The Power of Beauty · Our Looks, Our Lives

Beauty and appearance play a pervasive role in our culture, argues Nancy Friday. Here, the author of the groundbreaking and controversial bestseller My Secret Garden delves into beauty's influence on popular media and the psyche of modern women.

Combining in-depth cultural analysis with personal anecdotes, sexology, and individual case studies, Nancy Friday explores the dissatisfaction women feel about their bodies--and how it affects their sexual freedom. Her analysis is broad-reaching, examining how popular culture, advertising, stereotypes of women in the workplace, the sexual liberation of the 1960's, and the interdynamics of family relationships put pressure on women to live up to an impossible feminine ideal