The Body Project

For the past four years, I've used Joan Jacob Brumberg's marvelous The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls in my women's history classes.

I posted last week about what I (and others) see in contemporary feminism as "a shift away from an earlier era's obsession with individual autonomy." In this early 21st-century world where young women's bodies are relentlessly on display in virtually every cultural venue, a 1970s feminist ideal of maximizing personal freedom seems both dated and insensitive. Brumberg, a secular feminist historian whose work on anorexia is legendary, makes the following point that is a perfect summary of the problem:

"Although I applaud the social freedom and economic opportunities enjoyed by the current cohort of high school and college girls, their autonomy seems to me to be oversold, if not illusory. Many young women, particularly those under twenty, do not have the emotional resources to be truly autonomous or to withstand outside pressures from peers and boyfriends, whom they desperately want to please. They are also locked into a commercially driven television culture that exploits female bodies in unprecedented and, increasingly, violent ways. By their own admission, this environment of slick images and quick seductions shapes their desires, and their sense of self, even if they try to resist. As we consider ways to respond to the predicament of our girls, we need to acknowledge these facts: teenagers do not always understand their own self-interest."

And she goes on:

"Girls who do not feel good about themselves need the affirmation of others, and that need, unfortunately, almost always empowers male desire".

Look, I am not unaware that it is problematic -- almost dangerous -- to have a Christian man teaching young women in a secular college that they (most are teenagers) don't "always understand their own self-interest"! (It's why I let Brumberg, whose feminist credentials are impeccable, make the point for me.) But I can speak from my own experience as a man as to how male desire is empowered both by young women's low self-esteem and by the cultural message that "big girls should be able to make decisions for themselves". I'm not for a moment excusing male predatory behavior, a behavior that I -- by God's grace -- abandoned years ago. But I am saying to both my high school youth group and my college students (albeit in different ways) that we need to begin to focus on restoring what Brumberg calls the "protective umbrella" of an earlier era, an era in which society as a whole saw young women as deserving of non-sexual attention, nurturing and care. Above all, we need to be able to teach an ethic that places a premium on "helping young women develop a sense of what is a fair, pleasurable, and responsible use of their bodies." The culture certainly isn't doing that. Their peers aren't doing that. Young predatory men DEFINITELY aren't doing that. So some of us are trying to do just that.

I know this sounds terribly self-congratulatory, and I apologize for that. But this is an issue about which I have deep feelings as a feminist man, a teacher, a youth leader and a Christian, rooted in my theology, my academic training, and my own experience.

Rant over. I think another cup of coffee is in order before class!

Comments

[maggi]

hear, hear, Hugo.

[Tim Bednar]

Here is a great site on female body image in the media.

http://www.about-face.org/

[Hugo]

Thanks, Maggi and Tim -- great site!

[Rus]

This is very important stuff, and your points are well made. The culture, sadly, is almost more than anyone can combat. When Britney Spears and Christina A. and others hold up sexuality as a normal means of daily artistic expression, it drives home the message that women need to objectify themselves. And for women (especially young women in their teens) who might not 'measure up' physically to the stereotypical sexiness of modern culture, it can be an emotional struggle. Sadly, in a lot of youth groups I don't see much difference in how younf women (and men) encourage each other to look and behave.

[Tyler Watson]

Great post. How one says these ideas will be important because no one in Western culture wants to hear - at any age - that they are incapable of autonomy. How do we create the umbrella? Is this a social project that will take years to establish since it is so antithetical to the current paradigm?

I agree wholeheartedly that the message sent to women - young and old - is that sexuality equals power and power equals autonomy. To use sexuality as a means to an end is no less objectifying than the systems that existed prior to the cultural shift in the 1960's and 1970's.

[Scott]

Wow just came here via maggie. That was an extremly powerful post. I think that this is something that the Body must do. I am excited that we can empower both men and women. Something that is not being done enough is addressing the predatory behavior.

Thanks for the good read and thought provoking ideas.

[Arnold Williams]

Excellent. As a father of a daughter, you bring up a way for me to discuss this matter -- not with her (she doesn't listen to me) but with her mother at the dinner table -- the only time we get semi-civilized behavior.

Whether that succeeds, of course, is not up to us.