BOOK NOTES by Joan Ruddiman
People who problem-solve know the first step is to understand the problem. This means doing some research and analyzing how the sum of the parts provides the big picture that needs to be addressed.
If this sounds like a history lesson, it is. History is literally a living record of who we are, and how we got to where we are. Seems ironic that history classes have a reputation for being dull.
Joan Jacobs Brumberg is a historian, but her lessons are far from dull. A professor at Cornell, Dr. Brumberg integrates the fields of history, human development and women’s studies in her research on American women and girls. Her most recent book, "The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls," supports her thesis on who women are and how we got here – obsessed with "bad body fever."
Headlines of high-profile victims like Princess Diana and any given female celebrity of the week have heightened public awareness of eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. Precocious pre-teen girls who dress and act provocatively baffle parents and teachers who struggle to accept that this is the latest "fashion style."
Dr. Brumberg is the author of "Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Cultural Disease." She refers to Peggy Orenstein, Mary Pipher, the Sadkers and Carol Gilligan among other professionals who have written about this vulnerable, at-risk generation of girls and women from the point of view of psychologists, therapists and educators.
The evidence is pervasive and persuasive. Our society has a problem with how girls are growing up in America today.
So how did we get to this point? This is where the cultural historian, Professor Brumberg, comes in. True to her calling, she analyzes where we have been, specifically in the last 100 years.
Dr. Brumberg began her study with questions many of us ask. Have American women always been obsessed with their weight? Do girls today mature earlier than they did 100 years ago? Are young women today really more sexually active and adventurous (as the media leads us to believe) than our ancestors?
Through her extensive research, Dr. Brumberg finds not so surprising answers, but some very surprising reasons. Her book is full of examples and explanations. She does not shrink from sensitive subjects, but does present them in an open, thoughtful and thought-provoking way. The contrast of the 19th century Victorian girl to the Valley Girl of the late 20th century is extreme. But this is historical analysis, not sensationalized stereotype. Dr. Brumberg uses primary sources, particularly diaries and media images (advertising, articles and photographs) to explore how girls’ images of themselves has changed in the past century.
She says where the Victorian female was concerned with good works, today’s women of all ages are concerned with good looks: the body is the project and the end product. She strongly supports this thesis by the words of girls culled from dozens of personal diary entries.
How she formulated and pursued this study further dispels the image of the historian as a dull academic. Dr. Brumberg found diaries in library archives (including Lou Henry’s, a.k.a. Mrs. Herbert Hoover). Students, friends, audience members offered their diaries throughout the project.
After an advertisement ran in The NewYork Times in 1982, one diary was sent to her by a New York sanitation worker who found it in a garbage can and realized the value of what an ordinary girl would choose to record about her life.
Dr. Brumberg, the fastidious scholar, points out that her study is limited by the nature of diary keepers. Poor and working class females years ago had neither the time nor the financial means to keep a diary. In the latter half of the 20th century, diaries still are in the middle class domain, but this does cross racial and ethnic lines. Given these stated limitations, her objective in delving into teenagers’ jottings is to "provoke the kind of intergenerational conversation about females that most adult women (today) have wished for but never really had," but which our ancestors did have.
Case in point: haircuts broke up intimate mother-daughter conversation. Victorian fashion and sensibilities dictated that women have long hair. Girls wore it down, decorated with ribbons, and young women signaled their maturity by wearing it up. Long hair took a lot of care. Nightly brushing routines and regular washing and drying sessions involved an intimate gathering of women in the household – in most cases, mothers and daughters. The hours and private venues such grooming demanded encouraged intimate conversation.
The wild and crazy "Roaring Twenties" promoted new fashion ideals. The hourglass figures of heavily corseted women were replaced with the "svelte" chemise, a whole other well-made case-in-point where Dr. Brumberg goes in depth in regard to the dieting craze that has dominated this century. As significantly, women bobbed their hair. Mom was no longer needed in the nightly grooming routine. Girls began to develop and grow, out from under the eyes, and advice, of their mothers.
Dr. Brumberg offers another fascinating point. The modern bathroom further removed girls from the circle of female supervision. By the turn of the 20th century, middle class girls had the luxury of a private, electrically lit bathroom with mirrors. For the first time in the history of the world, the majority of women could closely scrutinize their face, hair and bodies by themselves. The discovery of the calorie and addition of the scales to bathroom further promoted the body as women’s primary project as the obsession with "slimming" was born.
For those concerned about our growing girls, this straight-talking grandmother of two granddaughters offers practical application of what the research shows. "’Bad body fever’ handicaps women. It saps energy and attention that could be spent on endeavors other than good looks." It leads to eating disorders, depression and demoralization. It makes girls vulnerable to sexual manipulation.
Dr. Brumberg offers two simple, but practical suggestions. One, men in the lives of girls can refuse to participate in the comments about women. Flirting and hurting may be synonymous.
Second, women and girls need to change our own behaviors and our own comments about bodies, hair and clothes. This self-described "un-tall, un-lean, un-blonde woman" proudly identified herself as having successfully run a 5K race. She refers to this event as an example of how women need to put the emphasis on what their bodies can do, not what they look like. For herself, Dr. Brumberg had to "get over how I looked in spandex" to focus on the joy of being able to complete that race.
"The Body Project" concludes with a chapter titled "Girl Advocacy Again." It is her written admonition on how these findings can be applied to helping girls grow up "bold, and strong, and safe."
The historical evidence that girls mature earlier and live independent autonomous lives foster a dangerous situation today’s girls face. Physical maturity does not mean girls are emotionally mature to handle the responsibility society abdicates to them.
This self-proclaimed liberal feminist writes that girls are in need of a code of personal ethics to successfully navigate the passage into adulthood. Such values come from parents, she says, who must face up "to our responsibilities to nurture and protect our young, even if it means that we must take an unfashionable stand against the vulgarity of popular culture and the power of adolescent peer groups."
They are our girls who are our future. We should be paying attention.
Joan Ruddiman is a teacher and member of the Allentown Library Board.