Sheena,
15, shaves outside her house, San Jose, California.
The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, the book by Joan Jacobs Brumberg, describes how the "body projects" of American girls have changed over the past century, and pays special attention to the ways in which they absorb the attention of different generations of young women as they develop into womanhood.
I am interested in the time-consuming grooming and beauty rituals that are an integral part of daily life. I am interested in the fact that to fall out outside the ideal body type is to be a modern-day pariah.
Fina, 13, in a tanning salon, Edina, Minnesota.
In the twentieth century, the body has become the central personal project of American girls... scientific medicine, movies, and advertising created a new, more exacting ideal of physical perfection.... Young women’s normal anxiety about their developing bodies has been at the core of marketing strategies since World War II.... playing on self-hate in order to sell products.... [Consumer culture seduces girls] into thinking that the body and sexual expression are their most important projects.
Danielle,
13, gets measured
as Michelle, 13, waits for the final weigh-in on the last day of weight-loss
camp, Catskills, New York.
Morgan and
Lisa, both 13, during spring break, Sanibel Island, Florida.
It just kills me when these girls look at magazines and wish they could look like that. I try to tell them, “Nobody looks like that. Everything’s airbrushed. My pictures are airbrushed. You should see me without makeup. Everything is lighting and makeup and hair. You would probably look way better than me if you were able to have this.” I wish every girl could experience that.... I look at my own pictures and wish I could look like that. There are probably five people in this whole entire world who actually look like that.
Nikki, an aspiring actress, in Gucci shoes after a pedicure, Hollywood, California.
A surgeon performs a breast augmentation, Miami, Florida.
A single, dramatically lit photograph of perfectly circular breasts undergoing surgery reminds us of the growing number of American women and girls whose quest for physical perfection leads them to intrusive medical procedures. Images like these suggest that appearance junkies are made, not born, by the enormous array of body projects and pressures at large among us.