Gender and Colonialism pt5: Normal Normman and Norma

collage by nicholas b jacobsen

“The gender binary creates one way of being ‘man’ and ‘woman’ that doesn’t exist in reality. We are judged according to our proximity to these made-up binary models. and there are zero winners. because none of us have one absolute identity that satisfies the binary system.” 
- Gayathiri Kamalakanthan

Eugenics was popular science in the early 1900's as people in power sought to justify their racist, classist, sexist, and ableist violences. In the 1940's the U.S. was eager to prove to the world that they were (re)producing the fittest People. So they commissioned a study which measured 15,000, 21-25 year-old, abled, white bodies. 
 
With the average of these measurements, artist Abram Belskie and OB-GYN Robert Latou Dickinson carved these “average Americans” in white alabaster and named them “Normman” and “Norma,” (as in Normal as in Natural as in Divine)

"Normman" by Abram Belskie and Robert Latou Dickinson

"Norma" by Abram Belskie and Robert Latou Dickinson

Dickinson showed the sculptures at a eugenics conference to showcase the health of this U.S. American stock. 

“Norma’s Husband Better Be Good. Evolution Outlook Bright if Model Girl Weds Wisely.” - 1945 headline reads.

The Cleveland Health Museum and YMCA held the contest, “Norma, Typical Woman,” to find an Ohio woman with Norma’s measurements. (Unsurprisingly, no one looked for a “Normman.”) Only a fraction of the  3,863 entries were even close to Norma’s size, and the prize went to Martha Skidmore, who only matched about 1/2 of Norma’s dimensions.

Despite the contest’s results, the media, doctors, and researchers refused to let go of Norma, and the idea(l) of an average body. (see: BMI)

So, they blamed women. They said the contest was a flop because U.S. women are out of shape. The media then began telling stories from experts and scientists, who all recommended Physical Education programs.

“P.E. (also) grew from ‘muscular Christianity’ which presumed a relationship between health and character (i.e. righteousness). Physical educators in the early 1900’s raised concerns about urbanism’s degenerative effects on the ‘white race’ and called themselves “soldiers of Christ.” 
- Jared Farmer, On Zion's Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape

This is why there’s a gym in every Mormon church. This is why the in Book of Mormon illustrations the characters are all ripped as fuck. This is why Steve Young was the model Mormon for a couple decades. It's called Muscular Mormonism.

Normman and Norma were not representations of the average person—they were mythical people, (Platonic) idealized bodies.

another pair mythical, idealized U.S. American white bodies