Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [98]
In all the years I’ve been a therapist, I’ve yet to meet one girl who likes her body. Girls as skinny as chopsticks complain that their thighs are flabby or their stomachs puff out. And not only do girls dislike their bodies, they often loathe their fat. They have been culturally conditioned to hate their bodies, which are after all themselves. When I speak to classes, I ask any woman in the audience who feels good about her body to come up afterward. I want to hear about her success experience. I have yet to have a woman come up.
Unfortunately girls are not irrational to worry about their bodies. Looks do matter. Girls who are chubby or plain miss much of the American dream. The social desirability research in psychology documents our prejudices against the unattractive, particularly the obese, who are the social lepers of our culture. A recent study found that 11 percent of Americans would abort a fetus if they were told it had a tendency to obesity. By age five, children select pictures of thin people when asked to identify good-looking others. Elementary school children have more negative attitudes toward the obese than toward bullies, the handicapped or children of different races. Teachers underestimate the intelligence of the obese and overestimate the intelligence of the slender. Obese students are less likely to be granted scholarships.
Girls are terrified of being fat, as well they should be. Being fat means being left out, scorned and vilified. Girls hear the remarks made about heavy girls in the halls of their schools. No one feels thin enough. Because of guilt and shame about their bodies, young women are constantly on the defensive. Young women with eating disorders are not all that different from their peers. It’s a matter of degree. Almost all adolescent girls feel fat, worry about their weight, diet and feel guilty when they eat. In fact, the girls with eating disorders are often the girls who have bought the cultural messages about women and attractiveness hook, line and scales. To conform they are willing to make themselves sick.
Particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, there’s been an explosion of girls with eating disorders. When I speak at high schools, girls surround me with confessions about their eating disorders. When I speak at colleges, I ask if any of the students have friends with eating disorders. Everyone’s hand goes up. Studies report that on any given day in America, half our teenage girls are dieting and that one in five young women has an eating disorder. Eating disorders are not currently the media-featured problem they were in the 1980s, but incidence rates are not going down. Eight million women have eating disorders in America.
Chapter 10
DRUGS AND ALCOHOL-IF OPHELIA WERE ALIVE TODAY
TRACY (13)
As her mother talked, Tracy, who sat as far away from her mother as was possible in my small office, opened her mouth in mock disbelief. Wendy ignored Tracy’s histrionics as she explained that Tracy had skipped school, cheated on tests and yelled at her teachers. Recently she had been expelled because the principal found a bottle of schnapps in her book bag.
“We can’t believe this is happening to our daughter,” Wendy said. “Maybe it’s her liberal school. We don’t know what to do.”
Tracy said, “You can stay out of my life.”
“We took Tracy to our minister, but he said she needed professional help. He thinks she might be an alcoholic.”
Tracy tossed her head in disdain. “I just hate our family, that’s all.”
“We can’t control her,” Wendy continued. “She slips out at night. We’ve found cigarettes in her dresser. She’s so moody and irritable that we don’t know what to say to her. We’re worried about her future.”
“That’s your problem, Mom,” Tracy said. “You’re always talking