orians call 'style for all.'"In 1969, Vogue made the breakthrough that has evolved into the cast-iron Beauty Myth of today. "Vogue began to focus on the body as much as on the clothes, in part because there was little they could dictate with the anarchic styles...In a stunning move, an entire replacement culture was developed by naming a 'problem' where it had scarcely existed before, centering it on the women's natural state, and elevating it to the existential female dilemma...The number of diet-related articles rose 70 percent from 1968 to 1972...The lucrative 'transfer of guilt' was resurrected just in time."We are bombarded today with images of the "perfect" woman. She is usually a gorgeous blonde, although sultry brunettes, redheads and exotic women of color are also shown. She is tall and willowy, weighing at least 20% less than what her height requires. She rarely looks older than 25, has no visible flaws on her skin, and her hair and clothes are always immaculate. One "perfect woman" looks pretty much like the next; she is essentially not human, interchangeable and disposable. In fact, quite often she is presented in bits and pieces like a mannequin- -a torso, some legs, a shapely fanny--completing the assembly- line metaphor.Our culture judges women, and women judge themselves, against this standard. We forget that "beauty pornography," as Wolf calls it, pictures underweight models that are usually between 15-20 years old. We never see a picture of a woman who is not wearing makeup applied by an artist, hair professionally coiffed, clothes professionally designed or chosen. Any natural flaws or wrinkles in her skin are airbrushed out. Unsightly lumps or anomalies in her body are also airbrushed out. Even when we see a photo of an older actress we know must have character lines on her face, they are never shown--the focus is fuzzed or the airbrusher strikes again to remove them. These are the pictures they show us of the "avera...
