I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet

For class

This was for a college class.

A MUST READ FOR ALL

I am happy my class was canceled so I would not have to read this book

all good

I'm amazed at this book, and this from a member of Planned Parenthood! (Which is pretty feminist establishment; this comment is not a stand on abortion).After years and years of seeing sick, nausea inducing, and painful attacks from clueless feminists (mostly immature college Girls and angry women with selfish agendas) I was genuinely taken aback at seeing this almost common sense feminism - a group which I felt was almost beyond redemption.The two chapters - Good Slut and Bad slut 'Containtment Strategies' alone make this book excellent. What you get there is ... fairly obvious to any human being with a mind and a trace of honesty. But coming from a source of this kind, it is an admission.Namely that girls dress in yoga pants for attention, and that it has nothing to do with being comfortable or dressing for yourself. Now if you say this in most places in North America, and especially if you happen to be male, you will get hysteria, yelling, paranoia and 24 hours later, a protest group organized by the women's studies mob, with support from know it all 'enlightened' men. They will also proclaim that person (usually male) to be part of the rape culture, a conservative who watches Fox News, and so on and on. We know this. Which makes it all the more strange that Leora's first book came out over ten years ago and the arm chair feminist extremists still ignore her book (which they probably read) and go on to attack those men (and sometimes women) for stating the obvious about women and dressing slutty for attention. And yes, it is slutty, not sexy. The teenage interviewees make that pretty clear that the emphasis is on showing off butt, breasts etc. And there is no disagreement in the book - the look is more slutty today.Which brings me to the part where Leora suggests dialouge with the daughter saying that others will judge her for her clothing. The sample advice is - 'You look fantastic in that outfit! But unfortunately, many people are not as 'enlightened' as you are ... and may treat you like a sexual object ... They're wrong'.Strange that the author would talk earlier about a girl objectifying herself, and then adopt this fence sitting language. If the clothing is obviously sexual, and geared towards getting attention then it would have been much better for the parent to talk her out of it. This focus on physical perfection, the competitiveness to be more sexy has already been identified as the cause of many problems - it's not too difficult to ask that girls and boys don't go around flaunting their butts or abs, whatever the case is. The only protection a society has is for the parents to take more of a stand, not cave in to the pressure of media. When each household fails to uphold some kind of standard, that is when society goes wrong. What else do you expect? To change the media content first? To hold the clothing stores responsible?(We need some serious debate on why this attention getting is so important, but that is beyond the scope of a lib-feminist book though I am sure the Oprah-View crowd have tried).Girls both psychologically torment other girls and beat them up violently for being sexual (which is a whole other thing from dressing slutty in my view. One is natural, the other is often cheap and not self-respecting ... and highly narcissistic).Another telling part is the example where a girl under peer pressure makes up a story of having done it with a random guy. What is that, but locker room talk for girls?My point being, that we should try and be honest about how men and women behave, and not resort to ridiculous lazy remarks about the patriarchy, which Leora thankfully warns against right in the introduction. I see that even though Tanenbaum is a famous feminist writer, her example is not followed by her readers and not surprisingly I have seen reviews of her book elsewhere, and they unfailingly throw out that stupid term - patriarchy. The book thankfully omits this awful and stupid term - which is a staple of the mainstream politics of the extreme liberals today. Their issue is not primarily the well being of People ... or girls. It is the milking of all our problems so that they can build their identity and careers of of it. THAT is an unavoidable truth, and the fact that feminists and liberals have not changed their thinking since Tanenbaum's book Slut! is proof of serious denial and lack of desire to actually seek a solution.This is the most exasperating thing about life - even when a reasonably intelligent person brings her ideas out, the others act like nothing was ever said. I am reminded of Christians reading the bible, then somehow managing to interpret it almost the opposite way. I think it's significant that Tanenbaum is Jewish and might have had some normal parenting in her culture, as opposed to many of the white and other middle class liberal women who seem to have not an ounce of common sense and are forever being angsty and in your face. As a NON-conservative and non-American, the drift to extreme and illogical liberal politics has made society unbearable for many of us - including those of us who are actually left wing or liberal, as opposed to mainstream (There's a big difference).

Don't be misled by this book's title. _I Am Not a Slut_ isn't a defensive memoir but a thoughtful analysis of online sexual shaming aimed at women: especially young women. Following up on her landmark monograph, _Slut: Growing up Female with a Bad Reputation_, Tanenbaum shows how the explosion of Internet social media has allowed the practice of "slut-bashing" (deriding young women for their sexual activities -- or alleged activities) to ramify and assume horrific new dimensions. She balances powerful anecdotal evidence with nuanced historical research into the sexual double-standard, showing how today's adolescent girls are faced with a catch-22: "sexual audacity" (e.g. revealing clothing, high heels, and erotic emails) are "in," but good girls are still supposed to be asexual and marriage-oriented. The result is a no-win situation: one provocative online photo can be sent around the world at lightening speed, quickly earning a teenage girl the label of "slut." As Tanenbaum has often pointed out, no equivalent, negative label exists for men. (Indeed, she notes that erotic photos of today's young males tend to be laughed off and disregarded.) Tanenbaum argues compellingly that this derisive term cannot really be reclaimed or appropriated to any positive end, and she offers a helpful "Dos and Don't" list as well as up-to-date resources for those dealing with this form of harassment. Readers interested in the social reality of today's high school and college age women must read this book, but it is actually helpful to anyone, female or male, who has experienced online bullying and felt powerless to respond. Women's studies students and professors alike should certainly familiarize themselves with Tanenbaum's arguments. A character in Frances Burney's 1778 novel, _Evelina_, states that a woman's reputation is "at once the most beautiful and most brittle of all human things." Unfortunately, it seems that the eighteenth-century equivalence of a woman with what is said about her persists. In exposing it, however, Leora Tanenbaum deals damaging sexual ideology a powerful blow.

Every English speaker should read this book about the harm inherent in policing girls and women by tearing down their reputations because of their perceived excess of sexuality. All 75 of my English Composition students will have to, at least parts of it. Since the author, Leora Tanenbaum of Planned Parenthood, wrote it with verve, clarity, courage, and her finger right on the pulse of American youth culture, they'll have no excuse not to!Who the hell are any of us to judge how much sex is too much sex? And besides, slut-shaming does NOTHING to prevent teen pregnancy or risky sex; it just makes many girls and women hate themselves as shown by Tanenbaum's exhaustive research and sensitive interviews with several dozen girls and young women. Tanenbaum argues convincingly that feminist efforts to take back the word 'slut,' like the LGBT community has done with the word 'queer,' are doomed to failure because our chauvinistic culture of double standards will continue to interpret this word to justify the harassment and assault of women and girls, regardless of the good intentions of groups like Slut Walk. The Madonna/whore dichotomy remains so deeply embedded in Western culture that reappropriating the word 'slut' through activism remains an impossible if well-intentioned ideal.To riff on Martin Luther King, I dream of the day when all God's children, women and men and intersex, gay and straight and bisexual and trans, are judged not by the amount of sex they have, but by the content of their character. For instance, cheating on one's spouse is wrong because it's dishonest, NOT because of the cheater's ostensibly excessive sex drive.

It was an interesting read and very informative but I did find some of what she had to say on reclaiming language and supporting sexist uniform policies quite odd.

A must read !!! Educate your mind and be inspired !!