History of Healthcare seminar series, “The Body”
Lay Down Rules and Stick to
Them: Managing Adolescent Girls.
Bodies in Britain c.1900
Bodies in Britain c.1900
Hilary Marland (Warwick):
Wednesday 1 May, 18:00-20:00
Wednesday 1 May, 18:00-20:00
King's College London
Room: K3.11
Towards the end of the 19th century interest in the body
of the adolescent girl and its management was triggered by a medical discourse
that emphasised the risks of female adolescence at the same time as girls were
taking up new public and semi-public roles, entering the workplace and formal
education in large numbers, and engaging in a range of sports and recreations.
This coincided with a new interest in girlhood as a unique cultural phase, in
the risks and opportunities of youth more broadly, and in methods of
propagating medical ideas and advice in lay forums, the press, magazines,
general interest journals and advice books, which engaged an expanding range of
experts in addition to doctors. It could also be argued that girls were
envisaged increasingly as having the right to good health and good bodily
condition. Increasingly, health was seen as being supported by the efforts of
girls ? in duty to themselves - in shaping their fitness and wellbeing. This,
in many ways, !
mapped potential
routes to emancipation but also, tied as it was increasingly to the management
of behaviour rather than unruly biology, placed huge responsibility on young
women in obeying complex rules for health. This paper explores these changes,
with particular regard to weight management, control of diet and moderation of
exercise, exploring how science and medicine connected with ideas of regimen,
deportment and self-management to produce new models of girls health.
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