WST 383 Women

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WST 383 Womens StudiesThemed Class The Female
Body Presentation Credit Meghan Somers
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• American women feel more negatively about their
  bodies than their counterparts in any other
  culture, notes Margo Maine, author of Body Wars
  Making Peace with Womens Bodies.
• Info from Backlash The Undeclaired War Against
  Women, by S. Faludi (1991), New York Doubleday

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• A timeline of female body image

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Early Civilization
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The Venus of Willendorf is a tribute to women and
fertility. Womens forms were celebrated and it
is believed that standard of beauty was a woman
with larger breasts and hips, ensuring fertility.
Feminine features, including stomachs and
buttocks were exaggerated in art forms.
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Victorian Era
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1840s

• During the Victorian era, the ideal body type for
  women was plump, fleshy, and full-figured. They
  wore restrictive corsets, which made waists
  artificially tiny while accentuating the hips and
  buttocks. These corsets also caused a variety of
  health problems with breathing and digestion.

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1890s

• Actress Lillian Russell weighed around 200 pounds
  in the peak of her fame.

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• During the Victorian era the role of women was
  defined largely on the basis of their appearance,
  and not on intellectual or occupational grounds.
  The ideal Victorian woman was expected to be
  childlike, pale and indeterminate, passive,
  submissive, mindless, genteel and nice.

http//www.ulladulla.info/fhc/vicfashions.htm
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The 20th Century
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• 1910s
• As feminism spreads,
• women are portrayed as
• big and powerful. The
• images on magazines
• covers show little men
• against larger, stronger
• females.

http//iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall2000/Marcus/ti
meline2.htm1890s
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The 19th Amendment to the Constitution granting
women the right to vote, is signed into law.
1920
Tobacco companies begin to target women by
claiming that smoking can help control weight.
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• By the 1920s, the Victorian hourglass gave way
  to the thin flapper who bound her breasts to
  achieve a washboard profile. After World War I,
  active lifestyles added another dimension. Energy
  and vitality became central and body fat was
  perceived to contribute to inefficiency and was
  seen as a sign of self-indulgence.

www.thesite.org/healthandwellbeing/mentalhealth/bo
dyimageandselfesteem/bodyimagetimeline
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• Flappers helped to revolutionize the way women
  act and think by defying the traditional views of
  women.

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1930s

• Modesty returns. Cleavage is viewed as obscene.
  

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1930s

• At 52 and average weight, Bette Davis is an
  American Icon.

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1950s

• Beauty standards focus on large breasts and
  pin-up girls.

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• 1950s, a thin woman with a large bust line was
  considered most attractive. The voluptuous (size
  14-16) Marilyn Monroe set a new standard for
  women who now needed to rebuild the curves they
  had previously tried to bind and restrain.

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• Competitive athletics considered to be dangerous
  for women.

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1960s

• Dieting becomes popular and skirt hems get
  shorter.

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1960s

• Slenderness became the most important indicator
  of physical attractiveness following the arrival
  of model Twiggy. Twiggy was 57, weighed 91
  pounds, and had the figure of a prepubescent boy.
  

Twiggy
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1960s

• Women protest the Miss America Pageant citing
  that it is demeaning toward women.

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1970s

• The FDA approves Fenfluarmine an appetite
  suppressant.

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The 1970s

• In 1975 top models and beauty queens weighed only
  8 less than the average woman. (Today they weigh
  23 less, a size achievable by less than 5 of
  today's female population.)

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• Beginning in the 1970s, there was an overall
  increased emphasis on weight loss and body shape
  in the content of popular womens magazines.

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1980s

• Karen Carpenter, a famous singer, dies of heart
  failure caused by anorexia.

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• The 1980s beauty ideal remained slim but
  required a more toned and fit look. Women could
  no longer just 'diet' into the correct size
  there was a new pressure to add exercise to
  achieve the toned look.

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1990s

• The FDA takes Fenfluarmine (a diet drug) off the
  market because it is linked to heart disorders.

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• Young Cindy Crawford considered the new
  voluptuous model.

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• The 1990s body ideal was very slim and large
  breasted, think Pamela 'Baywatch' Anderson, an
  almost impossible combination.

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• In the 1990s FIVE MILLION American women suffer
  from eating disorders.

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• In the 2000s, that number doubles to over 10
  MILLION

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The 21st Century
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1600s
2000s
Rubens
2sportscars.com
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• Models get much taller and impossibly thin

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The Holocaust Look gets trendy.
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• 2006 Spain outlaws models with BMI lt18

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2000s

In an interview with 48 Hours, Mary-Kate Olsen
compared her looks to her sister's saying, I -
are you kidding me? I look in the mirror and I'm
like why do you look pretty and I look ugly?"
Mary-Kate Olsen begins receiving treatment for an
eating disorder.
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Food for Thought
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• When a man gets up to speak, people listen, then
  look. When a woman gets up, people look then, if
  they like what they see, they listen. Pauline
  Frederick

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Early 2000s
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I see my body as an instrument, rather than an
ornament.  Alanis Morissette
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2000s-2010s
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• You're damned if you're too thin,
• and you're damned if you're too
• heavy. According to the press I've
• been both. It's impossible to satisfy
• everyone and I suggest we all stop
• trying. --Jennifer Aniston

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• In a recent survey conducted by People magazine,
  80 of women stated that advertising and fashion
  magazines made them feel insecure about their
  looks.

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• A Glamour Magazine survey found that 97 of women
  had hateful thoughts about their bodes every
  dayon average 13 times per day.

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• We have to have faith in ourselves.  I have
  never met a woman who, deep down in her core,
  really believes she has great legs.  And if she
  suspects that she might have great legs, then
  she's convinced that she has a shrill voice and
  no neck. 
• Cynthia Heimel

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• Black women don't have the same body image
  problems as white women. They are proud of their
  bodies. Black men love big butts.
• -Tyra Banks

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• Adele beats the odds.

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Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or
sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she
manages to be a good wife, a good mother,
good-looking, good-tempered, well-dressed,
well-groomed, and unaggressive.  Marya Mannes
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Mauritania's 'wife-fattening' farm
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Prestige Early Puberty
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"We dont need Afghan-style burquas to disappear
as women. We disappear in reverseby revamping
and revealing our bodies to meet externally
imposed visions of female beauty."Robin Gerber
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Outside show is a poor substitute for inner
worth. -- Aesop
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• Whose body is it, anyway?

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• Created by Meghan SomersUpdated by Juliet
  DavisSources
• http//www.thesite.org/healthandwellbeing/mentalhe
  alth/bodyimageandselfesteem/bodyimagetimeline
• http//iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall200/Marcus/tim
  eline2.htm
• http//www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/22/earlysho
  w/leisure/celebspot/main625389.shtml
• http//psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/06/02/w
  hy-do-women-hate-their-bodies/
• http//www.glamour.com/health-fitness/2011/02/shoc
  king-body-image-news-97-percent-of-women-will-be-c
  ruel-to-their-bodies-today
• Music by Natalie Merchant, Break your Heart
  from Opehlia.