Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters

The other night, I finished reading Courtney Martin’s new book Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body. I picked it up for several reasons. Martin occasionally blogs at Feministing, which I love, I had read a good excerpt from the book in Bitch Magazine. After reading The Beauty Myth, I was also eager to learn more about the beauty industry and culture, and its effect on young women.

Let’s start with the good.

Martin does a great job of bringing attention to the increasing problem of eating disorders among young girls and women. I think that her basic premise, the link between perfectionism and eating disorders, is a valid and interesting one, despite my extreme skepticism in its ability to tell the whole story. I also really loved the chapter on obesity. Martin discusses how overeating and under-eating are two sides of the same coin. She also talks about how society sees the overweight, and that the supposed “concern” over health is generally a sham. The chapter was tastefully and intelligently done. It was my favorite part of the book.

Then there’s the bad.

Martin relies very heavily on personal anecdotes, interviews and blending the two together to create narratives about what “average” women and girls go through. Sometimes, the anecdotes and interviews were helpful, interesting and entertaining. But because there was so many of them, they began to grate on my nerves. I would have liked to see a lot more statistics and theoretical discussion from actual experts. It’s not that I was expecting a dense theoretical book . . . but more of a factual backing would have been useful.

It also, in my particular case, had the effect of alienating the reader. Though I’ve certainly struggled with poor body image and have dieted in the past, it has never been to the extent that Martin describes as being “normal,” now. She talks about girls and women both who have eating disorders and those who are or have been “on the verge” of having them, like herself. The language that she uses suggest this behavior to be universal, which would probably be comforting to someone who can relate to it, but felt like absurdity to me. Martin also seems to have personally known a vast number of women who have suffered from eating disorders. She claims that “most of her friends” do or have, and she seems to mean it. It makes me wonder, did we just hang out in different crowds throughout high school and college? Was I just incredibly imperceptive? Or does Martin just have some really freaky luck? Maybe, all of this is incredibly normal, and I’ve just lived a sheltered life (though I’ve had several friends with eating disorders, I would by no means say that “most” of them have or do).

In any case, it was a tone that annoyed me throughout the book. For example, she talks at length about the differences in her relationships with her mother and father. I felt like I was supposed to both relate to and learn something from this comparison, and see the differences that mothers and fathers have on their daughter’s sense of self and perception of her own beauty. Problem is, my relationship with my parents is just the opposite of her’s. So it bored me and made me wonder if, Christ, aren’t there studies on this kind of thing?

I admit that, yes, there are sources cited throughout the book. It’s not as though Martin went completely solo here. But the fact is that the anecdotes and interviews completely overwhelm them, and the facts get lost.

Lastly, the chapter about “What Men Want” pissed me off like hell. Firstly, she completely dismisses porn as having any effect on women’s poor self image and men’s high standards for women’s bodies. Secondly, she actually does talk about “what men want.” I’ve written previously about how these kinds of discussions bother me.

I don’t care what men want. Look, men are nice. I’m married to one, and I think that he’s just great. They also provide useful functions to us heterosexual women and to those of us who would like to reproduce. Men are important. But not when we’re talking about women’s self-image. The fact that men seemingly have so much to do with women’s self-image is the problem itself– not that men are creating negative self-images among women. How about, for ONCE, people, instead of trying to convince women that what men “really want” is a woman with some meat on her bones, who doesn’t wear too much makeup and actually reads sometimes, we convince them that your worth shouldn’t be determined based on what men think? How about we teach women to love themselves and accept themselves as they are because that’s the healthy thing to do? And then, if you do want to be in a relationship with a man, hopefully you will find one who likes you for who you really are? And if they’re all assholes instead, that sucks, but it’s a hell of a lot better than starving yourself and ending up with a guy who likes you because you have big boobs and don’t think too much? Could we please try that for once, and see how it goes? Humor me. Thanks.

Sigh. Okay, so I’m being harsh. The book was not terrible, just highly mediocre compared to what I was expecting, and therefore sadly disappointing I guess that it just wasn’t what I was looking for.