Abby Sarrett-Cooper gets perfectly angry when she talks about perfection – the perfection demanded of girls and women in how they look and how they act.

"Today women are valued for sexuality and appearance," she said. "For women 60 to 80, there was Twiggy, and then there were the supermodels who were skinny but layered with muscle. It was the beauty ideal – we had to be perfect."

She decries the cultural emphasis on perfection and sexuality and encourages women to reclaim some of the values that defined traditional femininity.

Sarrett-Cooper will share her perspectives on body image and self-esteem at a talk Thursday, April 12, at Temple Emanu-El of West Essex in Livingston.

A licensed counselor who leads a group at the Eating Disorder Association of New Jersey in Metuchen and teaches at Caldwell College, Sarrett-Cooper spoke with NJJN ahead of her talk, which is sponsored by the Young Women's Group of National Council of Jewish Women, Essex County Section.

In a culture Sarrett-Cooper described as "saturated with images of perfection that lead us to feel inadequate about ourselves," she wants to reclaim some of the values that defined women at the turn of the 20th century.

"In an age when women and girls were protected, they were valued for their virtue, for their character, for their contributions to the home," she said.

It rankles her when people dismiss virtues like these with the term "girl," as in, "He cried like a girl."

"What's wrong with crying? If you feel hurt, you should cry," she said. "In our rush to adopt a model of masculinity, we have denied a side of traditional femininity that gave us strength: things like intimacy and nurturing and communication."

Constantly striving for outer perfection has led women to become isolated from each other. "We have lost the intimacy of sisterhood," she said. She describes sisterhood as a community of women who mentor younger girls and welcome them in. "We don't do that anymore," she said.

Instead she described the "catty" behavior of women judging each other not only in middle school but throughout their lives, especially at cocktail party-type events. "We're judging ourselves as we judge each other," she said.

The solution is not only to focus on character but also to understand the impact of culture, she said.

Sarrett-Cooper served as a consultant for NCJW's recently launched program for sixth-graders on positive body image. In her work with girls in local middle schools and with individuals, she offers an understanding of how society and the economy have "a vested interest" in having girls and women feel inadequate so that they will buy things to fix themselves.

Instead of turning to makeup or diets when they feel lonely or unhappy, she said, she wants girls and women to question whether these things will really make a difference.

Sarrett-Cooper said she feels today's role models are lacking, to say the least.

"We've thrown our young girls to the sharks. Look at Mary-Kate and Ashley [the Olsen twins]. Or Paris Hilton. We don't focus on good works or the character inherent in our being, but on our bodies."