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... en and girls. The effect was that the looks of professional beauties appeared to be the norm. These images were all the more important as new standards for the ideal woman emerged.
In the 1940 s, women had been empowered by the war effort. They were proving their worth and were considering purposeful careers. The return of the hourglass figure seemed to again firmly draw the line between the sexes. It also made appearance more forward on a womans mind as the men came home and other interests were set aside. Women who exhibited aggressive traits, such as careers instead of children, were considered maladjusted and suffering from Freudian penis-envy. The 1960 s presented an era of change.
Thrust in by the glamorous Kennedy presidency and closed with the militant demands for an end to the war in Vietnam, and political upheaval, the decade was revolutionary in every sense of the word. Sexuality was transfigured with the availability of contraceptive pills, and free love and nudity were becoming more common and acceptable. The absence of clothes, however, required the absence of extra weight. Bohemian cultural leaders were turning a generation into folk musicians, painters, writers... etc. They fought against American policies and The Establishment.
Poverty had become chic. There was no single look anymore, as wild psychedelic styles coexisted with jeans and miniskirts, and those with a natural look simply paid no attention to their appearance. The fashion world was unsettled. They had lost their grip on its rules, and were desperate to bring structure to the anarchy of the young. It was in 1965 when Twiggy, at 57 and 97 pounds first appeared on the pages of Vogue. Naomi Wolf writes of her in The Beauty Myth: ...
she was double edged, suggesting to women the freedom from the constraint of reproduction of earlier generations (since female fat is categorically understood by the subconscious as fertile sexuality), while reassuring men with her suggestion of female weakness, asexuality, and hunger. Her thinness, now commonplace, was shocking at the time; even Vogue introduced the model with anxiety: Twiggy is called Twiggy because she looks as though a strong gale would snap her in two and dash her to the ground... Twiggy is of such meagre constitution that other models stare at her. Her legs look as though she has not had enough milk as a baby and her face has the expression one feels Londoners wore in the blitz. The fashion writers language is revealing: Under nurtured, subject to be overpowered by a strong wind, her expression the daze of the besieged, what better symbol to reassure an establishment faced with women who were soon to march tens of thousands strong down Fifth Avenue? (185) There was resistance to the Twiggy look. Many sex idols still had their curves, and the Miss Americas of the sixties remained stubbornly like their fifties counterparts.
The counterculture rejected the skinny look as another drift towards The Establishment, but resistance was eventually eroded and the style adopted. With Twiggy, fashion magazines had successfully bridged the gap between themselves and the chaotic counterculture. It was in the late 1960 s and early 1970 s that severe prejudice against the overweight began to take root in American culture. New studies and understandings about cholesterol brought insights and advise about the amount of fat in the American diet. Foods began to be classified as good and bad, and fat was disgusting. Overweight women became horribly ashamed of their eating habits as authorities pronounced that the obese had no physiological need for food.
Overeating (whatever brought one above a desirable body weight) was self-destructive behavior. Gluttons were defined by their body size, not their appetites. Roberta Pollack Said writes in Never Too Thin that, the cruelest -- and ultimately most damaging -- aspect of fashions lust for slenderness was its insistence that women could achieve it, regardless of their genes or age (149). Fashion proclaimed that slenderness could make one part of a world filled with beautiful people.
It was believed that everyone had a thin person, a beautiful, sexy, intelligent person, waiting to burst forth. The svelte were considered quicker, more competent, better adjusted, and more disciplined and moral than the fat. Health was redefined in the seventies and eighties. One not only had to be thin, but fit. Cellulite could flaw even the lightest body. Everyone wanted to be athletes -- or, at least, look like them.
Americans had become so phobic about fat, they could easily buy the idea that not eating was healthier than eating. There were liquid protein diets for those who had trouble fasting. These semi-starvation regimes were blamed for over 60 deaths, and the Center for Disease Control issued warnings, but Americans were undaunted (Body Project 107). Better dead than fat.
These attitudes have all accelerated through the 1990 s to present. Fitness routines are more strenuous, and the most minor flaws are intolerable. Levine and Solar found that the average fashion model weighs 23 % less than the average woman (473). Their surveys show that 75 % of women aged 18 - 35 believe theyre fat, while only 25 % are actually overweight (the same percentage as men). 45 % of underweight women think theyre too fat, and women cite losing ten pounds as more desirable than success in work or love (473). Yet, there is little evidence to support the claim that being mildly overweight causes poor health in women.
Studies suggest that women may live longer if they weigh 10 - 15 % above life insurance standards and refrain from dieting (Freedman 237). If not for health reasons, why this persistent pursuit of impossible ideals? If we examine the evolution of womens body standards over the past 150 years, we are able to recognize certain trends. The first major thinning of American women occurred in the 1920 s as women were liberated from many societal expectations and attained the right to vote. The preference subsided as the Great Depression and World War II occupied their lives. In the 1950 s, when women were quiet and domesticated, voluptuous figures were acceptable.
It wasnt until the revolutions of the 1960 s that women gained a freedom similar to mens, and again began to attenuate their bodies. It seems the more power women have, the more slender their bodies become. Women are safer to our society when their minds and bodies are weakened. Rita Friedman writes in Beauty Bound, The female body represents fertility and mortality. The flapper or Twiggy look strips it of its fleshy, fruitful dimensions, and hides a womans reproductive powers behind a neutered image. When fashioned as a boyish imp, or most recently as an angular jock, the fearful mother figure is deflated and safely disguised (149).
In The Beauty Myth Naomi Wolf states, In the regressive 1950 s, womens natural fullness could be briefly enjoyed once more because their minds were occupied with domestic seclusion. But when women came en masse into male spheres, that pleasure had to be hidden by an urgent social expedient that would make womens bodies the prisons their homes no longer were (184). She goes on to argue, The great weight shift must be understood as one of the major historical developments of the century, a direct solution to the dangers posed by the womens movement and economic and reproductive freedom. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in womens history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one... Concern with weight leads to a virtual collapse of self-esteem and sense of effectiveness (187). Again, Wolf writes, Prolonged and periodic caloric restriction results in a distinctive personality whose traits are passivity, anxiety and emotionality.
It is those traits, and not thinness for its own sake, that the dominant culture wants to create in the private sense of recently liberated women in order to cancel out the dangers of liberation (188). Over one million young women do irreversible damage to their bodies and psyches annually as a result of eating disorders (Wolf 181). The notion that this devastation was engineered by powerful members of our society is almost too ridiculous -- and too evil -- to conceive. Yet, somehow, young, western women have fallen victim to the unattainable ideal of someone elses beauty. If history is any indicator, the epidemic will progress unrestrained. In the meantime, 150, 000 American women will die this year of anorexia and bulimia nervosa (Wolf 180).
Works Cited Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. The Body Project. New York: Random House, 1997. Brumberg, Joan Jacobs.
Fasting Girls. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988. Freedman, Rita. Beauty Bound.
Lexington: D. C. Heath and Company, 1986. Levine, Michael P.
and Smolack, Linda. The Relation of Sociocultural Factors to Eating Attitudes and Behaviors Among Middle School Girls. Journal of Early Adolescence November 1994: 471 - 475. Schwitzer, Alan M. , et al. The Eating Disorders NOS Diagnostic Profile Among College Women. Journal of American College Health January 2001: 157 - 167.
Said, Roberta Pollack. Never Too Thin. New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1989. Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. New York:
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