruction of innocent life."
Pornography
Wolf suggested in 2003 that the ubiquity of Internet pornography tends to enervate the sexual attraction of men toward typical real women. She writes, "The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as 'porn-worthy.' Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention." Wolf advocates abstaining from porn not on moral grounds, but because "greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity."
Assange assault allegations
The 20 December 2010 airing of Democracy Now! featured a segment titled "Naomi Wolf vs. Jaclyn Friedman: Feminists Debate the Sexual Allegations Against Julian Assange" in which Jaclyn Friedman argues the sexual assault allegations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange shouldn't be dismissed just because they may be politically motivated. Wolf argues that the alleged victims should have said no, that they consented to having sex with Assange, that the charges are politically motivated and demean the cause of legitimate rape victims. The discussion took place shortly after the leaking of the Swedish police report on the incident.
Sexual harassment
In 2004, Wolf wrote an article for New York Magazine accusing acclaimed literary scholar Harold Bloom of sexual harassment more than two decades earlier. Explaining why she had finally gone public with the charges, Wolf wrote, "I began, nearly a year ago, to try-privately-to start a conversation with my alma mater that would reassure me that steps had been taken in the ensuing years to ensure that unwanted sexual advances of this sort weren't still occurring. I expected Yale to be responsive. After nine months and many calls and e-mails, I was shocked to conclude that the atmosphere of collusion that had helped to keep me quiet twenty years ago was still intact-as secretive as a Masonic lodge."
Reflecting on Yale University's sexual harassment guidelines, Wolf writes, "Sexual encroachment in an educational context or a workplace is, most seriously, a corruption of meritocracy; it is in this sense parallel to bribery. I was not traumatized personally, but my educational experience was corrupted. If we rephrase sexual transgression in school and work as a civil-rights and civil-society issue, everything becomes less emotional, less personal. If we see this as a systemic-corruption issue, then when people bring allegations, the focus will be on whether the institution has been damaged in its larger mission."
A federal investigation of Yale University began in March, 2011 in response to complaints that it has a sexually hostile environment. A formal complaint had been filed to the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights on March 15, 2011 by 16 current and former Yale students describing a sexually hostile environment at Yale.
Women in Islamic countries
Wolf has spoken about the dress required of women living in Muslim countries:
The West interprets veiling as repression of women and suppression of their sexuality. But when I traveled in Muslim countries and was invited to join a discussion in women-only settings within Muslim homes, I learned that Muslim attitudes toward women's appearance and sexuality are not rooted in repression, but in a strong sense of public versus private, of what is due to God and what is due to one's husband. It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channeling - toward marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home.
Political consultant
Wolf was involved in Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election bid, brainstorming with the president's team about ways to reach female voters. During Al Gore's unsuccessful bid for the presidency in the 2000 election, Wolf was hired as a consultant to target female voters, reprising her role in the Clinton campaign. Wolf's ideas and participation in the Gore campaign generated considerable media coverage and criticism. According to a report by Michael Duffy in Time, Wolf was paid a monthly salary of $15,000 "in exchange for advice on everything from how to win the women's vote to shirt-and-tie combinations." This article was the original source of the widely reported claim that Wolf was responsible for Gore's "three-buttoned, earth-toned look."
In an interview with Melinda Henneberger in the New York Times, Wolf denied ever advising Gore on his wardrobe. Wolf herself claimed she mentioned the term "alpha male" only once in passing and that "it was just a truism, something the pundits had been saying for months, that the vice president is in a supportive role and the President is in an initiatory role... I used those terms as shorthand in talking about the difference in their job descriptions".
Selected books
The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women (1990) ISBN 0060512180, OCLC 22510801
Fire with Fire (1994) ISBN 0449909514, OCLC 28420926
Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood (or a Secret History of Female Desire) (1998) ISBN 0449907643 ISBN 0099205912 ISBN 0517454475, OCLC 36225757
Misconceptions (2001) OCLC 46785027
The Treehouse (2005) OCLC 225532631
The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (2007) ISBN 978-1933392790, OCLC 144769760
Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries (2008) ISBN 978-1416590569, OCLC 191933856
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