The first time it happened, Naomi Klein was in a public lavatory just off Wall Street in Manhattan. She heard two women discussing something she had said about the Occupy movement, which was then camped outside. Klein emerged from her cubicle to put the women right: it wasn’t her who had said those things, but she knew straight away who had. It must have been the “other Naomi” – Naomi Wolf. After that, the misunderstanding started happening more and more, particularly online.
It was true the pair of them had things in common, beyond the name. They had both written generation-defining bestselling polemics. In 1991, Wolf’s The Beauty Myth promoted the idea that eating disorders were by-products of the cosmetics and fashion industries; while Naomi Klein’s No Logo, nearly a decade later, had become a global rallying cry against the exploitative working practices of multinationals and their billionaire owners. They both (for the purposes of author photos at least) had big hair and broad smiles. They both were children of Jewish parents with alternative lifestyles. They both even had partners called Avi.
