A Sign of the Times, or Not?

Ok, another Gone with the Wind quote for you today:

There was no one to tell Scarlett that her own personality, frighteningly vital though it was, was more attractive than any masquerade she might adopt.  Had she been told, she would have been pleased but unbelieving.  And the civilization of which she was a part would have been unbelieving, too, for at no time, before or since, had so low a premium been placed on feminine naturalness.

~Margaret Mitchell

This scene in the story takes place in 1861.  Mitchell wrote the book in the 1930's, apparently unable to imagine the degree to which females would be "unnaturalized in the media in coming decades.  Now that we can digitally manipulate images,  we can whittle women down and airbrush them so that they are literally beyond what even brutal underwear and other cosmetic strategies accomplished in previous centuries. Remember this video?  And this focuses mostly on face, not so much on body size.

This emphasizes touching up and smoothing out.  What's even sadder is the ultra-thin images that aren't all that whittled down, the stick-thin and decidedly unnatural ones you see in the media that are imitated by both boys and girls, young and not-so-young.  I, for one, am having to really challenge myself to learn what "natural" actually is, and the variety of forms it can take.  Let me tell you, one sure thing is that weak, skinny-ass primates with starving reproductive systems and fragile bones would not have gotten our species very far in the grand scheme of things . . . a good sign that this is not "natural" for us.  What would Margaret Mitchell have said about the Dove video, or about an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog, or about shows like America's Next Top Model?  

What's interesting about the book, I found, is that while the girls do go to lengths to cinch in their waistlines, there was still appreciation of healthy figures.  Scarlett pities girls that have to sew ruffles on their dresses to conceal lack of bosoms.  Scarlett isn't allowed to go to parties unless she eats a good meal before leaving.  This is partly to ensure she won't act unladylike by eating in public, but at least her nutrition is ensured at home.  As Scarlett observes at one point, "Mother is a lady and she eats . . . Ashley Wilkes told me he liked to see a girl with a healthy appetite."

When they do go through hard times and food shortages during Reconstruction, all of the characters lament how terrible the girls look as they lose weight.  So, I would have to say that Mitchell is wrong about our unreal expectations for women peaking in the mid-19th century.  It is sad, though, that these trends have been a part of life throughout history.

As an unrelated side note, I think one way I will know I am on the home stretch of recovery will be when I stop relating everything I see/read to eating disorders.