The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls Review
If you're looking for lengthy, impassioned essays on women's bodies and how the media portrays them, it's not here. This isn't one of those overdone, factually questionable FEMINIST-HUZZAH books that will make the average reader roll his or her eyes (and I say this being a feminist and having read and enjoyed quite a few of those books).
This actually provides an exceptionally insightful look into the history of woman's body in America. The book is broken up by body part / issue (acne, skin, the hymen, weight, etc). Each section traces the changing values and attitudes towards that particular issue, sans judgement or preaching. You're not going to get a lot of "the evil media" jabber with this book - you're going to get a well-researched observation. This book is critical to modern-day social studies and sociology as well as gender theory.
If this is a subject that you find intriguing or if you're a women's studies/psych/us history/sociology student, this book will prove invaluable. (If not, you will probably be bored--it's intellectually engaging, but not a heart-pounding page-turner.)
The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls Overview
Girls today are in crisis--and this book shows why. Drawing on a vast array of lively historical sources, unpublished diaries by adolescent girls, and photographs that conjure up memories of the past, The Body Project chronicles how growing up in a female body has changed over the past century and why that experience is more difficult today than ever before.
Girls' bodies have certainly changed--they mature much earlier--but at the same time traditional social supports for girls' growth and development have collapsed. The media and popular culture exploit girls' normal sensitivity to their changing bodies, and many girls grow up believing that "good looks" --rather than "good works"--represent the highest form of female perfection. With an eye for the humor in as well as the pain of female adolescence, Joan Jacobs Brumberg shows how American girls came to define themselves increasingly through their appearance, so that today the body has become their primary project.
With remarkable insight, Brumberg provides an account of what adolescent girls gained and lost as American women shed the corset and the ideal of virginity for a new world of dieting, sexual freedom, and consumerism. She explains how doctors and parents helped to promote an ideal of physical perfection that underlies the current preoccupation with the body and contributes to many of the social and emotional problems identified by Mary Pipher in Reviving Ophelia and by Carol Gilligan in In a Different Voice.
The Body Project describes the historical roots of the acute societal and psychological pressures that girls feel today, evoking important memories of girl culture as well as milestones of physical and emotional development, such as first periods, pimples, training bras, first dates, and sexual awakening. A vivid photo essay and excerpts from intimate diaries underscore how girls' attitudes toward their bodies and sexuality have changed in the last century. The Body Project is a superb book, gracefully written, filled with understanding, and very relevant to the lives of girls and women today.
The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls Specifications
Adolescent girls today face the issues girls have always faced: "Who am I?" and "Who do I want to be?" Unfortunately their answers, now more than ever before, revolve around the body rather than the mind, heart, or soul. "The body is at the heart of the crisis that [Carol] Gilligan, [Mary] Pipher, and others describe.... The fact that American girls now make the body their central project is not an accident or a curiosity," writes Brumberg, "it is a symptom of historical changes that are only now beginning to be understood." The historical photos, thorough research, and political even-handedness make this a book of worth and sincerity. The Body Project is also comforting for women, adolescents, parents, lesbians, and male lovers of women--helping us sort out the roots of female insecurities, obsessions, and angst.
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Customer Reviews
Fascinating History - K. Miller - Tennessee
Very interesting history of how girls used to be raised compared to more recent times. However it seemed written from a more slightly liberal/feminist view that I expected.
order received promptly and in good condition - BH - Seattle, WA USA
An interesting and insightful study of the history and evolution of American girls' body image.
the body - Reak Kovacs - USA
made me think about things a little diffrent. It has some really good facts and info in it. Not the best book on the subject but still good.
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 12, 2010 17:05:05
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