Girl Culture

by Lauren Greenfield, Joan Jacobs Brumberg (Introduction)

Renowned photographer Lauren Greenfield has won acclaim and awards for her studies of youth culture. In Girl Culture, she combines a photojournalists sense of story with fine-art composition and color to create an astonishing and intelligent exploration of American girls. Her photographs provide a window into the secret worlds of girls social lives and private rituals, the dressing room and locker room, as well as the iconic subcultures of the popular clique: cheerleaders, showgirls, strippers, debutantes, actresses, and models. With 100 hypnotic photographs, 20 interviews with the subjects, and an introduction by foremost historian of American girlhood Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Greenfield reveals the exhibitionist nature of modern femininity and how far it has drifted from the feminine ideologies of the past.

Genres: Photography, Nonfiction, Art, Feminism, Sociology, Gender, Womens

155 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Lauren Greenfield is an American artist, documentary photographer, and documentary filmmaker. She has published three photographic monographs, directed four documentary films, exhibited in museums, and published in magazines and other publications.

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing photographs of and insightful essays by/interviews with girls: Girls at a weight loss camp, quinceañera girls, girls going on first dates, actresses in porn films, girls putting on make up, young girls playing dress-up, heavy girls, scrawny girls, buxom girls, fit girls at the Fitness America competition, girls with pink painted toes, girls kissing themselves in the mirror, girls with eating disorders, popular girls, lonely girls, sad girls, happy well adjusted girls, dancers, Cindy Margolis—the world’s most downloaded woman, girls walking down the street being watched by men, girls at graduation, prep school girls, famous girls such as Jennifer Lopez and Gwen Stefani, girls at spring break taking their tops off for boys, girls getting breast augmentation, a girl who is both an exotic dancer and a track star, girls at Cheetah’s who dance naked while men watch them and also watch football, girls playing “fetus bingo” at a school for pregnant teens, cheerleaders, bat mitzvah girls, girls drinking from a beer bong at a frat party, religious girls.

This is a breathless collection, just like that list. Makes you really worry for girls and the never-ending body image pressure they feel and cheer for them and work with them (I’m a teacher) and parent them (I’m that of one girl! And boys, whom I am also glad to be parenting!). Hard to be a girl. Exciting to be a girl. All of it.

I taught a YA comics class this summer with a focus on girls that made me hopeful, even optimistic, about healthier and more complex self- (and other) representations of women and girls. I’m teaching a fall course with a focus on love and romance from a wide variety of perspectives. I’ll use some of the images from this book in my course. It does have pictures that some might worry about (that cover picture might be one of them), some naked, so I am not sure I will use the whole book in a teaching situation, but I am sure tempted to. A female teacher would probably find it easier to justify using than a male (such as me). But it’s an amazing collection, and the writing is often terrific. Haunting. Inspiring. Disturbing. All of it.

My ten year old daughter just walked by as I was typing this (I am not kidding!) and saw the book and asked me what I was reading. Teaching moment!!! I told her it was a book about girls and all the pressure to be a certain way, look a certain way. And girls having way fun, too. I chose a few images to show her and she just looked at them without commenting; then before walking away she said, “I just think girls should be who they want to be, if they can.” That seems like a reasonable goal, and complicated to attain in a world where resistance and creative work to remake the world is required. But that little feminist point is my statement, informed by what I think are Greenfield's purposes ; many of the girls in these photographs wouldn't agree with me about "resistance" and the "need to remake the world," maybe.

Here’s some of Greenfield's photographs:

https://www.google.com/search?q=girl+...

[Deez · Rating 4 out of 5]

God damn girls are fucked! We are so awesome and amazing yet feel so shitty about are selves and are constantly sexualized as this book documents the difficulties of being a teen girl in America. The pictures are beautiful and very telling. It makes me kind of sad, but is really honest and unique as well.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a new found understanding and respect for how deep and damaging the messages we send to girls in our culture can be. Lauren Greenfield does a brilliant job of taking an intimate journey into the experiences of girls in the American culture without interpreting what she finds. Instead she lets the pictures and personal narratives of the girls tell the story in its rawest and most moving form. It is impossible to walk away without recognition of the subtle and overt ways the spirit and value of women and girls is trampled and abused. Oppression of women is alive and well, and, this may be more or less obvious to women but I think all men need to understand and respect this fact. I think oppression becomes blaringly obvious when you start to see the oppressed internalize the stifling messages and even act out the attitudes and messages of oppression on each other. This stood out to me with moving clarity hearing the experiences of a young girl who went to a “fat” camp in New York. In her community she was ignored by boys and ridiculed by all for her size, but, at the camp she was thinner than many of the other girls. At the camp she became desirable to boys and began to participate in mistreating girls heavier then her. This did not tell me that she was just as mean as the people she was being mistreated by, but rather, how internalized and damaging the social message that her value comes only from form and external appearance. The book also illustrates the strength many of these girls find to not let the social pressures and messages keep them from finding self worth. Overall, a great book well worth reading for anyone.

[inkedblues · Rating 5 out of 5]

“In this work, I have been interested in documenting the pathological in the everyday. I am interested in the tyranny of the popular and thin girls over the ones who don’t fit that mold. I am interested in the competition suffered by the popular girls, and their sense that popularity is not as satisfying as it appears. I am interested in the time-consuming grooming and beauty rituals that are an integral part of daily life. I am interested in how girls’ feelings of frustration, anger, and sadness are expressed in physical and self-destructive ways: controlling their food intake, cutting their bodies, being sexually promiscuous. I am interested in the way that the female body has become a palimpsest on which many of our culture’s conflicting messages about femininity are written and rewritten. Most of all, I am interested in the element of performance and exhibitionism that seems to define the contemporary experience of being a girl.”

[chouineuzzZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Les photos sont très belles et c'est une lecture intéressante mais je n'ai pas aimé l'édition... c'est vraiment un livre très lourd et volumineux donc contraignant pour lire

[Jessica]

I got this book after being blown away by Greenfield's documentary "Queen of Versailles" and realizing that I was already familiar with her work from her documentary "Thin" (which is available on YouTube). I wish I could give this book to every single person in America, including myself about 10 years ago. In this book, Greenfield turns her lens toward the commodification of the female body and female rituals, and boy does she nail it. The stunning photos are amplified by raw personal narratives from interviews with the subjects. These interviews, and the photos that accompany them, really get to the dizzying contradictions of life in America as a young woman. I was particularly struck by the ways in which the subjects seem to be striving toward empowerment, albeit in incredibly misguided and destructive ways. One interview subject calls herself a "strong Southern woman" at the beginning of her narrative, but by the end it becomes clear that she is incredibly confused about her own body and is suffering from either an eating disorder or compulsive exercise disorder or both. In another interview, a young strip-club worker talks about how she was kicked off of her college sports team when her fellow male athletes visited the strip club and reported her to her coach (the male athletes weren't punished for patronizing the strip club, but she was thrown off the team for working there).
In short, I've never read a book that so captures the double-edge sword of American femininity, wherein you are punished if you do not conform to cultural expectations of sexiness, and you are also punished if you do conform to these expectations. The damned if you do/don't conundrum is clearest when Greenfield interviews the slimmest girls at a weight-loss camp. These girls know better than anyone how the culture punishes women for being overweight, but they can't help but relish in being the slimmest girls at fat camp, which, not coincidentally, makes them the most desired and popular at the camp.

[Abby Soghomonian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me be clear - by no means is this an easy book to read!!! I have this book 5 stars based on the message it delivered and how it exposes how pop culture perpetuates young girls’ need to be thin and beautiful.

Quite frankly, this book made me sad and sickened. Fist, I have a young daughter. Second, I work with high school girls. The amount of pressure that young girls experience daily is indescribable, and it is clear that this pressure has deleterious effects on their psyche and well being. Whether or not the pressure is self or societally induced does not matter, girls tend to find their value in their looks.

Lauren Greenfield is beyond talented. Her ability to capture the raw truth of girl adolescence through photographs is spot on. This book should cause you to feel a certain way. It should make you want to change the way you interact with young girls. Hopefully, it forces you to place value on kindness, education, and talents.

I, hopefully, will become a better mother after experiencing this book. *It is more of an experience versus a read. I will be more cognizant of saying that I look fat or ugly because I, too, am a product of how our culture forced me to see myself - with an unkind and criticizing eye.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very insightful and important piece of work. Every woman should see a copy of this. Photographs paired with stories of women and girls about their bodies, sexuality, beauty and how it is affected by culture. I had it on my coffee table for a long time and all my guests (men and women) would pick it up and become completely absorbed. I had to sit and wait until they were done so as not to disturb their reverie.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a tough book, for a photo essay one. So many girls my age (19 at the time) or far younger struggling with body image, sexuality, abuse... one of the ones that pushed me towards wanting to be a photographer, though!

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was a hard read but an amazing collection of photographs and interviews that I couldn't put down once I started reading. I finally got hold of this book after it was on my to-read list for ages. Lauren's work is just incredible and even as a non-American it's so relatable and hard-hitting

[Maria Viles · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the photography

[Mairead · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know much about photography or anything but I do like when girls are taken seriously

[Rachel Smalter Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was just utterly and completely fascinating. It has some flaws (e.g. it centers whiteness, how very '90s), but I enjoyed every single second I spent with it.

I went into this book with no expectations. I wasn't already familiar with Lauren Greenfield's work, and I had planned to just leaf through Girl Culture's images like a coffee table book. But then the interviews completely sucked me in.

The voices of the women she talks to are just... fascinating, contradictory, confident, insecure, self-aware, naive, complicated. They each talk about beauty, self-worth, sexuality, power, and how they've learned to navigate their way through the minefield of social expectations. Paired with the photos, it's downright haunting.

Greenfield nails it, truly capturing each of their different experiences and laying it all out for us to see. I can see why this book was groundbreaking when it came out in the very early '00s, and I'm definitely a new fan.

[malaika bunziboo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this book sm. Made me feel less alone about having insecurities regarding my body. Knowing that I'm not the only one makes me feel less alone. Knowing that there are companies, marketing teams and many other people who find ways to make me despise myself is actually comforting. In the sense that the problem doesn't lie in me. My body is fine and others want ME to hate it for THEIR own benefit. Therefore, I don't have to listen to them. The problem is beyond me that I, in fact, have nothing to do with it. This book also opened my eyes to eating disorders which is very enriching since I got to hear from real people's experiences. I'll end with Ashlee's quote saying "The way you are is the way you're meant to be". :)

[Lona · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of photos and stories, highlighting different american girls and women and documenting the struggle of being one of them. It gives insights of what high school girls, atlethes, strippers, girls at weight loss camps, anorexic girls or even an 6 year old and more may think about beauty and what it means, for them, to be a girl or a woman.

While reading all the stories I wondered who I would be, if I would've grown up in a different body or environment. What would my beliefs in beauty, sexualisation or even my own body be? For me that was the most exciting part of the book. Maybe the most important message of the book is, that the struggle is lurking everywhere.

[A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended reading for non-girls to understand the life of a girl. The interviews crystallize a variety of cultures and are sociologically fascinating.

Of course many of the things these women have gone through made me angry, and that is a reflection of the accuracy of Greenfield’s journalism. The fat camps and the slut shaming and the obsession with looks and fashion (provocatively posited as a “brain drain” on the female gender) come together in a brutal vise.

I wish there were similar books for men and other demographics. I think we would be more empathetic.

[Olive · Rating 5 out of 5]

anything about girlhood is an automatic 5 stars from me! Greenfield expertly captures the performance, exhibitionism, sexuality, beauty, intensity, insecurity, hatred, fury and dreams of girlhood. this was published in 2002 and its messing with me how the societal pressure has only gotten worse for girls (e.g. me seeing 10 yr old baby faced girl in Mecca asking for a retinol treatment for xmas). I recommend this if u like reading about the 'pathological in the everyday' but it is unsettling/ heartbreaking

[Carola · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard about this through a Girl Scout puplication. It is intriguing. For anyone who thought, like me, that women have come a long way, this book will make you realize that we still have a long way to go. Greenfield presents this in a very non-judgemental way...she shows us both how we are objectified and how we ask to be objectified. The book is mainly pictures, with some paragraphs in the voice of the girls and women pictured.

[Anneliese Peerbolte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful photography, and some really fucked up stories. I think that, at time time especially, this was probably super eye opening for many. I think as someone who grew up as a woman, reading this was incredibly hard, and I honestly had to skip a lot of the bios towards the end. I think that Greenfield really hits on the obsessive body culture that women have and had especially in the 2000s, and how that plays into sexual exhibitionism. Truly heartbreaking and really wild.

[sislasus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrifying, tender, thought provoking and amazingly beautiful at the same time. Love that the photos share the space with the girls' own voices, through Laurens' interviews with the girls photographed.

[Nya · Rating 5 out of 5]

“girls rule better. I love girls. they rock. and they rule and boys drool. I love being a girl. i’m proud to be a girl, ‘cause girls do whatever so good.”

lily, age 6

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Legend.

[Gabriella · Rating 4 out of 5]

The section featuring Sara, the 19 year old New York model, stopped me in my tracks with the bit about casting couches and her boyfriend being threatened "that guys take me to nice restaurants and spend money on me — from guys I went to school with to the head of Miramax or something." This book is from 2002. Shudder to think she's referring to Harvey Weinstein.

This book prompted reflection. It feels anachronistically 90s while being all too relevant. I wish there was more diversity among her subjects, more perspectives featured beyond that of what seemed to be majority white women & girls with weight as a sort of divider (and an unfortunately unifying focus) among them. I'd love to see this project expanded upon and revisited.

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lauren did an amazing job capturing the feelings that girls go through even though these images were taken sometime ago I still feel that any girl/woman can derive feelings and connection which these. I was lucky enough to get to meet and hear a lecture from this photographer, it's always interesting to hear what the photographer has to say about there work, I would recommend anyone that has a change catch one of her lectures.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a disturbing and brillant perspective on the influences impacting women and girls' image. Her photographs are full of color and extremely engaging. I had no idea there were still "finishing schools" around today!

[Erin Sweet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an eye opener for people living in America. Standards are harsh and this book points out the standards that we impose upon the females in society. Like I said: eye opener.
I loved Lauren Greenfield's THIN and decided to give Girl Culture a go and ended up loving it too.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

She really understands her subject. The kids speak for themselves. It's hopeful and bleak.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of photography and essays/articles about girls and young women is fantastic but also incredibly depressing. I can't imagine how hard it would be to raise a young girl right now.

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

NOTE: I have not read this book (yet) -- I saw many of the photos and accompanying text as a museum installation and thought it was amazingly well done.

[Morgan Schulman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish every book was this book.