Question

In her book The Beauty Myth author Naomi Wolf argued that women harm themselves when they try to live up to the standards of beauty implied in most commercial advertising. The following excerpt is taken from a World Press Review commentary on Wolf’s work:

[S]omething that bothered many readers, including me, was that while Wolf was extorting her readers not to worry about living up to the heavily marketed ideals of beauty and slenderness, her own heavily marketed book featured a photograph of the author looking, well, beautiful and slender. Can’t she see a problem in an attractive woman telling other women not to worry about attractiveness?

Is the there a fallacy of relevance in this argument? Explain.

Answer 1

Yes. Authors don't necessarily look like what they write.

Answer 2

What does the physical (or photographed) image of the author have to do with the point she is trying to make? Is there a correlation? The reviewer suggests/immplies there may be, but offers no evidence. She is asking a question for which there is no logical answer.

Answer 3

Sorry, typo: implies

Answer 4

In this case, there is not a fallacy of relevance. While it certainly does appear to be an ad hominem attack on Wolf at first, if you look carefully, you can see that the response from World Press Review is relevant to the argument being made. A quote from the source of this question:

"The premises are (1) Wolf has argued that women harm themselves when they try to live up to high standards of beauty, and (2) Wolf is beautiful and slender. If we assume that one cannot be beautiful and slender without (in some sense) worrying about making oneself beautiful and slender, then these premises suggest that Wolf does not practice what she preaches."
-Govier, Trudy. A Practical Study of Argument.