Oh, how the times change. Unsurprisingly, the perception of what the “perfect woman” looks like — and what a healthy weight is — has changed a lot since 1912 (though, I cannot figure out why Cornell was doing anything of this sort in the first place).
Cornell University’s medical examiner, Dr. Esther Parker, selected Scheel from a pool of 400 Cornell women. The New York Times described her as “a light-haired, blue-eyed girl whose very presence bespeaks perfect health,” and The Star, a Wilmington, Del. paper, reported that Scheel was 171 pounds, 5 ft. 7 in. tall and had similar proportions to the famous Greek statue, Venus de Milo.
The full story is over at Huffington Post.
Feminist Philosophers 