BOOK REVIEWS: Perfect Girls,
Starving Daughters
Reviewed by Carol A. Johnson
Reprinted from Eating Disorders Recovery Today
Spring 2008 Volume 6, Number 2
©2008 Gürze Books
 Perfect Girls, Starving DaughtersThe Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body |
Courtney E. Martin uses a variety of lenses to capture the essence of what she refers to as the "perfect, starving girl." Body image issues have been part and parcel of the journey from girlhood to womanhood for many years. Those of us who came of age in the 60s had our share of body image meltdowns. What is alarming is that it has gotten worse, not better, despite the influences of feminism. Martin documents how many girls replace the "self" in self-image with an obsessive focus on their bodies until they no longer have a "self"-image, only a "body" image. Once this happens, for some girls it can turn into an eating disorder.
Martin comes from a variety of angles, examining both the individual and societal forces that converge to produce the harsh self-evaluations women confer on their bodies. She talks to her friends and to today's teens. She examines the influence of parents: mothers still encumbered by their own body image issues, fathers who feel awkward addressing these issues. Men, she reveals, are not necessarily looking for body perfection, but may feel culturally constrained from expressing what they really prefer.
Martin is at her best when she examines the unintended body image consequences of feminism—how the engine pulling women's empowerment sometimes sits on a side track, waiting to be linked once again to looks. She examines the contradiction experienced by many women who have the ambition to change the world, but are convinced that they must be thin and pretty to do it.
Martin illustrates how body perfectionism permeates our culture, how the media and music reinforce it, how it transcends race and ethnicity, how it can sabotage the positive benefits of competition and athleticism, how it can derail sexuality, and how it can invade even our spirituality.
As Martin recounts her own tenuous body journey from junior high school through college and beyond, she is hoping the situation has changed for today's girls, but she finds that it apparently has not. The paradox for today's "perfect girl" is being skinny, but still having all the right curves in all the right places. The media bemoans too thin models, but then takes nasty jabs at the actress who is now a size 12.
Martin's writing is honest and insightful. Body image issues have been discussed by other authors, but Martin takes the time to really explore "what lies beneath." She challenges us, sometimes jolts us, into thinking about the underpinnings that will need to be dislodged before real progress can be made.
So where do we go from here? Martin has hope. She has issued a call to action. At the ending of her book, she calls for a new beginning. She challenges girls and women to write new stories for themselves and points out that with enough new stories, we can create a cultural transformation, a transformation that would lead us to admire bodies in much the same way we admire flowers—they come in many different shapes, sizes and colors, but all are beautiful. Read Martin's book and then begin writing your own new story.
