Is ‘ladylike’ a lost attribute?

Recent Belmont graduate Jordan Christy shows women how to maintain style and class in a world that deifies women whose contributions to society include reality TV antics and wardrobe malfunctions in her first book, “How to be a Hepburn in a Hilton World.”

The idea for the book started to take shape while Christy was in high school. Unlike some of the girls she went to school with, Christy didn’t want to go out partying all the time. She valued intelligence and true friendship, and she didn’t feel that a girl’s self worth lied in how many football players she hooked-up with. It was then that she began to ask herself, “What happened to the hardworking, intelligent girl?”

At Belmont, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English in August ’09, she found “like-minded friends.” But she couldn’t help but notice that the girls exemplified in the media were known for their skimpy clothing, tabletop dance moves and stints in rehab.

In her junior year she decided to give it a shot, and she e-mailed her idea for the book to 10 literary agents, whom she found in a Google search. “I had no clue about the publishing steps that need to be taken,” admits Christy. But shortly there after, she got an encouraging response. The agent thought she had a good idea and said she’d pitch it to some publishers.

About a month later, Hachette Book Group Publishing picked up the book, giving Christy six months to complete the manuscript – start to finish. “

I just had an idea. I hadn’t written one paragraph—not even a single word,” said Christy, “But fiction and nonfiction are different. With nonfiction you can get away with just an idea. They told me to write the book I wanted to write.”

Five months into writing the book, Christy and her husband, Drew, found out that she was pregnant with a girl.

“It became so much more significant to me,” Christy says, “All of the sudden it became very real. I was thinking of her every step of the way.”

Admitting to be a momma’s girl herself, she began to think and write from a different perspective, a mother’s. She thought of the things she would want her daughter – who has now arrived and is named Paisley – to know through the pitfalls of female adolescence and adulthood.

The book is mainly a critique of what Christy calls the “Stupid Girl,” and how to avoid being one. Oddly enough, Christy admits she can’t take credit for the term. As a Belmont alumnus and publisher for Warner Bros., it is no surprise that Christy is a music-lover. During the writing process, she put together a soundtrack for the book and came across P!nk’s “Stupid Girls” and thought, “That’s it!”

“It’s harsh,” she says of the term “Stupid Girl.” But she also affirms that these girls are not unintelligent. “They are just misguided. There’s a huge lack of self-respect,” she says.

Etiquette books usually have a dry, inaccessible reputation—especially to younger audiences—but Christy’s book is a brilliant blend of humor and seriousness that keeps it light. “I wanted it to be a book that a girl could take to the beach or something she could just pick up and read anytime,“ says Christy, “I wanted it to be fun.”

So far, the book has been received well; she hasn’t met much opposition, and she’s received hundreds of positive e-mails. Though, she admits to a moment of panic when she heard that  her book was mentioned in an article on Page Six of the New York Post, the definitive source for celebrity news and gossip.

However, if opposition presents itself in the future, she is confident that the message and arguments raised in the book are sound. “I just want girls to find happiness,” says Christy. It’s not about being Audrey Hepburn; it’s about being your own modern version of Audrey Hepburn.

Christy quotes her mother in saying, “Times were simpler then.” Audrey Hepburn was the epitome of class in her time, but it’s a different world today.

The book does remain decidedly silent on one aspect: the male role in society’s fascination with the Stupid Girl.

“It would be too easy to place the blame on men,” says Christy. And no, there are no plans for the male version—not to say there aren’t men that need such a book. But Christy reassures her audience, saying, “There are good guys out there. The goal is to become a good woman that a nice guy would want.”

Above all, Christy advises girls to embrace independence. “Society tells you that if you are alone, then you are a loser, that you need to be surrounded by people all the time, plugged in,” she says, “Separate yourself from the pack.

Turn off your phone. Spend some time by yourself to figure out yourself.”