The Power of Beauty

“You’ve got to love Nancy Friday. She successfully explored mother-daughter envy in My Mother/My Self [and] female sexual fantasy in My Secret Garden” (People magazine). Now, in The Power of Beauty, she explores a provocative subject: how looks affect our lives, and life affects our looks. Friday traces the past 25 years of changes in women’s attitudes about self-esteem, appearance and sexuality. Using her own life as a springboard, she then takes us through the Patriarchal ’50s, Revolutionary ’60s, Supersexual ’70s, Narcissistic ’80s, and Empty Package ’90s as she explores the possibility of a future free from the twin obsessions of the power of beauty and the beauty of power and offers sparkling commentary on a dazzling array of subjects. From the runways of Paris to the two-parent nursery, from current movies and watershed media events to the timeless wisdom of some of literature’s and psychology’s most perceptive thinkers, Friday writes large, creating a canvas as complex and richly colored as her subject.