SOURCE: Wasserstein, Wendy. “Through the Good-Looking Glass.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (12 May 1991): 4.

In the following review of The Beauty Myth, Wasserstein concludes that Wolf offers interesting and unsettling generalizations, but that her book is “not earth-shaking.”

I remember reading The Feminine Mystique my senior year on the steps of my dormitory at Mt. Holyoke College. I had a yellow highlighter pen and every other sentence I would madly underline because not only did Betty Friedan seem to have put her finger on a previously unnamed plight, but she was, by doing so, opening up doors and possibilities for me and my classmates. That was in 1970, the first year “Women's History” was taught at Mt. Holyoke, and my yellow highlighter remained hyperactive underscoring Germaine Greer, Kate Millet and the classic Simone De Beauvoir.

Now, 20 years later, generations of women whose lives changed forever from those readings can look...