USI: Psychology Club--Girl Culture

The subject of American girls, their social lives and rituals, their attention to body image, fashion and the complex hierarchies within their groups is the focus of an internationally touring exhibition of photographs by Lauren Greenfield. This ten-week exhibition entitled Girl Culture is to be presented at the Evansville Museum from September 24^th through December 3, 2006. The exhibit investigates a trend, embedded in contemporary culture, of girls to judge themselves by their appearance and to seek to “better” themselves by changing it. Greenfield’s photographs and accompanying interviews present a powerful picture of an environment in which a girl’s worth is often measured by the shape and size of her body.

The Deaconess Women’s Hospital in cooperation with the Girl Scouts of Raintree Council and the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science are working together to present this exhibit. A Steering committee of those involved in bringing this event to Evansville has been formed with a goal to make this a city-wide awareness project. They have established subcommittees to address various projects and are hoping that area universities, businesses, agencies and interested groups will take this opportunity to get involved in raising awareness of this issue either directly (become involved with a subcommittee) or indirectly (incorporating this issue into your courses in some way). They have also offered to make themselves available as resources if you would like to see how other universities have used the exhibit to initiate conversations/discussions, projects etc.

We have included web links to let you take a look at the exhibit

http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/girlculture/

and a biography on Greenfield

http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/branches/ccp/education/girlculturefacultyguide/greenfield_bio.html

Should you be looking for some ideas how this exhibit can be used with students, the following web site has some suggestions – just click on the learning link on the left side:

http://www.laurengreenfield.com/girlculture/tour.html

If you have an interest in becoming a member of a particular subcommittee (education, teen programming, outreach, speaker’s bureau, to name a few) please contact either myself [Maggie Felton] or Cindy Smith in the Psychology Department.

Last updated September 14, 2005 -- Questions or comments? email jevey@usi.edu