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.
Yes. Authors don't necessarily look like what they write.
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.
Sorry, typo: implies
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.
Yes, there is a fallacy of relevance in the argument presented in the excerpt. The fallacy is known as an ad hominem tu quoque, which translates to "you too" in Latin.
In this case, the commentator attempts to undermine Naomi Wolf's argument by pointing out what they perceive as a contradiction between her messaging and her personal appearance. They argue that because she presented herself as attractive and slender in the marketing of her book, she lacks credibility in telling other women not to worry about their own attractiveness.
However, this line of reasoning diverts from the actual argument being made. Instead of addressing the substance of Wolf's claims about societal ideals and their impact on women, the commentator focuses on the author herself. The fact that Wolf may be attractive does not directly address the issue she discusses in her book.
The fallacy of relevance occurs when an irrelevant characteristic or action of a person is used to discredit their argument. In this case, the appearance of the author is being used as a distraction from the main point. It does not logically refute or disprove the ideas presented in the book.
To address this fallacy, it is important to focus on the merit of the arguments being made rather than attempting to discredit an individual based on unrelated factors.