But I must say, it IS the labeling. In just the last 10 to 15 years I’ve noticed that the clothing labels have changed. Months ago my mom and my aunt and myself went through some of my mom’s older clothing, and stuff that was labeled ‘Medium’ would be ‘XL’ now, 8 would be 12 now, etc.

Sue, you’re pretty close: “A 6 then is like a 2 now, not a 4. Apparently the twins have gained weight.”

I learned about what size is “preferable” as a child when I read a comic strip that had a young girl saying to her mother: “Mommy, when I grow up, I want to be just like you, except wear a size 6.” (Mom looks perplexed, of course.) Did anyone else see that one?

But yes, vanity sizing and not having any sort of standard for sizing pisses me off. In my closet I have XL, L, M, S and XS. All of them. I’m a size 6. And an 8 and a 4 too. Last week I bought my first size 2 jeans. And that’s just my waist & hips, don’t get me started on how my bust is a size 12 or 6 or 8.

They should start making clothing labels that say. “Just try it on. We have ’skinny mirrors’ for your convenience.”

They were an escape, yes, but in many cases I learned about social expectations and interactions from them. I read literally all of the books listed above, and they do vary in how women are presented and what ideals are espoused. That being said….at 8 years old I knew that I didn’t ever want to be bigger than a size 6, because that was what Jess and Elizabeth were and that was perfect. This was certainly compounded by my mom’s insecurities, my own experiences, etc, but it was my firm belief that those twins were the SHIT and I wanted to be just like them.

There was only one example that I can recall where there was a larger girl (I think her name was Rhonda, but that might just be due to the prevalence of “Big Rhonda” in TV and movies – think about it, there’s Big Rhonda from That ’70s Show, Big Rhonda from Saved by the Bell, and I think a character named Big Rhonda in the Transformers move, but I digress)

Anyway let’s assume her name was Rhonda, she had a crush on rich jerk Bruce Patman but of course he mocked her for being fat. Then she got determined to prove him wrong, ran laps every day, showed up in some rainbow print leotard with matching hair scrunchie one day, and Bruce was so bowled over by this stunning goddess that he literally walked right into a closed door. Lesson learned? Guys make fun if you’re fat, then like you if you’re skinny. Even the good guys are apparently like this, because all of those girls were described as slender, hot in a bikini, etc, and the good guys flocked to them – or at least Elizabeth and her BFFs from the damn newspaper.

That was a lovely recap of teen serial books huh? Anyway, I still adore Sweet Valley High but have always taken issue with the size thing, and now more than ever you would think that the authors/publishers/whoever could be a bit more sensitive to the reality of most girls today. I mean the twins already were hot, had a great family, were smart, socially skilled, lots of dates….I didn’t need a specific size number to compare myself to. I guess I feel like that’s when it crosses the line from an ideal that we like to imagine ourselves as, and feeling shitty because the ideal is so unrealistic.

(climbing off my soapbox now, thanks for listening)

The loose woman part, though, was not hyperbole, and was something I learned in a dress history class. If that is incorrect, then, it is at least something I heard from a very reputable source.

The 14 inch waist was an extreme rarity, costume historians know from extant records and old corset measurements that waists were generally from 20-26 inches when fashionably corsetted. Remember also that people were physically smaller in Victorian times, so Ma Ingalls might well have had a Pa Ingalls hand-span waist, especially if he was a bigger man. There was also a kind of vanity sizing going on – a fashion victim of the day might buy an 18″ waist corset even though she couldn’t lace it up properly.

And most women did not even tightlace. They wore a comfortably-fitting corset for everyday support (it being pre-bra days), and maybe a tighter one for special occasions, like modern women might wear jeans and t-shirts most days but put on a dress with Spanx and a push-up bra and high heels for a party.

Many of our popular ideas about corsets actually come from Victorian men’s “newsletters” which were about fetishising the corset and tiny waist, and were basically full of fantastical stories presented as “facts”; also from satires mocking women’s fashions.

AND! “Loose woman” does NOT come from a woman with a loose corset. It’s from the Bible, and actally means a divorced woman – a woman “loosed” from the rule of her husband and who technically becomes an “adulteress” if she takes up with another man while her first husband’s still alive.

Of course, now that I think about it, maybe Pa had freakishly huge ogre hands. That’s a good way to interpret it.

I think what it does, and this is why I agree with Erin, is that it underscores just how important it is that the girls be substantially smaller than average — that in order to be aspirational, to be classified as “pretty” for the purposes of the story, they have to be small. Not fit, not not-fat, but notably thin. Thinner than many readers are ever going to get. A size four may not be universally unrealistic, but it’s unrealistic for many girls and isn’t a naturally healthy size for many others.

I think the change to the size four — no, no, they can’t be a big fat six, they have to be a FOUR — serves, to me, as a reminder that it’s so important that they be markedly thin. Why can’t they be sixes? Why is that important?

I’m not so much insulted by the fact that they have to be fours now as I am incensed to be reminded what a big damn deal the people behind the books apparently think their six-ness was in the first place.