Chidobe Umeasor

FIQWS 10113

Professor Geoghan

December 12 2019

How the Roles of American Women changed the Ideal Female Body over time, and the Social, Mental, and Medical Implications

 

                Over the past 100 years, American women have gone to extreme lengths to achieve what was the ideal body for their time. In trying to achieve these figures, women often neglect their own physiological limitations and begin to engage in dangerous behaviors. Engaging in such behaviors can lead to decline in mental and physical health, and are possibly fatal. In addition, these behaviors set the wrong example for young women, where they begin to see their bodies as a trend, and not a natural entity. From around the time of the Great Depression until now, the ideal female physique has drastically changed. In order to make sense of the effects that these physiques have had, it is important to understand the origins of these ideals and how their significance has changed over time.

               In the 1920s, about a decade before the great depression, the flapper movement was at its peak. Women, especially young women were sexually liberated, allowed to do what they wanted in public and were recently given their right to vote. The decade introduced the tradition of the Miss America pageant but it symbolized freedom of sexual expression and proved that women could make names for themselves outside the household. Fast forward to the 1940s. During wartime, women had a less “feminine” look. The ideal was to have slim hips and wear shoulder pads to give the shoulders a more edged appearance (“Who’s Ideal Was This Anyway?”). While the men were overseas fighting in World War II, women took up their jobs that involved more physical activity. The weight loss that resulted from this, along with the uniforms created the said ideal. Just like in the 20s, these ideals did not affect women in the sense that they needed to look this way to feel beautiful. American women were still in the process of proving their strength and expressing their freedom. For a short while after the war, being slim was a way to take up less space, and not have a body that distracts from matters of greater importance (BBC). Women looked this way not because they felt it would draw in male attention, but because it was a result of what they did to support their families and garner respect (“Who’s Ideal Was This Anyway?”).

               1950s postwar America is where we start to see the shift in the presentation and intent of the ideal female body. The media wanted to rid America of the Rosie the Riveter image and introduce a more feminine, conventionally attractive female body. At this time we start to see the rise of fashion companies and magazines, and they needed a target market. The obsession with a beautiful body began with “high-fashion designers and the movie industry [battling] for dominance in shaping and defining beauty ideals” (Matelski). Women were an easy target for many reasons. One being that, despite the political and social advancements women made over the previous 50 years, they were still seen to be weaker than men. Secondly, now that the men were home, the sentiment of being attractive rose. Upon their return, the women were displaced from the jobs that men previously had, and the shift of focus to women being more “stay-at-home” figures was part of a movement to put reinstitute male societal dominance. The American fashion industry began to use the return of soldiers as a way to pick at women’s insecurities in attempts to restore the traditional female role in society. Women with fuller figures like Marilyn Monroe, Lana Turner, and Jean Harlow began to be heavily publicized to push this narrative. They were cast in many TV Shows and movies, their lives were broadcasted everywhere, and they were on the cover of many magazines. By the 1960s-70s, fashion magazines like Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Seventeen became popular. Standard, or “straight” sized clothing options became popular in stores. Women looked to these publications to teach then how to be “feminine and fashionable” (Matelski). 

               By the time the 80s rolled around, the fashion industry had done what it had intended to do. Women with specific body types began to hold even more power on the television screens of the average American woman. The earliest supermodels like Brooke Shields had a figure that was lean, but curvy, arguably the healthiest, yet unattainable figure. Later in 90s-00s, the ideal had gone from a full figure back to slim. The rise of supermodels like Naomi Campbell, Adriana Lima, and Kate Moss brought about the “Heroin Chic” era. The bodies of models could be described as “waifish, extremely thin, and androgynous”(Buzzfeed). Now, as the end of the 2010s approaches, it seems like every year there is a new body type or body part or female celebrity that comes into style. There’s been the Kardashian look, the instagram model, physiques similar to that of the heroin chic and yet there are people still promoting other bodies types. With all these contradicting ideals appearing, at what cost are they to the female mind and body? 

               Around the 1950s when the fuller figure came into prominence, procedures like breast augmentations became more popular. This came about not only as a result of representations of bodies like Monroe’s, but also because doctors said that these procedures would help women make their husbands stay, and even find one in the first place (Matelski). Face lifts and injections also became more popular. In addition to these medical procedures, dieting also became more common place. As stated earlier, women who lived in the first half of the 20th Century wanted to be slim so they did not have to hold their bodies as first priority in their lives. Many women went on diets to achieve the slim figure. As a result, more and more women became diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa. Since then so many dieting programs have come and gone, promising to give these women the body they desire. Popular examples of these diets are the Atkins diet, the military diet, the water fast, the egg diet, the 900 calories diet, and just straight starvation. 

               So when do women start to become affected by these ever changing ideals? A study documented by the Journal of Youth and Adolescence in 2006 followed a group of 257 preadolescent girls as they matured and became post adolescents. The goal of the experiment was to see how media exposure at the preadolescent stage affected the girls in the post adolescent stage. The study found that the exposure to these ideals at a young age caused the girls to desire to look thinner by the time they got older. If these were the results in 2006, it is frightening to think of what the effects might be like now. According to the National Public Radio and Common Sense Media, about 53% of American children own smartphones by age 11, and 62% of tweens (age 10-13) watch TV or use social media almost everyday. This mass exposure can lead to growing numbers of young girls suffering from eating disorders and body dysmorphia. Another study documented by the International Journal of Eating Disorders found that “women’s perceptions of body normality and ideal were easily malleable by exposure”. The results of this study rang true even in the postwar era. Women were easily driven away from the mentality of being able to replace men in society while away at war. Once they returned, the desire to be pretty also returned with the projection of certain women by the media, although many aspects of women independence were still kept to this day.

               Another facet to this topic is the growing obsession of women wanting to remain youthful. Despite the insane changes in the ideal female body in America over time, one common factor is that all these women are young. There is a youthful element to each of the idolized figures. The International Journal of Eating Disorders published an article that discusses the implications of age on body image. The older one gets, the more apparent age becomes on their physical appearance and the less lively they feel. It also does not help that growing old is stigmatized in American Society. The main idea of all these studies is to show that one, media exposure can have detrimental effects on women, and two, these effects affect women of a wide range of ages. To add to the mix, Benjamin T. Singer in his text “From the Medical Gaze to Sublime mutations” highlights the dehumanization when certain people are presented in images. His piece focuses on non normative bodies, and in a way, it applies to this changing narrative. When a select few women are broadcasted to have the perfect body, only a very small percentage of the women viewing check all the boxes. In this sense, the media broadcasting the bodies of the Monroes or heroin chics are broadcasting a non normative body. This can lead women to see their bodies as trends, as Singer writes that these images create “the effect of scientific objectivity through… defamiliarizing, and ultimately depersonalizing the represented figure”(Singer). Once the female body has become depersonalized, it can cause the owners of this body to detach their personality from it, consequently placing it as a priority in their lives and wrongly attaching their human value to it. Because these women are figures, shown to be well liked because of their looks, women are easily influenced in allowing themselves to be physically altered by these ideals. When a woman encounters a physiological or mental hurdle, they allow themselves to go to extreme measures to get that body because they have been taught that that is what matters. Eventually, we see their physical, mental, and emotional well being be negatively affected overtime. And because of the early exposure, it becomes a cycle where young girls and their mothers alike become involved in.

               There have been efforts however, to bring light to, and break this cycle. In 2013, R&B superstar Beyonce released a track and supporting music video called “Pretty Hurts”. The lyrics make note of the wide range of ideals women are supposed to have: “Blonder hair, flat chest/TV says bigger is better/South beach, sugar free/Vogue says/Thinner is better”. In the video, she shows herself amongst other women going through self destructive things in order to look pretty and win a beauty pageant. Music, videos, and campaigns like these are part of a movement that is going on now that is trying to use the media to fix the issues that it started regarding female body image. Despite these efforts, it’s very difficult to stop the media from capitalizing off the insecurities of women. A powerful way to stop this feeling of inferiority and insecurity among women is not necessarily to hide them from exposure, but teach them ways to process these images in a healthy way. To not obsess or compare. To teach them that their bodies are not a trend. Instead, they are a part of nature that does not need to be tampered with or look like that of the other woman.

Works Cited

Beyonce – Pretty Hurts (Video), YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXXQLa-5n5w.

Glauert, R. , Rhodes, G. , Byrne, S. , Fink, B. and Grammer, K. (2009), Body dissatisfaction and the effects of perceptual exposure on body norms and ideals. Int. J. Eat. Disord., 42: 443-452. doi:10.1002/eat.20640

Guptaxy, M. A. and Schork, N. J. (1993), Aging‐related concerns and body image: Possible future implications for eating disorders. Int. J. Eat. Disord., 14: 481-486. doi:10.1002/1098-108X(199312)14:4<481::AID-EAT2260140411>3.0.CO;2-G

Harrison, K. & Hefner, V. J Youth Adolescence (2006) 35: 146. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-005-9008-3

Kamenetz, Anya. “It’s A Smartphone Life: More Than Half Of U.S. Children Now Have One.” NPR, NPR, 31 Oct. 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/10/31/774838891/its-a-smartphone-life-more-than-half-of-u-s-children-now-have-one.

Matelski, Elizabeth M., “The Color(s) of Perfection: The Feminine Body, Beauty Ideals, and Identity in Postwar America, 1945-1970” (2011). Dissertations. 158. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/158

Rockwell, Norman. Rosie the Riveter. 1942, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art,   Bentonville, Arkansas.

Singer, Benjamin, et al. The Transgender Studies Reader: From the Medical Gaze to Sublime       Mutation: The Ethics of (Re) Viewing Non-normative Body Images. Routledge, 2013.

“The Roaring Twenties – Revision 2 – GCSE History – BBC Bitesize.” BBC News, BBC, https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zt8ftyc/revision/2.

“THE COMMON SENSE CENSUS: MEDIA USE BY TWEENS AND TEENS” Common

SenseMedia.,2015, https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/uploads/research/census_res earchreport.pdf

“Whose Ideal Was This, Anyway?” Whose Ideal Was This, Anyway?, 8 July 2011, http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com/2011/07/whose-ideal-was-this-anyway.html.

Women’s Ideal Body Types Throughout History, YouTube, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrp0zJZu0a4.