Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body

Perfect Girls, Starving DaughtersReader's GuideBy Courtney and her mom, Jere E. Martin, MSW1. Do you think food and fitness obsession is a normal part of being a woman?2. Does the description of the perfect girl resonate with you?3. How does the starving daughter part of you -- your unspoken needs, fears, desire for comfort -- get expressed? Are you comfortable with this part of you? Why or why not?4. What do you see as the biggest losses of the epidemic of eating disorders and the larger culture of food and fitness obsession?5. How do you differentiate between healthy ambition and unhealthy perfectionism? How did your mother and/or father influence your perspective? How do you think you might influence your daughter's perspective?6. How did your mother's relationship with her body influence your relationship with yours? What was the talk about health and beauty in your family? Was there one person whose comments were particularly influential? If so, why do you think that was?7. Courtney writes that feminists taught their daughters that they could be anything, and that their daughters, instead, decided that they had to be everything. What do you think about that interpretation? Do you consider yourself a feminist? Why or why not? Do you think feminism means different things for different generations?8. Courtney describes her relationship with her own father as a "walk in the park" compared to that with her mother, which resembles a "jungle hike." Is this true for you? What are the benefits and losses of having less intimate but steadier relationships with our fathers? What kind of father-daughter relationship best supports a daughter's healthy self-image?9. What was your self-image like at age thirteen? Are the insecurities you felt then still with you in some way today? In what ways do they show up? Do you keep them hidden? If so, how?10. Who was the perfect girl in your middle school or high school? What do you think she might be doing now?11. Do you think of eating and fitness issues as a rich, white girl's disease? Were you surprised that so many working-class girls and girls of color were affected by these issues?12. Instead of developing an authentic sense of their own sexuality, Courtney and her friend Jen struggle within a society that still reduces young women to virgin/slut stereotypes. Did or do you experience this same dichotomy? How has it changed since the 1950s and in what ways is it still the same today? What do those women labeled as prudes lose in terms of options for expressing the full range of who they are? What about those labeled as easy?13. In what ways do you think women's appetites for sex mirrors their appetites for food? What would have to change about our culture in order for women to be more in touch with their authentic appetites?14. Who do you see as healthy role models in pop culture for young women today? Why is there such a lack of contemporary heroines? Were there more in the past, and if so, why?15. In what ways does hip-hop culture strengthen young women's sense of self? In what ways does it stifle it?16. As mass media provides us with a more diverse range of female images, in terms of body type and race, how does this affect your perspective of the ideal body?17. How does a woman's relationship with her own body affect her relationships with those she dates?18. Were you surprised that the majority of the men Courtney interviewed emphasized how important humor was as opposed to a particular body type? Is this your experience? Do you think that porn socializes young men to have unrealistic expectations for women's bodies? Why or why not?19. Courtney writes about the difference between being noticed -- catcalled, picked up in bars, etc. -- and being truly seen. Does one form of getting attention make you feel more beautiful than the other? Why?20. In what ways do you see the epidemics of obesity andMartin, Courtney E. is the author of 'Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body', published 2007 under ISBN 9780743287968 and ISBN 0743287967.