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Discipline, women and fashion

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Discipline, women and fashion

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DISCIPLINE, WOMEN AND FASHION

by

Esther Pomeroy

___________________________________________________________________

A Project Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(BROADCAST JOURNALISM)

May 2009

Copyright 2009 Esther Pomeroy

ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract iii

Discipline, Women and Fashion 1

iii
ABSTRACT

For centuries, women in Western society have been pressured to alter their figures to fit a
specific and ever-changing ideal. Until recently women accomplished this by wearing
binding and restrictive clothing. But in the 20
th
century, the focus shifted from the shape
of one’s clothing, to the shape of the body itself. Diet, exercise, and plastic surgery have
become normal for modern women.
This obsession has taken its toll on individuals and on society as a whole. As women
become more focused on how they look, they become less able to focus on their
education and careers. In addition, girls are becoming sexualized at younger and younger
ages, and are increasingly susceptible to potentially fatal eating disorders.

1
DISCIPLINE, WOMEN AND FASHION

SOT Linda Sparks
Sparks puts a corset on herself
Okay, so I’ve just loosened the laces in
the back. I take the loops in my right
hand.

VO Narrator

Sparks puts a corset on herself
Shot of Sparks’ store
Historical advertisements and
drawings of corsets

Painting of a woman having her
corset tightened by 2 helpers

LINDA SPARKS IS THE OWNER OF
FARTHINGALES—A SANTA
MONICA BOUTIQUE WHICH SELLS
CORSETS. THE CORSET HIT ITS
PEAK DURING THE VICTORIAN
ERA OF THE LATE NINETEENTH
CENTURY. IT’S A STIFF GARMENT
THAT USES VERTICAL RODS TO
SQUEEZE A WOMAN’S TORSO
INTO A DESIRED SHAPE.
THE CORSET IS AN EXAMPLE OF
THE GREAT LENGTHS WOMEN GO
TO IN ORDER TO ALTER THEIR
FIGURES. CORSETS, AND THE
SHAPES THEY CREATE, ARE NO
LONGER IN VOGUE. BUT WOMEN
ARE STILL PRESSURED TO
CHANGE THEIR BODIES. AND
MANY SAY IT COMES AT A HIGH
COST.

VO Aimee Liu Around age 13 I started to diet and

2
Continuation of shots of painting
SOT Aimee Liu
CG: Author, Solitaire

I kept on dieting and, you know, I went
from 130 pounds down to 95 and I stayed
there for, I didn’t break 100 pounds until
my junior year of college.

VO Narrator

Photograph of Liu as a teenager

Liu’s book, Solitaire

Photograph of Liu as a teenager

AIMEE LIU SUFFERED FROM THE
EATING DISORDER ANOREXIA FOR
NEARLY A DECADE. SHE WROTE
ABOUT HER EXPERIENCES WITH
THE DISEASE IN HER MEMOIR
SOLITAIRE. LIU ISN’T ALONE.
MILLIONS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
HAVE ANOREXIA NERVOSA.
ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL
INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH—
WHICH MEANS THAT THEY HAVE
STARVED THEMSELVES UNTIL
THEY ARE AT LEAST 15 PERCENT
BELOW A HEALTHY BODY
WEIGHT.

VO Aimee Liu
Continuation of shot of Liu as a
teenager
This is not a society in which moderation
and balance is ever rewarded.
SOT Aimee Liu Especially coming out of Hollywood and
especially in New York, and it makes it
very difficult, especially in these areas
where people are status driven and
they’re trying to climb the ladder because

3
the message your getting is

VO Aimee Liu
Magazine advertisement Liu modeled
for as a teenager
I’m only as good as how I look.
VO Narrator
Shot of Liu as a model
Painting of Renaissance woman
combing her hair
LINKING LOOKS WITH IDENTITY IS
NOTHING NEW, ESPECIALLY FOR
WOMEN—WHO HAVE BEEN
ALTERING THE SHAPES OF THEIR
BODIES SINCE THE RENAISSANCE.

SOT Eileen Wallis

I see it beginning to appear really in the
15
th
and 16
th
centuries. If you look for
example at what people like

VO Eileen Wallis

Paintings of Queen Elizabeth
Queen Elizabeth the first wore, you see
that the clothing is beginning to get very
stiff, very upright, and that’s because
they’re actually putting structure into the
clothes, usually in the form of
whalebone.

VO Narrator

Wallis fastening a corset on a
dressmaker’s dummy
EILEEN WALLIS--A WOMEN’S
HISTORY PROFESSOR AT
CALIFORNIA STATE POLYTECHNIC
IN POMONA--IS AN EXPERT ON
HOW WOMEN’S FIGURES HAVE
CHANGED OVER THE YEARS.

4
SOT Eileen Wallis
CG: Professor of Women’s
History/California State Polytechnic,
Pomona
In the early 19
th
century, if you think
about for example the Jane Austen
period, people are wearing corsets but
they are much softer corsets.

Film, Sense and Sensibility Clip from Sense and Sensibility

VO Eileen Wallis

Footage from Sense and Sensibility
If you think of Jane Austen films, really
what corsets are worn for is to lift the
bosom, that’s what people want--not
necessarily to whittle the waist down but
by the time you get to the 1830s and the
40s

SOT Eileen Wallis What is now becoming fashionable is
that tiny waist.

VO Narrator
Corset advertisement
PROFESSOR WALLIS SAYS THAT IN
THE 19
TH
CENTURY, FASHIONS
CHANGED DRAMATICALLY IN A
SHORT SPAN OF TIME.

Film Gone With the Wind Clip from Gone with the Wind

VO Eileen Wallis

Footage from Gone With the Wind

If you think of Gone with the Wind.
What’s fashionable during the civil war
period is an extremely small waist, so
that’s a very tight corset, and then of
course a hoop skirt, so basically
enormous hips. By the time you get to
the 1880’s what’s fashionable is a bustle,
so you’ve dropped the hoop skirt
altogether, you’re still wearing a very

5

Dummy wearing a bustle

Drawings of s-shape corsets

tight corset, but you’ve got this wire cage
more or less that fits over your backside
and by the time you get to the 1900s
which is only about 20 years later what
becomes popular is what’s known as the
s-shape. So your chest is thrust forward,
your rear is thrust back, and the corset is
there to kind of bend you into that shape.

VO Narrator

Drawings of corsets

Photographs of flappers

Maidenform girdle advertisement
ALTHOUGH CORSETS WERE
UNCOMFORTABLE AND IN MANY
CASES WERE LACED SO TIGHTLY
THEY CAUSED WOMEN TO FAINT,
THEY PLAYED A DOMINANT ROLE
IN FASHION UNTIL THE EARLY
TWENTIETH CENTURY WHEN THE
FLAT-CHESTED FLAPPER LOOK
BECAME POPULAR. INSTEAD,
WOMEN BOUND THEIR BREASTS
AND HIPS TO CREATE A SLIM,
STRAIGHT LOOK.
THAT LOOK DIDN’T LAST, BUT
THANKS TO THE NEW
AVAILABILITY OF RUBBER—IN
THE 1950S THE CORSET WAS
REIMAGINEDED AS A GIRDLE.

SOT Eileen Wallis In the early 1950’s when Christian Dior
comes out with what’s known as the new
look, that in many ways is a throwback

6
to 1850’s fashion.

VO Eileen Wallis
1950’s dresses on dressmaker’s
dummies

Girdle advertisement
A very small waist and then crinolines.
And of course if you’re back to the idea
of a small waist you’ve got to have some
kind of structural garment. So I look at it
as a slightly different direction. It’s not
actually evolved that far away from the
corset.

VO Narrator

Continuation of girdle advertisement

Green Salad

FROM CORSETS, TO GIRDLES, TO A
DIFFERENT TYPE OF CONTROL.
RATHER THAN RELYING ON
CLOTHING TO CHANGE THEIR
FIGURES-- WOMEN NOW ALTER
THE BODY ITSELF--THROUGH
DIET, EXERCISE, AND SURGERY.

SOT Eileen Wallis I sort of think of it as now we’re into
internal corsetry. In other words, now
we expect through diet and exercise to
alter the body in a certain way.

VO Eileen Wallis
Shots of exercisers
Shot of fork with tape measure
wrapped around it
And I think that’s been true really since
the 80’s, since the introduction of
aerobics, increasingly women are told
alter your body but alter it from the
inside out.
VO Narrator

Continuation of fork with tape
SUCH LIFESTYLE CHANGES HAVE
HAD A PROFOUND IMPACT IN THE
LIVES OF WOMEN IN THE LATTER

7
measure wrapped around it

Fashion shots of Twiggy
PART OF THE 20
TH
, AND INTO THE
21
ST
CENTURY. AIMEE LIU GREW
UP DURING THE 1960’S AND 70’S,
WHEN EXTREMELY THIN FASHION
MODELS LIKE TWIGGY WERE
POPULAR. SHE SAYS SHE BECAME
ANOREXIC AFTER COUPLING THE
IDEA THAT IT WAS GOOD TO BE
THIN, WITH HER OBSESSIVE
PERSONALITY.

VO Aimee Liu
Fashion shots of Twiggy
Many researchers that I’ve talked to like
to talk about it, an eating disorder is like
a gun.

SOT Aimee Liu

And genetics form the gun and values,
culture, environment loads the gun and
what then pulls the trigger is extreme
emotional distress. Because what all of
the temperaments that develop eating
disorders tend to have in common is that
they have a very difficult time coping
with stress.

VO Aimee Liu
Women’s magazine covers focusing
on weight and dieting
They also tend to be very perfectionistic.
So that’s where what you load the gun
with, is what determines what defines
perfection.

VO Narrator

DONNA WOLFE IS A
PSYCHOLOGIST WHO SPECIALIZES

8
Women’s magazines with articles
about dieting and exercising

Girls’ magazines with articles about
dieting and exercising
IN TREATING EATING DISORDERS.
SHE SAYS OUR MEDIA-
SATURATED CULTURE IS
INDOCRINATING YOUNGER AND
YOUNGER GIRLS WITH THE IDEA
THAT THEY MUST BE THIN TO
SUCCEED.

VO Donna Wolfe
Teen girl magazines with articles
about diet and exercise
One of the saddest things with young
children when you talk about the
influence of society on very young
women is that between the ages of 9 and
14 the average woman,

SOT Donna Wolfe
CG: Psychologist
healthy woman gains about 40 pounds
going through puberty. If you talk to
kids who are 14, 15, 16 years old, the
majority of them are unhappy with their
weight. They would want to be thinner,
they’re on a diet, they should be on a
diet, they want to go on a diet, and they
want to go back to the weight they were
before puberty, which is physiologically
impossible.

VO Narrator
Group of runway models

WOLFE SAYS THAT THE
INFLUENCE OF MEDIA ISN’T
LIMITED TO MODELS AND
ACTRESSES, BUT IS FOUND IN
INANIMATE FEMALE FORMS AS
WELL. BARBIE DOLLS, FOR
EXAMPLE—GIVE GIRLS A ROLE

9

Group of Barbies
MODEL THAT IS ACTUALLY
OUTSIDE THE REALM OF
POSSIBILITY.

VO Donna Wolfe
Barbies
The average American woman is 5 feet 4
inches tall. Barbie, if she is computer
rendered to be to be an average
American woman would be six feet tall.
if you look at two women one who’s 5’4
and one who’s 6 feet tall and you make
them both 145 pounds, you’re looking at
two dramatically different body types,
right? Barbie, weighs 101 pounds.

SOT Donna Wolfe Now we’ve got the average American
woman at 145, 5 foot 4, and we’ve got
Barbie at 6 feet and 101 pounds. Are
you beginning to see how Barbie kind of
falls off the planet of real people?

VO Narrator

Glamour magazine with story about
plastic surgery
BUT COSMETIC SURGERY IS
MAKING MORE EXTREME
CHANGES ACCESSIBLE FOR MANY
WOMEN.

SOT Vladimir Grigoryants
CG: Plastic surgeon
In the past plastic surgery used to be the
field to which only rich people would
turn to or celebrities, now it’s primarily
the middle class.

VO Narrator PLASTIC SURGERY HAS BECOME
SUCH A BIG PART OF AMERICAN

10

Linda Sparks tying her corset
CULTURE, THAT LINDA SPARKS
ADVERTISES HER CORSETS AS A
LESS DANGEROUS AND PAINFUL
WAY FOR WOMEN TO GET A
WAISTLINE.

VO Linda Sparks
Continuation of Linda tying corset.
We all want to look as good as we can
look.

SOT Linda Sparks And getting a waist without any damage
or risk, than that’s a pretty remarkable
thing. I think that’s a whole lot better
than going under a knife, personally.

VO Narrator

Sign advertising several cosmetic
procedures

Shots of implants
BUT PLASTIC SURGERY ISN’T JUST
ABOUT BEING THIN. BREAST
AUGMENTATION AND BUTT
IMPLANTS ADD ANOTHER
DIMENSION TO THE WAYS
WOMEN ARE TOLD TO CHANGE
THEIR BODIES. THE HISTORY OF
BREAST IMPLANTS GOES BACK TO
THE HEYDAY OF THE CORSET.
DOCTORS BEGAN
EXPERIMENTING WITH IMPLANTS
IN THE LATE 19
TH
CENTURY.

SOT Vladimir Grigoryants We didn’t have breast implants right
away. People tried different things such

11

as paraffin injections. They would just
inject just a chemical called paraffin into
the breast tissue. That didn’t turn out to
be a very popular procedure because
there was a lot of scarring, infections,
nodules which is tender bumps in the
breast tissue. So that procedure was left
behind. Then people tried something
more natural such as oil. Implants filled
with oil were placed but when they sit in
a warm environment for a while those
implants, the byproduct of oil, the
metabolism of that chemical, resulted in
scarring, infections but more so in a very
foul smell.

VO Narrator

Botox
Beauty magazines
FOR CENTURIES WOMEN HAVE
BEEN EXPECTED TO SUFFER FOR
BEAUTY. BUT DOCTOR CAROLINE
HELDMAN, A POLITICAL SCIENCE
PROFESSOR AT OCCIDENTAL
COLLEGE IN LOS ANGELES, SAYS
THAT TODAY, THE PRESSURE TO
BE ATTRACTIVE IS GETTING
WORSE.

SOT Caroline Heldman
CG: Professor of Political
Science/Occidental College
We’ve seen a new skyrocketing rate of
both the sexualization of little girls and
also what many have called the
pornification of US society. So while
we’ve always seen objectified women
we’re much more likely to see these
images, and these images have even
become normal.

12

VO Caroline Heldman
Photos of teen singer Miley Cyrus
Photos of Britney Spears and Cristina
Aguilera
As is the kind of accepted sexualization
of little girls that started a little over 10
years ago with Britney Spears and
Cristina Aguilera and has continued
today, amplified pornographic images of
young women, mostly young women,
dominate media imagery.

VO Narrator
Continuation of photo of Cristina
Aguilera
IT’S A SERIOUS PROBLEM,
HELDMAN SAYS.

Footage from Britney Spears music
video
Footage from Britney Spears video Baby,
One More Time

VO Narrator

Continuation of music video

Shots of Spears shaving head
POP SINGER BRITNEY SPEARS
PAID A HIGH PRICE FOR BEING
OBJECTIFIED. SPEARS MADE
TABLOID HEADLINES IN 2007
AFTER SHE WAS PHOTOGRAPHED
SHAVING HER HEAD—SAYING
THAT SHE WANTED PEOPLE TO
STOP TOUCHING HER. SPEARS
MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN IN A
CORSET. BUT DOCTOR HELDMAN
SAYS THAT SPEARS WAS STILL
BOUND.

13
VO Caroline Heldman

Photographs of Britney Spears
performing in revealing outfits
I know a lot of my students are very
dismissive of people like Britney Spears,
who obviously had a crisis because she’s
been raised as an object, as a body, and
then shaved her head, very directly I
think in response to that and said

SOT Caroline Heldman stop looking at me, the cameras are
constantly on me I’m supposed to be this
body, this object and she grew up and
didn’t know who she was and wasn’t
satisfied with being an object.

VO Narrator DR. HELDMAN USES THE TERM
SELF-OBJECTIFICATION TO
EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENS TO
WOMEN WHEN THEY BECOME
TOO FOCUSED ON HOW THEY
LOOK. HELDMAN SAYS IT SPLITS
A WOMAN’S ATTENTION, AND
CAN SERIOUSLY HANDICAP HER
EDUCATIONAL AND CAREER
OPPORTUNITIES.

SOT Caroline Heldman So the more you self-objectify, the more
you are engaging in what’s called
habitual body monitoring meaning you
are constantly thinking about how you
look, whether or not a fat roll is hanging
over your bathing suit. Or sitting in a
classroom is your good angle positioned
so that people around you will see you in
the best possible light physically. So this
habitual body monitoring that most U.S.

14
women and girls engage in translates into
a loss of cognitive functioning, because
we’re constantly focused on this, it
siphons off our mental capacities so for
example, I find that women who are high
self-objectifiers actually have lower
GPAS.

VO Narrator

NOW Logo

Shots from NOW’s Love Your Body
Day

LINDSEY HORVATH IS PRESIDENT
OF THE HOLLYWOOD CHAPTER OF
THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION
FOR WOMEN, KNOWN AS NOW.
NOW RAISES AWARENESS ABOUT
BODY IMAGE ISSUES AS PART OF
THEIR LOVE YOUR BODY
CAMPAIGN.

SOT Ivory May Kalber
Plus Size Model/Actress
Footage from So-Cal News story on
NOW’s Love Your Body Day
Love Your Body Day is the day for
women to come out and celebrate their
body no matter what size they are, no
matter if they’re tall, short, big, small,
it’s just to come out and really love
yourself

VO Lindsey Horvath

Continuing footage of Love Your
Body Day
We celebrate positive body image, we
create a safe space for women to talk
about what their insecurities are
SOT Lindsey Horvath
CG: President/Hollywood Chapter,
National Organization for Women
and to start to realize that other women
share some of their insecurities and I
think that when women have identified in
the community that they’re not alone in
feeling that way that’s sort of a first step

15

VO Lindsey Horvath

Photos from Love Your Body Day
being able to talk about them with other
people and being accepted for having
those insecurities, and have that safe
space.

VO Narrator

Photos from Love Your Body Day
SHE SAYS OBJECTIFICATION—
AND THE FOCUS ON WOMEN’S
BODIES—IS A PROBLEM
EVERYONE NEEDS TO ADDRESS.

VO Lindsey Horvath
Photos from Love Your Body Day
Unhealthy body image for women isn’t
necessarily a women’s problem

SOT Lindsey Horvath It’s a social problem, it’s a societal
problem that needs to be fixed by both
men and women.

SOT Donna Wolfe I think we need to talk to people about
what the normal body is. And why it’s
important that normal is something we
admire and want to emulate because
normal frequently means healthy.

VO Narrator

Young woman putting on makeup,
looking in mirror
FOR HELDMAN—SIMPLY
ACCEPTING THE FACT THAT
WOMEN ARE FACING INCREDIBLE
PRESSURE IS AN IMPORTANT
FIRST STEP.

16

VO Caroline Heldman I think it’s really important for women to
be very forgiving of other women.

SOT Caroline Heldman
More footage of young woman
looking in mirror, putting on makeup.
I think it would be nice to promote a
level of, maybe forgiveness is not the
right word, but a level of understanding
that we are all products of interlocking
systems of oppression.

VO Narrator

Series of clips from earlier in the
piece—corsets, girdles, twiggy,
Britney Spears, Aimee Liu
THE METHODS OF OPPRESSION
CHANGE OVER TIME. BUT FOR
GIRLS AND WOMEN IN WESTERN
SOCIETY, THE WAY THEY LOOK
STILL DETERMINES HOW THEY
ARE VALUED. AND THE
REPERCUSSIONS GO FAR BEYOND
FASHION—IMPACTING PERSONAL,
EDUCATIONAL AND
PROFESSIONAL LIVES. BEYOND
THE LOSS TO THE INDIVIDUAL--
IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO CALCULATE
THE COST TO SOCIETY OF
LIMITING THE CREATIVE AND
PRODUCTIVE POTENTIAL OF ITS
MEMBERS.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract For centuries, women in Western society have been pressured to alter their figures to fit a specific and ever-changing ideal. Until recently women accomplished this by wearing binding and restrictive clothing. But in the 20th century, the focus shifted from the shape of one's clothing, to the shape of the body itself. Diet, exercise, and plastic surgery have become normal for modern women.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Pomeroy, Esther (author)

Core Title Discipline, women and fashion

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Journalism (Broadcast Journalism)

Publication Date 04/28/2009

Defense Date 04/01/2009

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag corsets,culture,Fashion,OAI-PMH Harvest,Women

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Birman, Daniel H. (committee chair), Banner, Lois (committee member), Saltzman, Joseph (committee member)

Creator Email epomeroy@usc.edu,estherfir@yahoo.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2143

Unique identifier UC1282095

Identifier etd-Pomeroy-2736 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-221479 (legacy record id),usctheses-m2143 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Pomeroy-2736.pdf

Dmrecord 221479

Document Type Project

Rights Pomeroy, Esther

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu