From the Ignatius Insight blog:

Teresa Tomeo, who hosts a syndicated talk show on EWTN and is the author of the book, Extreme Makeover: Women Transformed by Christ, Not Conformed to the Culture, was recently interviewed by Catholic News Service about how

women are pressured into being many different things to different people: a powerhouse professional, a flawless wife and beautiful woman.

She said much in society is contradictory: "We have all these advancements and yet we're more objectified than ever."

There's a kind of "split personality" in the media, she said, when a newspaper or newscast reports on studies showing how influential media are on an audience, especially children, or studies showing ways women are still objectified.

"And then they turn around and promote sex at 2 in the afternoon in a soap opera or a commercial," she said.

Women's self-image is often distorted because of too much emphasis on youth, physical beauty and sexuality, she said.

Add to the mix the modern-day "freedoms" of contraception, abortion, and sex outside of marriage and women end up being not more free or equal "but more in bondage, and you don't realize it when you're accepting it."

"You have to go through your own crisis" to see there is another way, she said.

In her book, published by Ignatius Press, Tomeo details the personal crises she weathered -- an eating disorder, a frenetic work ethic and a crumbling marriage. She had been living distant from God, she said, and just accepted the current culture's stereotypes wholesale.

Read the entire piece. Tomeo also spoke with "Rome Reports" about the book: