Tonight, author Courtney Martin will talk in Baker University Center Theatre about body image, and the problems faced by both men and women as body hating becomes normal for today's young adults. She will also hold a similar, less formal event tomorrow, a Brown Bag Lunch and Learn at the Ohio University Women's Center. Both events are a part of OU's Diversity Week.
Martin is the author of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: How the Quest for Perfection is Harming Young Women, Do It Anyway: The Next Generation of Activists, and the upcoming Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists. She is a journalist and editor at Feministing.com and senior correspondent for The American Prospect Online, and her work has appeared in numerous publications such as Newsweek, The Christian Science Monitor and Glamour.
The Post's Mallory Long talked with Martin about feminism, body image and Barbie.
The Post: What made you interested in writing about eating disorders?
Courtney Martin: I became pretty outraged as an undergraduate, and shortly thereafter, by what I saw as kind of the new normalcy of women hating their bodies. It was also sort of this feeling that we'd accepted that it was normal for women to hate their bodies and it was normal to waste all this time and energy on counting calories, over-exercising, or behaviors that wouldn't be seen as diagnosable eating disorders but are certainly a huge detriment to our quality of life.
Post: Your first anthology, coming out this spring, is titled Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists. When did you know you were a feminist?
Martin: I was going to Barnard College, and (feminist authors) Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards came to speak about (their book) Manifesta and I was just transfixed ... I just had this moment of going, Oh
I identify with them not just generationally but aesthetically and in terms of the way they communicate the things I care about. It just felt so contemporary and so recognizable.
Post: Your Web site says you're giving a lecture on Barbie. How do you think Barbie plays into body image?
Martin: Often when I will give lectures about perfect girls, there will be mothers in the audience that raise their hands during the Q&A period and very worriedly say to me, What kinds of toys do you think we should keep our daughters from playing with? and so it reminds me of the hysteria around Barbies when I was growing up. What I say to those mothers is, There is no magic bullet. (Your daughter is) really going to read it in your life and Barbie doesn't stand a chance against that kind of modeling.
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Culture
Mallory Long
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Q&A: Courtney Martin
