Wolf, Naomi (1962– )

US feminist writer. In The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women (1990), she attributes the prevalence of eating disorders to the exaggerated importance given to a woman's appearance.

She argues that the cosmetics and diet industries force women to be preoccupied with attaining an ideal of beauty, thereby lowering their self-esteem. In Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How it will Change the Twenty-First Century (1993), she proposes that women are powerful enough to move on from traditional feminism.