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The award-winning author of Fasting Girls explores what teenage girls have lost in this new world of freedom and consumerism—a world in which the body is their primary project. "Fascinating ... riveting ... Women and girls should read this fine book together." —The New York Times Book Review A hundred years ago, women were lacing themselves into corsets and teaching their daughters to do the same. The ideal of the day, however, was inner beauty: a focus on good deeds and a pure heart. Today American women have more social choices and personal freedom than ever before. But fifty-three percent of our girls are dissatisfied with their bodies by the age of thirteen, and many begin a pattern ...
Most Americans regard "kids who kill" as a bane of modern society, but the tragic tale of "Kansas Charley" reminds us that it is a long-standing issue. Charles Miller was a fifteen- year-old killer who was hanged in 1892 for the murders of two young men. Kansas Charleyvividly brings to life a thought-provoking chapter in American history and in the history of the juvenile justice system, shedding light on our contemporary predicament and encouraging us to think about what it means to continue to uphold the juvenile death penalty in the twenty-first century.
An acclaimed classic from the award-winning author of The Body Project presents a history of women's food-refusal dating back as far as the sixteenth century, providing compassion to victims and their families. Here is a tableau of female self-denial: medieval martyrs who used starvation to demonstrate religious devotion, "wonders of science" whose families capitalized on their ability to survive on flower petals and air, silent screen stars whose strict "slimming" regimens inspired a generation. Here, too, is a fascinating look at how the cultural ramifications of the Industrial Revolution produced a disorder that continues to render privileged young women helpless. Incisive, compassionate, illuminating, Fasting Girls offers real understanding to victims and their families, clinicians, and all women who are interested in the origins and future of this complex, modern and characteristically female disease.
Until recently, historians tended to dismiss home economics as little more than a conspiracy to keep women in the kitchen. This landmark volume initiates collaboration among home economists, family and consumer science professionals, and women's historians. What knits the essays together is a willingness to revisit the subject of home economics with neither indictment nor apology. The volume includes significant new work that places home economics in the twentieth century within the context of the development of women's professions. Rethinking Home Economics documents the evolution of a profession from the home economics movement launched by Ellen Richards in the early twentieth century to t...
Revealing and insightful, Lauren Greenfield's classic monograph on the lives of American girls is back in print. Greenfield's award-winning photographs capture the ways in which girls are affected by American popular culture. With an eye for both the common and the eccentric, she visits girls of all ages, discussing issues ranging from eating disorders and self-mutilation to spring break and prom. With more than 100 mesmerizing photographs, 18 interviews, and an introduction by social and cultural historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg, this book is as vital and relevant now as when it was first published.
Anorexia nervosa may affect as many as five to ten percent of adolescent girls in the United States, and on some college campuses, the estimate is as high as twenty percent. Despite its recent "popularity", however, the disease remains puzzling in its causes and stubbornly resistant to a cure. For, as Fasting Girls demonstrates, anorexia nervosa existed long before our current preoccupation with lean bodies. This landmark, award-winning work offers a solution to the mystery of anorexia nervosa, exploring its historical roots from the fasting saints of the Middle Ages and the curious "fasting girls" of the Victorian era to the weight-obsessed celebrities of our own time. By linking broad cult...
“A brilliant, disturbing study of anorexic behavior amongst medieval Italian female saints . . . original, controversial, superbly executed.” —Kirkus Reviews Is there a resemblance between the contemporary anorexic teenager counting every calorie in her single-minded pursuit of thinness, and an ascetic medieval saint examining her every desire? Rudolph M. Bell suggests that the answer is yes. “Everyone interested in anorexia nervosa . . . should skim this book or study it. It will make you realize how dependent upon culture the definition of disease is. I will never look at an anorexic patient in the same way again.” —Howard Spiro, M.D., Gastroenterology “[This] book is a first...
Many diseases discussed here--endstage renal disease, rheumatic fever, parasitic infectious diseases, coronary thrombosis--came to be defined, redefined, and renamed over the course of several centuries. As these essays show, the concept of disease has also been used to frame culturally resonant behaviors: suicide, homosexuality, anorexia nervosa, chronic fatigue syndrome. Disease is also framed by public policy, as the cases of industrial disability and of forensic psychiatry demonstrate. Medical institutions, as managers of people with disease, come to have vested interests in diagnoses, as the histories of facilities to treat tuberculosis or epilepsy reveal. Ultimately, the existence and conquest of disease serves to frame a society's sense of its own "healthiness" and to give direction to social reforms.
Critically acclaimed for "Girl Culture" and "Fast Forward," Greenfield continues her exploration of contemporary female culture with "Thin," a groundbreaking photographic exploration of eating disorders.
Teen-aged girls hate their bodies and diet obsessively, or so we hear. News stories and reports of survey research often claim that as many as three girls in five are on a diet at any given time, and they grimly suggest that many are “at risk” for eating disorders. But how much can we believe these frightening stories? What do teenagers mean when they say they are dieting? Anthropologist Mimi Nichter spent three years interviewing middle school and high school girls—lower-middle to middle class, white, black, and Latina—about their feelings concerning appearance, their eating habits, and dieting. In Fat Talk, she tells us what the girls told her, and explores the influence of peers, ...