What Every Girl Should Know

by Margaret Sanger

The physical development is not alone in this work, for the mental and moral instincts are developing so rapidly that it is difficult to understand this new and lovely creature who is neither the child of yesterday nor the woman of tomorrow.

There is often very little patience shown the adolescent girl, for neither parents nor teachers have been aware that this is a separate and distinct stage—this passing from childhood into womanhood—and as such must be recognized.

Let us first take the bony structure. It is a well known fact that there is not sufficient lime salts in the system to complete the bony structure until the 25th year. The bones are not completely hardened, which is one of the reasons that so many deformities have their foundation laid at this time.

The first and most noticeable change in the girl at this age is the increase of height, which begins at the 13th year and ends about the 15th. There are girls who begin earlier and continue to grow for several years after this age, but it is with the average we deal, and the growth after the age of 15 is not so perceptible.

Many girls show almost no other signs of womanly development until after this growth has ceased. The bones at this time are soft enough to yield to pressure (being cartilaginous), which makes the wearing of a corset especially dangerous, for the pressure on the ribs interferes with the development of the lungs and tuberculosis is more easily contracted. Corsets should not be worn before the 21st year if possible, and then very loosely, for tight lacing is more harmful at this age than a few years later. Those who have made careful investigations of the harmful effects of corsets claim that not only are the chest and walls of the abdomen injured, but the development of the sexual organs is seriously hampered, causing many functional diseases, commonly painful and irregular menstruation, caused by arrested development of the cervix.

The girl who scoffs at the idea of the Chinese women binding up their feet, is doubtless ignorant of the knowledge that to bind up their own thoracic and pelvic structures, i. e., the chest and abdominal portions of her body, in tight corsets is doing greater harm to her health and injury to her development than the binding of the feet could possibly do. Ellis brings forth a few words on this subject which shows that the habit of binding the feet of the Chinese women is based on the same ideas as the European woman has when she deforms her waist—they are both done for sexual attractiveness.

A Chinese woman's foot is more interesting than her face—to her husband.

No man of good breeding would look at a Chinese woman's foot in the street; such an act is most indelicate.

This question of corsets every girl should consider seriously.

As this rapid growth begins, the girl often finds it difficult to hold herself up straight, her shoulders become stooped, her head and neck are thrust forward in a most ungainly manner. As she becomes conscious of this, instead of correcting it, she is likely to slouch and assume the most awkward habits. Her arms seem longer to her; hands, legs and feet become new burdens to carry, and the desire to hide the hands behind the back, to fold the arms, to bend one knee in order to lessen the length of the body, and to lean on something while talking, are all signs of this consciousness.