
Wolf showed the foundations were laid early - women seeking greater control over their own lives were to be punished. Feminists criticized publicly - dismissed as "ugly" and unattractive to men. When women were doing men's work for the war, yet the magazine advertisers urged women to remain feminine in spite of doing a man's job, but admitted that advertisers "lipstick would not win the war" . After the war, women were expected to return meekly home and enjoy their memories of their old jobs, but this did not happen because women enjoyed their taste of freedom and wanted more.
The second wave of feminism hit an unprecedented impact. Women do not want to be "good wife" or "good mother" and they wanted jobs, freedom and independence. Wolf describes the myth of beauty as lurking in the background - the big companies saw a way to make an extraordinary amount of money. Make women want to be ugly no companies could sell their products to earn money and women become more voracious consumers.