Are You A Normal Person; Are You Average? Read This Fascinating Piece of History & Discover Your True Individual Nature.

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I have Covid and am half useless. With any luck, I'll have a new piece for you next week. Today, I send out a fitting one from the archives.

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Growing up, I was focused, to the point of preoccupation, with being “normal.”

To me—hell, to everyone around me—normal meant average, and average was my aim. Like most kids, I wanted to fit in, but how I didn’t fit in felt metaphysical; there was no real way to fix the ways I didn’t match unless I was born a totally different person.

But that didn’t stop me from trying, hoping, wishing, and fantasizing.

Why was I so fixated on being average?

At every turn, it seemed that I was not meeting the invisible requirements of “rightness.” I never exceeded anything; I always fell far short. I never understood why the where and how of a person could be wrong.

I knew I was shorter than everyone my age. I knew I was shorter than a lot of kids younger than me. I was aware that I was so far off from the “right weight” for my age that mine didn’t even appear on the height-and-weight-chart for my peer group.

I was on the lowest end of the chart for kids three years younger than me!

The approach I had to learning didn’t match how I was “supposed” to learn, but I knew there were no other options. I understood that the information they threw at us during class was coming at me too fast. My terror of being called on when my hand wasn’t raised made listening to anything impossible.

Me, taken by my dad, (Big) Eddie Stern. 1970s

Because I was consumed with terror about most things and had (what we didn’t then know were) daily panic attacks, I missed out on absorbing vital information. I froze in the face of testing, placing me academically at the bottom.

And then there was the panic I felt over leaving my mother: I was terrified that if I wasn’t with her, she’d die or disappear. Every other weekend I had to leave my mom to visit my dad, and during the summers I went away to camp, and it felt like I was being dragged to my death.

I didn’t understand that I’d be returned, despite the fact that I always was. Every time I left my mother felt like the last time I’d ever see her—so even emotionally, I seemed to be well below average.

To me, being “below average” meant that I was not enough. That I was fundamentally less than. And so I secretly worried I was defective. There was too much about me that wasn’t enough, that was wrong, and I understood that no matter what I did, I’d never be where I wanted to be—in the middle, average—a place the adults around me couldn’t stop talking about.

Had I known then what I know now, I could have used all that time and energy I spent worrying about being something I wasn’t and instead cultivate the person I actually was.

So, what is it that I know now?

The average person doesn’t exist. There is no such thing.

Somewhere inside me, I’d always felt like “normal” was a fictional concept, and that humans were too variable to fall into any fixed structure.

As someone who didn’t fit inside any set system that existed to calculate growth, intelligence, competence, achievement or ability, but who believed (to varying degrees) that I was skilled and smart about other things—things no one measured (e.g., giving advice, being physically coordinated, project-and-goal oriented, artistic, creative, funny, spirited)—I worried that our systems misunderstood or didn’t fit the dimensionality of humans.

But I didn’t have the words for any of this, that is, until I stumbled across The End of Average, by Todd Rose.

This book was a revelation. It articulated everything I’d always felt and validated me at every turn. Not only that, much of it mirrored my story and restored my faith that difference is our true “normal.”

The End of Average addresses several vital topics I frequently think and write about; I feel confident I’ll be writing several pieces about the many compelling stories that comprise this book.

Today, I’m focusing on the topic of the “average woman,” a woman readers meet very early on in Rose’s book.

To meet this woman, we’re going to go back in time to 1945 in Cleveland, Ohio, just a few weeks after the end of World War II, after two atomic bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

The world is changing, creating new paradigms for normality, and modernizing old notions of femininity—not necessarily for the better.

Eugenic thought is ever-present. In fact, the curator of the Museum of Natural History and the director of the Cleveland Museum of Health, are both Eugenicists.

You’ve just woken up; it’s morning. You plod down to the kitchen table, pour some coffee, and grab the city’s daily paper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer. As you wait for your toast, your eyes fall upon a notice for a contest.

“Are You Norma, Typical Woman? Search to Reward Ohio Winners.”

You’re intrigued. Who is Norma? And what does it mean to be Norma? But more importantly, are you Norma??

As you read on, you discover that this typical woman, Norma, possesses the ideal female form on all nine dimensions: height, weight, bust, waist, hips, thigh, calf, ankle, and foot.

Who knows, perhaps you are Norma, whose nine dimensions are absolutely ideal!? Maybe you could be rewarded with the money or war bonds they’re offering just for being the “typical woman.”

This contest, to find the “typical woman” comes on the heels of great upheaval and upturned norms. Women, who, for decades, have had their femininity defined by their domestic prowess, had most recently devoted themselves to war work until just weeks ago—and that work brought with it a sense of newfound independence.

“Norma” statue, 1945, Dickinson-Belskie Collection, Cleveland Health Museum

Norma, it seems, is taking a stance of certainty in an uncertain time, by declaring herself the new normal. And, after years of upheaval, the nation is starving for “normalcy.”

Oh, one thing: Norma is a statue.

For years, Dr. Robert L. Dickinson, a celebrated gynecologist-obstetrician at the time, had been using art to teach medicine to the public. He drew multiple portraits of his patients to understand their biological structure better.

His last project was a collaboration with the sculptor Abram Belsjie called “The Dickinson-Belsjie Birth Series,” which took viewers through human development from fertilization to delivery.

Dickinson was ready to work on something new. He imagined creating sculptures representing the statistical ideal of both the male and female forms. Many scientists at this time believed that the truth could be found by averaging massive amounts of data and Dickinson was no different.

Numbers, he believed, revealed insights into normalcy. He believed, as many did and continue to, that the “average” score is as fine a yardstick for measurement as any; the average number for anything feels to many, like an objective reality. And yet, that form of measurement is almost always wrong.

Lucky for Dr. Dickinson, in 1940, the Bureau of Home Economics was looking to create a standardized system for sizing readymade clothes. To do so, they collected nine dimensions of over 18,000 “native white” women between the ages of 21 and 25.

Relying on this anthropometric collection amassed by the Bureau of Home Economics (for an entirely different purpose), Dickinson and Belsjie focused their goal of creating the ideal woman by tallying thousands of data points, calculating the statistical average of that data, and based Norma’s figure on the final nine dimensions.

Dickinson considered these nine final numbers as the truth of what a “typical” or “normal” body should look like.

Belsjie got to work sculpting the figure that represented the statistical ideal of the female form: Norma.

Once done, Norma had a short stint at the Museum of Natural History in NYC, whose curator at the time, Harry L Shapiro, was a Eugenicist. Now, Norma would be in the environs of another eugenicist, Bruno Gephard, who directed the Cleveland Museum of Health, where Norma would be available for the public to view.

But not just that, now Norma was going to represent the female ideal in the form of a contest.

The contest, with its not so subtle nod to eugenics, was advertised, not as an explicit call for superiority, but as a progressive move to talk more openly about sex and sex behavior. And yet, the focus was not on behavior at all, only the physical.

Once the sculptures were complete, the contest was born.

A woman named Josephine Robertson was appointed as the “Norma editor.”

Over 3,800 women applied.

When the shortlist was announced, over 1,000 people showed up to watch the finalists get measured by a panel of “experts.”

Kie's Greek Ana

The contest judges assumed they’d be in for all-nighters, believing that most of the contestants would meet or come close on all nine of Norma’s dimensions. How would they choose when so many women met these standards?

They needn’t have worried.

Less than 40 of the 3,864 entrants met even five out of nine dimensions.

Not even Martha Skidmore, the theater cashier who won the contest, matched all nine dimensions.

Martha Skidmore, “Norma” Contest Winner, Cleveland Plain Dealer, 23 September 1945

How could this have happened?

Well, for one thing, Norma was not based on actual women, but on data sourced five years earlier for the purpose of standardizing clothing sizes for women. She was based on data that was mathematically exploited to suit a specific goal.

But the lack of Norma finalists should not have come as a surprise.

Imagine walking into a diner and asking everyone what they ordered. You get 45 different orders, with a ton of variation, substitutions, and dietary restrictions. You tally the responses and arrive at what you’d call “the average order.” As you read out the “average order,” you ask those who ordered it to raise their hands.

How many people will raise their hand?

Probably none.

People are variable.

Numbers are fixed, and expecting bulk averages to fit individuals will never work.

The conclusion one could reasonably draw from the Norma Lookalike contest is that there is no such thing as an average-size woman.

The fact that out of over 3,800 women, not one fit all nine dimensions should have signaled that the contest was a failure.

But that’s not how it turned out.

Instead of seeing the contest as flawed, doctors and government health agencies chose to view the women as flawed and chastised them, berating them into exercise programs and prescribing diet pills.

Original art for "How to Live" by Edwina White

To them, that seemed a more realistic perspective than accepting that individual women couldn’t match an average set of numbers that didn’t originate from the measurements of individual women but from a massive collection of data that was then calculated and averaged.

No one met all nine of Norma’s dimensions, and yet, the contest validated the standard of using anthropometric data as a legitimate means of measurement.

The conclusion that the women were wrong, and the numbers were right contributed to the erroneous belief that there is one right way to be.

Norma was shown at the Cleveland Health Museum, and was popular enough that a small statue was reproduced, and advertised Norma as “the ideal girl.”

Enter, the Norma Craze. And the media that helped fan her flames.

Experts and scientists were interviewed prescribing exercise routines for women who wanted to look like Norma.

Norma’s influence was everywhere: gym teachers used her as a model for how students “should” look, and Norma-centric exercise regimens were implemented.

Even preachers were moved by Norma’s normalcy, one even gave a sermon based on her “presumably normal religious beliefs.”

Norma, a sculpture, became the gold standard of the female form, and of females.

And yet, Norma’s perfectly average body was rare.

Why?

Because her body was not based upon actual living women, it was based on data that was mathematically exploited to suit a specific goal.

There is no such thing as an average person.

“Norma” statue, 1945, Dickinson-Belskie Collection, Cleveland Health Museum

We’ve been conditioned to believe that “average” is “normal.” But when you prove that the average person doesn’t exist, you must admit that normal doesn’t either.

The problem with the idea of “normal” or “average” is that human beings are too variable to be standardized.

Worse yet, is that the world we live in today is one designed based on these outdated beliefs about the “average person.” Our educational system was designed to fit the average student, our workplaces for the average worker. All our systems were designed for a mythical, nonexistent type of person.

When I was young, I couldn’t understand why there was only one way to learn, why I had to force myself to fit in when I just didn’t.

And it’s because our systems were never shaped to fit the individual. The average person, we once thought, meant “most people” when in fact it really means “no one.”

Our systems weren’t built to fit us; they were built to fit Norma.

And yet our everyday reality is mediated through the stubborn myth of averages. We continue to believe that those who exceed or meet the average are more valuable to our society.

Our society imposes the average on every area of our existence: work, relationships, money, health, etc…But so long as we continue to measure things against the average, we will overlook the more important members of society: the individuals.

The End of Average: Harvard's Todd Rose on Why Individuality Is the Key to the Future

Like many people who have felt incongruent with the world’s conception of what a successful life looks like, I grew into a person who gave up trying to conform to a system that wasn’t built for me and focused instead on figuring out how to exist according to the beliefs and ideals I hold.

When we spend our lives conforming to a standardized set of principles, we sacrifice the fullness of our individuality.

Let's stop doing that.

Until next week I am…

Amanda

(Nope, I'm not a therapist or medical professional. I'm just a human being who has spent most of her life trying to figure out how to live.)

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