Beauty Is the Beast: Appearance Impaired Children in America PDF
Preview Beauty Is the Beast: Appearance Impaired Children in America
Beauty Is the Beast : Appearance-impaired title: Children in America author: Beuf, Ann H. publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press isbn10 | asin: 0812213106 print isbn13: 9780812213102 ebook isbn13: 9780585171975 language: English Disfigured children--United States-- subject Sociological aspects, Stigma (Social psychology) publication date: 1990 lcc: HV904.B48 1990eb ddc: 155.9/16 Disfigured children--United States-- subject: Sociological aspects, Stigma (Social psychology) Page iii Beauty Is the Beast Appearance-Impaired Children in America Ann Hill Beuf University of Pennsylvania Press / PHILADELPHIA Page iv Copyright © 1990 by the University of Pennsylvania Press ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Beuf, Ann H., 1938 Beauty is the beast: appearance- impaired children in America / Ann Hill Beuf. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0812282345. ISBN 0812213106 (pbk.) 1. Disfigured childrenUnited StatesSociological aspects. 2. Stigma (Social psychology) I. Title. HV904.B48 1990 155.9'16dc20 8921485 CIP Second paperback printing 1998 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Page v To my family HONEY, CARLO, PETER, MAITLAND, MELINDA, CATHY, and MAX Page vii Contents Acknowledgment ix 1 1 Introduction 2 5 Perspectives: Stigmatization, Objectification, and Self 3 27 The Cultural Backdrop 4 47 "Funny Looking Kids": Social Stigmatization and Objectification of Appearance-Impaired Children 5 63 Coping with Impaired Appearance 6 107 Epilogue: Doing Something Appendix: Caring Organizations 117 Notes 119 Bibliography 127 Index 133 Page ix Acknowledgments This book is the result of observations made during almost twenty years of sociological research. These observations have been of children with impaired appearance: burns, birth defects, dermatological disorders, weight problems, and eye problems. The dermatology studies, carried out with my colleague, Professor Judith Porter of Bryn Mawr College, focused specifically on the impact of changed appearance on the social and psychological lives of vitiligo victims. Much of this book is gathered from field notes of research projects which did not have the study of impaired appearance at their core. Nonetheless, during that period a growing amount of my material from studies of hospitalized children, myopic children, and children with eating disorders dealt with the importance of appearance in establishing social relationships and personal self-esteem. Looking back, I believe that my interest in this matter was first piqued by the late Doctor Kenneth Michaille of Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. While examining my eyes, he asked about my work, and in response to my interest in the social psychology of medicine he described a phenomenon he had observed in children whom he had fitted with soft contact lenses. These elementary-and high-school aged children seemed to experience a "personality change" after getting the lenses, even sitting differently in the office waiting room. While they appeared depressed and shy during their initial visit and sat slumped in their seats, when they returned for the following visit after wearing the lenses for six weeks they sat straight in their chairs and engaged in conversation with other people in the waiting room. At Dr. Michaille's suggestion, we collaborated on a project that confirmed these impressions. Using interviews, game playing, and the Coopersmith measure of self-esteem, we were able to show the elevation of self-esteem and social interaction that came from discarding "sodapop-bottle-bottom" glasses for invisible contact lenses. We Page x also observed some differences between social groups: girls were more concerned with cosmetic change, boys with the ability to participate in sports; children of different age levels were more or less worried about appearance. During the early 1970s, I began a study of eating disorders in adolescent and college-age women. During this research, as one pathetic-looking anorexic after another told me of the approval her initial acts of self-starvation had generated, I began to see the importance of cultural beliefs, attitudes, and values in determining how people with "different" appearances are treated. At this time, I was also studying the ways children are treated in hospitals. The field work for this project brought me into daily touch with children waiting for plastic surgerychildren with cleft palates, facial burns, and other deformities. I served on a United Nations committee for stigmatized children during the United Nations International Year of the Child, 1978. The committee included many respected scholars; hearing their papers and listening to their discourse has enriched the theoretical aspect of this book. The value of working at the intersection of various disciplinary fields had become apparent by this time, too. I am, therefore, grateful to a large number of people whose friendship and collegiality embarked me on this project. Vitiligo cases in this book are drawn from original research funded by NIH grant #IP50- AM25252-04. Page 1 Chapter 1 Introduction Would Eleanor Roosevelt have had to struggle to overcome this tortuous shyness if she had grown up secure in the knowledge that she was a beautiful girl? If she hadn't struggled so earnestly, would she have been so sensitive to the struggles of others? Would a beautiful Eleanor Roosevelt have escaped from the confinements of the mid-Victorian drawing room society in which she was reared? Would a beautiful Eleanor Roosevelt have wanted to escape? Would a beautiful Eleanor Roosevelt have had the same need to be, to do? HELEN GAHAGAN DOUGLAS, The Eleanor Roosevelt We Remember On Monday, March 1, 1988, an American sixth-grade student walked into his elementary school classroom and shot himself. He did this because his classmates had teased him about being overweight. When I read this child's story, I was deeply saddened but not surprised. Nearly twenty years of working with children who are, in one way or another, socially stigmatized had convinced me that there is a terrible psychological price to pay for having an "unacceptable" physical appearance in our society. Not only do we Americans set narrow standards of beauty and then insult and hurt those who fall outside those standards, but our adult society, because of its ambiguous concept of childhood and children, functions to disempower and discriminate against children, thus giving them a double stigma to bear. Although, as a medical sociologist, I hope that my colleagues will find some productive thought herein, my major intention is to attract those who deal with appearance-impaired children. Nurses, child psychologists,social workers, child life workers and teachers, as well
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