I’m going to say this once here, and then–because it is obvious– I will not repeat it in the course of this book: not all boys engage in such behavior, not by a long shot, and many young men are girls’ staunchest allies. However, every girl I spoke with, every single girl–regardless of her class, ethnicity, or sexual orientation; regardless of what she wore, regardless of her appearance–had been harassed in middle school, high school, college, or, often, all three. Who, then, is truly at risk of being “distracted” at school? At best, blaming girls’ clothing for the thoughts and actions of boys is counterproductive. At worst, it’s a short step from there to “she was asking for it.” Yet, I also can’t help but feel that girls such as Camila, who favors what she called “more so-called provocative” clothing, are missing something. Taking up the right to bare arms (and legs and cleavage and midriffs) as a feminist rallying cry strikes me as suspiciously Orwellian. I recall the simple litmus test for sexism proposed by British feminist Caitlin Moran, one that Camila unconsciously referenced: Are the guys doing it, too? “If they aren’t, ” Moran wrote, “chances are you’re dealing with what we strident feminists refer to as ‘some total fucking bullshit.’” So while only girls get catcalled, it’s also true that only girls’ fashions urge body consciousness at the very youngest ages. Target offers bikinis for infants. The Gap hawks “skinny jeans” for toddlers. Preschoolers worship Disney princesses, characters whose eyes are larger than their waists. No one is trying to convince eleven-year-old boys to wear itty-bitty booty shorts or bare their bellies in the middle of winter. As concerned as I am about the policing of girls’ sexuality through clothing, I also worry about the incessant drumbeat of self-objectification: the pressure on young women to reduce their worth to their bodies and to see those bodies as a collection of parts that exist for others’ pleasure; to continuously monitor their appearance; to perform rather than to feel sensuality. I recall a conversation I had with Deborah Tolman, a professor at Hunter College and perhaps the foremost expert on teenage girls’ sexual desire. In her work, she said, girls had begun responding “to questions about how their bodies feel–questions about sexuality or arousal–by describing how they think they look. I have to remind them that looking good is not a feeling. Peggy Orenstein
I didn't change, I just found myself.
-
Good Life Quotes
All I'd ever wanted was to forget. but even when I thought I had, pieces had kept emerging, like bits of wood floating up to the surface that only hint at the shipwreck below.
-
Sarah Dessen
And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.
-
Madeline Miller
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
-
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
-
Winston S. Churchill
More Quotes By Peggy Orenstein
She flicked off the light and was about to step out onto the balcony when she heard a familiar sound. She smiled and went to the rail. “Now I’ve seen everything, ” she whispered as Lexi climbed down onto the balcony. They looked at one...
Things had always seemed so simple when we were wrapped in each other, as if the pressures of our lives just fell away. But in one night, everything had changed. Johnathon's life hung in the balance and Bryce was gone. A media storm waited for...
I looked around the tiny bathroom, at the three of us crammed in. A billionaire, a movie star, and a small town girl. It was some sick lesbian twist on Gilligan's Island. I would have laughed but none of it was funny.
We are not so different, you and I, " she said as if she was inside my thoughts. "We are flesh, " she ran her finger down the center of my chest and circled around my breasts, "and bone, " her hand traced a path...
She slapped my shoulder playfully. "I've created a monster, " she said, then she nestled into the chair and rested her head on my shoulder, "an adorable, sexy monster.
