Naomi Wolf new star attraction at writers' festival

By GILBERT WONG books editor

Controversial feminist and author Naomi Wolf will replace Glenda Jackson at the finale of the Auckland Writers' Festival, the Buddle Findlay Sargeson dinner on Sunday, May 27.

Actor-turned-politician Jackson had to cancel her visit after the British election was postponed because of the foot-and-mouth disease crisis.

Wolf first came to prominence with her 1991 book The Beauty Myth, a critique of the fashion and cosmetic industries and the cultural norms they set up, which women find themselves unable to match. One example is that 20 years ago the average fashion model weighed 8 per cent less than the average woman. Today that fashion model weighs 23 per cent less.

Wolf, a former Rhodes scholar, has suffered anorexia herself, being at one point in her late adolescence thin enough for her spine to be felt through her stomach.

Her subsequent books have earned notoriety. The New York Times Book Review called her last book, Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood (1997), "a searing and thoroughly fascinating exploration of the complex wildlife of female sexuality and desire." That book explored the double messages Wolf argued women received about their sexuality - "You can do anything ... and you can get called a slut for it." The book was resolutely confessional, with Wolf recounting an encounter with a molester, crushes on other girls and the anticlimactic loss of her virginity.

Last year she acted as an adviser to then Vice-President Al Gore in his campaign for President, most famously suggesting that Gore had to present himself as the "alpha male" to George W. Bush, making a point of his greater stature in the presidential debates, and change his wardrobe to favour the earth tones she claimed were "more reassuring to audiences." For her advice she was paid $US15,000 ($34,000) a month.

Her working relationship with the White House began with former president Bill Clinton. Her husband, David Shipley, was a Clinton speech writer and when Clinton's infidelities threatened to tear his presidency apart, Wolf served as one of the celebrities who came out in his defence on the talk-show circuit.

She has a new book, Misconceptions, on motherhood, that will be published in October.

* The Auckland Writers' Festival runs May 25-27 at the Hyatt Regency and Old Government House. Programmes from bookshops and libraries, and also at Auckland Writers Festival