Girls Gone Mild?

quote:Had Wendy Shalit not adopted the tone of a beleaguered conservative, blaming feminism for turning young women into sluts, I could have gone with her all the way. She's not like those modesty-advocates of yore who fretted that women's liberation would result in coed bathrooms, and then went on to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment. She's different from the rest.

...

But my disagreement is not with Shalit's main point that our culture oversexualizes girls. It's with the way she divvies the moral universe into "us" and "them." I felt moved by Shalit's empathy, inspired by her call for authenticity. I found myself surprisingly open to love. But then I got dumped. My experience of reading Girls Gone Mild was less like true love and more like an unsatisfying affair.

Here's how Shalit dumped me: First, she tries to blame this hypersexual culture on lenient Boomer parents. I have yet to see hard numbers linking Boomer permissiveness to the pressure to have sex early, or to their daughters' low self-esteem. Shalit certainly fails to cite such research, depending instead on anecdotes. I'd counter hers with an anecdote of my own:, my just-pre-Boomer mother was not one of the alleged legions Shalit rails against for encouraging casual sex. And the daughters of Boomers that I know tend to look up to their parents (once they pass puberty) rather than view them with moral disdain, as Shalit's modest rebels do, like female Alex P. Keatons. Still, I'll concede, as Shalit writes, that "What is liberation to one generation can be oppression to the next." Okay.

But she doesn't stop there. In the world of Girls Gone Mild, permissive Boomer parents are lumped together with third-wave feminists to become the dread "them," the dark side of the moral universe. In a chapter titled "Feminism's (Mild) Fourth Wave," Shalit fans the flames of a far less believable intergenerational war. She writes:

"As the third-wavers continue to advocate a public, crude sexuality and younger girls feel oppressed by how public sexuality is, the two sets of women are on course for an inevitable collision."

...

But Shalit giveth, then taketh away. Her tactics are gratuitously divisive. After celebrating said young activists, for instance, who were hailed by third wave feminists as inspirational, she uses these girls to trump up the so-called intergenerational divide on modesty. She also loses progressive allies in the fight against the pornification of the girls' toy aisle by giving a free pass to advertisers and corporations. And she loses feminists young and old by conflating the inappropriate, premature sexualization of girls under age 18 with the entire project of sexual revolution.

When it comes to her opinions on women over 18, Shalit loses even more potential allies. In her desire to socially legislate the sexual behavior of adult women, she makes it impossibly clear that she is playing for the opposing team. To her credit, she anticipates such criticism and insists that she is not advocating we turn back the clock. But like a lover scorned, by the time we get there, I find her hard to believe.

quote:Originally posted by Michelle:
God I love being a grown-up. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]

Just when you thought it was safe

quote:I don’t get letters like this every day, but I have had a recent rash of them, due to the recent release of Girls Gone Mild, by Wendy Shalit. In her book, Shalit culled a few select bits of the Sex Readiness Checklist here out of context, including ditching the opening material of that piece, to draw “her own” conclusion about those bits that nearly WAS my opening material.

“Scarleteen offers a “sex readiness checklist” for young girls to help them gauge whether they should plunge into the fun. Among the items: “I see a doctor regularly,” and “I have a birth control budget of $50 per month.” The emotional readiness a girl should demonstrate is “I can separate love from sex.” Shalit notes, “Those who can separate love from sex are mature, like jaded adults. They are ready to embark on a lifetime of meaningless encounters.”

In fact, Shalit argues, all of this advice and deprogramming aimed at women is necessary because women do not by nature thrive on casual, meaningless sexual encounters. They crave emotional intimacy and fidelity — desires the women’s magazines are at pains to quash in the name of maturity.” - Mona Charen

It very intensely misrepresented the content and message, likely because it was important to provide an “enemy” in order not only to make her points (and to give the impression they were ONLY her points), but to make it HER point so we could stay all cozily us vs. them about all of this, which is a pity when so many of us on all “sides” share the same concerns. Perhaps ironically, we’ve actually gotten more criticisms of the readiness checklist from folks Shalit would likely consider her enemy because it asks a good deal of people, far more than a gold band around one’s finger. I’ve had adults say, “Well, I don’t have $50 a month,” or “I can’t talk with my partner about sex,” to which my response is that from all I know, in the work I do, if they DID have all of those things in place, their sex lives would likely be healthier and more satisfying for everyone involved. It’s a long list, that page, because sexuality and sexual partnership are complex and multifacted. neither are binary nor simple, and we have far more than two choices — do it or don’t — and far more than two contexts in which to make those choices — married or not married — and most of us have to make those choices far, far more than once in our lives, and every time we make them is just as important as the first or last time we did.

Scarleteen is fantastic sex education work for teenagers. My original benefit of the doubt that I was willing to give Shalit and her book is completely gone.

My copy just came up from reserve on Friday and I had the chance to read the first 100 pages over the weekend.

quote: Originally by Michelle: I'm not really having the same reaction to this, btw. It may be possible that she's channeling some right-wing modesty thing, but it's also possible that she's writing about girls withstanding peer pressure to be more sexualized than they're comfortable with being. Lots of feminists have decried the over-sexualization of girls

I was hoping this would be the case, but it seems to me she's channeling the right-wing more than anything, though I wouldn't say I'm far enough to give an educated view.

A lot of the research that Shalit did was very interesting - and I had similar reactions as she did when I lived on campus. Her main point from my perspective is that women are losing power with men if we make ourselves too sexually available. She is trying to convince women that you don't have to "put out" to ensure a guy will like you or stay with you.

I had similiar concerns to everyone here, in that I don't want women to lose freedom to wear what they want, or have as many partners as they want. However, she clarifies many times throughout the book that she is not interested in legislating anything or forcing women to dress modestly. She is simply trying to put an alternative view out there.

quote: A lot of the research that Shalit did was very interesting - and I had similar reactions as she did when I lived on campus. Her main point from my perspective is that women are losing power with men if we make ourselves too sexually available. She is trying to convince women that you don't have to "put out" to ensure a guy will like you or stay with you.

But one of the alternatives to "puting out" she presents is baking an apple pie, which while an undoubtedly a tasty option, really dosen't deal with the issues faced by women who want to be strong and sexual at the same time. Surly It's possible to find a happy medium between being a sex object and being as asexual as a park bench.

[ 17 March 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

quote:Originally posted by jrose:

Exactly, and that is something that isn’t addressed at all in the first 100 pages. She doesn’t touch on the positive sexual experiences that young women can have, whether with one partner, or a dozen partners. Being modest is a wonderful choice (heck, I made it!) if it’s for the right reasons, but doing so out of fear of being a “bad girl” should hardly be the incentive.

Definitely. Each woman should do it based on their own personal reasons/goals/values etc.

I found the continual bad girl/good girl dichotomy of the book grew tedious very quickly. With the research she did and a lot of the interesting material, the book could have been a lot better with more of a focus on teaching girls to value self-respect above all else.

I think a lot of the book resonated with me, as I remained a virgin throughout high school and found the pressure a lot to handle. I was called many names, called down to the lowest by guys, etc. Shalit has written about issues that haven't gotten a lot of attention, but she didn't really approach it in the best manner.

But, her personal morality includes not even

holding hands until she was married!

An analysis of how men benefit from/created this situation would have served this important topic much better.

Overall, I thought the book was good because I rarely have seen this topic covered. But, there are many authors who could do a much better job and engage in more relevant analysis. She seemed to have set out to prove a pre-existing notion, rather than set out to examine all possible dynamics of this issue.