The Good Girl Revolution: Young Rebels with Self-Esteem and High Standards | 
 enlarge | Author: Wendy Shalit
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 149271
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0812975367
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.708352
EAN: 9780812975369
ASIN: 0812975367
Publication Date: July 8, 2008
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
Across the country, there’s a youth-led rebellion challenging the status quo. In Seattle and Pittsburgh, teenage girls protest against companies that sell sleazy clothing. Online, a nineteen-year-old describes her struggles with her mother, who she feels is pressuring her to lose her virginity. In a small town outside Philadelphia, an eleventh-grade girl, upset over a “dirty book” read aloud in English class, takes her case to the school board. These are not your mother’s rebels.
Drawing on numerous studies and interviews, the brilliant Wendy Shalit makes the case that today’s virulent “bad girl” mindset truly oppresses young women. She reveals how the media, one’s peers, and even parents can undermine girls’ quests for their authentic selves, and explains what it means to break from the herd mentality and choose integrity over popularity. Written with sincerity and upbeat humor, The Good Girl Revolution rescues the good girl from the realm of mythology and old manners guides to show that today’s version is the real rebel. Society may perceive the good girl as “mild,” but Shalit demonstrates that she is in fact the opposite. The new female role models are not “people pleasing” or repressed; they are outspoken and reclaiming their individuality. These empowering stories are sure to be an inspiration to teenagers and parents alike. Join the conversation at www.thegoodgirlrevolution.com
Praise for The Good Girl Revolution
“[Shalit’s] conviction . . . will resonate with and bolster many parents.”
–Publishers Weekly
“Shalit marshals her evidence with the diligence of a trial lawyer. . . . [She] does not preach; she merely reports on the pockets of girls who are taking back their innocence.”
–The Globe and Mail
“[Shalit is] a passionate defender of modesty and chastity–and [she is also] provocative and rebellious.”
–Toronto Star
“[Shalit is] a prodigy at cracking the codes of culture.”
–Newsweek
“Stands out . . . in its championing of ‘new role models’ . . . who are taking a stand against the excesses of the Sexual Revolution.”
–The Washington Times
“A work of art. Wendy Shalit single-handedly transforms the way we view sexuality, and she is outrageously right-on. This is a book celebrating what women truly are and can be: loved, loving, strong, and complex. Shalit is a woman of high intellect, yet her arguments are witty, hip and logically presented (and she is also truly very funny!) making this book accessible and profound for the young and mature reader alike.”
--Dr. Mayim Bialik, neuroscientist at UCLA and former Blossom star
"When Wendy Shalit wrote A Return To Modesty in 1999, she knew which way the cultural winds were blowing. Since that time, the sleaze factor in our culture has worsened in ways about which numbers of people now express dismay. But in this book, Wendy Shalit has documented voices of real girls who are raising important questions about the culture around them. Many of these individual girls are taking action to counter this prevailing culture--putting a new slant on counter-cultural! The Good Girl Revolution profiles girls and young women who think for themselves. They are proud of who and what they are, and are making the choices that will allow them to continue to feel this way."
--Dr. Patricia Dalton, clinical psychologist in practice in Washington, D.C.
“Here we are, decades after the feminist revolution, and yet crude self-display – of a kind that makes the daring of the 1960s seem quaint – is considered something that a "normal" college girl might eagerly choose to do for a stranger with a camera and a release form. What is going on? "We continually malign the good girl as 'repressed,'" notes Wendy Shalit, "while the bad girl is (wrongly) perceived as intrinsically expressing her individuality and somehow proving her sexuality."
–The Wall Street Journal, reviewed by Pia Catton
“Even-tempered, sweetly reasonable, and full of pleasing glints of dry wit. . . an intelligent, illuminating, and unexpectedly optimistic book about those young women who have chosen to opt out of the revolution.”
–Contentions, reviewed by Terry Teachout
“Charming, moving, sometimes heartbreaking...brave and wonderful.”
--Commentary
“. . .throws into detailed, sickening relief the actual content the average girl in North America is subjected to from birth onwards in the determination to make her "bad." . . A solid researcher, citing wide-ranging statistical, professional and anecdotal testimony, Shalit builds a persuasive case for promiscuity's harsher toll on women than men.”
–The National Post, reviewed by Barbara Kay
“The culture has not yet carved out a space for women to indulge their own fantasies rather than to fulfill those of men. Feminism has not finished its job; a version of nonmushy, nonmarital sex that makes women feel good about themselves is still hard to achieve. Yet as a feminist, it's hard for me to concede these things to Shalit. . . .”
–The Nation, reviewed by Nona Willis-Aronowitz
“Shalit believes that too many girls and women have been denied a happy ending because, post-sexual revolution, we now believe it's good to be bad. . . .To make her point, Shalit roves through the bordello of popular culture, sweeping up unpleasant bits of evidence. She begins with Bratz dolls, a scantily clad line of playthings aimed at young girls, and goes as far as the "Girls Gone Wild" phenomenon, in which young women who ought to know better get drunk and take off their clothes and make lots of money for ungentlemanly types who sell videotapes of them. . . Shalit tells me to take heart, though, because there's a new sexual revolution a-brewing -- one in which sex is supposed to be a meaningful act between two people who actually care about each other. It's tempting to mock her, but what's so silly about the idea of self-respect and finding one's soul mate? Nothing, even if you're more the ‘Sex and the City’ type than the virgin-till-marriage type.”
--Washington Post Book World, reviewed by Jennifer Howard
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 The Modesty Revolution: the 4th Wave of Feminism? September 22, 2008
Sarah Flashing (womenfaithculture.org)
At the 2008 VH1 music awards, singer Jordin Sparks challenged show host Russell Brand on his ridicule of promise rings, rings that signify a pledge to remain sexually pure until marriage. Standing up to the lies of 2nd and 3rd wave feminism, Sparks is one of many young women demanding a change in perspective. For them, the spirit of feminism is about opportunity and freedom, not rights at the expense of dignity and self-respect. This is the essence of what author Wendy Shalit calls The Good Girl Revolution.
Shalit's book, by the same title, documents story after story of young women who are tired of the sexual exhibitionism that defines contemporary feminism. They understand the backwards logic of this in that it cancels out the work of the early feminists who wanted to be taken seriously as intellectual equals instead of merely objects of sexual gratification.
The Girlcotters are a group of young women known for their objection to the Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts for girls that say "who needs brains when you have these." A young group of feminists, Shalit spends many pages telling their story, leading up to their invitation to be guests at a NOW conference. Here is what one of the girls had to say about the conference:
We went to the NOW conference last week, and I support equality and would never like to be controlled by a man, but the NOW conference was more like a brainwashing feminist summit than anything else. They had this artistic performance that was so much about sex and how much all men suck; it really made me feel sick...Those three days were awfully confusing for me...I mean, we got the Women of Action award for what we've done, but...I think we've been misunderstood. Everyone thinks that we are so feminist, but, frankly, most of us are not that radical. We just want to be on par with men...I thought that they were very reasonable, middle-of-the-road like me, but I guess I was somewhat mistaken. (page 235)
The Girlcotters are evidence of NOW conferences hard at work to exert their influence on young women (where is the church????). It's exciting to know that this young woman could think for herself, that she could be confident and retain her self-respect when clearly NOW was going to be no help in that regard.
What Shalit points out in numerous ways in GGR is that 2nd and 3rd wave feminists cannot accommodate today's young feminists who embrace modesty as a way to value themselves. The feminists of previous generations hold that promoting modesty is a sell-out to patriarchy, but I can't understand how young women giving themselves over entirely without emotional or commitment safety is of any benefit to woman.
Desiring fair and equal treatment between men and women is a noble pursuit, but women have deceived themselves into thinking that being bad, engaging in casual sex and and other forms of exhibitionism puts them on par with men. In fact, it accomplishes quite the opposite and the evidence is that sexism is still a serious problem in our culture. I believe we can place the blame on women who have made it easy for men to not take any of us seriously.
Girls Gone Mild August 23, 2008
D. E. W. Turner (Hereford, AZ, USA)
This book is about the young women who are attempting to turn the tide of feminism back to the original goal of equality in the workplace by standing against pornography and smut in fashion. They are protesting T-shirts that say things like "WHO NEEDS BRAINS WHEN YOU HAVE THESE?"; they are promoting modesty in fashion by holding their own fashion shows; they are standing up at school board meetings to protest required reading in schools of books that make them feel uncomfortable (such as The Buffalo Tree, by Adam Rapp); they are formulating their own "consciousness-raising" programs. These are young women who are sick of the F-word! The author makes an interesting observation:
"If the feminist leaders were misguided in excluding "good girls" from their ideology, certain conservatives have been perhaps too hasty in declaring feminism dead. Feminism is clearly very much alive for young women, but it is a feminism that makes the leadership uneasy. For it is not as reflexively "bad-girl" as it once was, and its focus on personal dignity and on sex being sacred will mean the biggest shakeup of feminism since Seneca Falls in 1848.
Older feminists are now concerned that the sexual revolution and the concessions they made to pornography have not turned out as expected. They're discovering that promiscuity and public sexuality may not be the ticket to happiness, after all, even for men. So it makes sense that they would want to honor young women like the Girlcotters. The problem is that they are so committed to the idea of casual sex as liberation that they can't appreciate or even quite understand these younger feminists. They still don't understand that pursuing crudeness is the problem, not the solution. Or maybe they do understand this, but they don't want to admit they are wrong."
Another Choice July 23, 2008
Elizabeth Bartlett (New York, New York)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
In a progressive culture where women have a wide range of choices, Wendy Shalit presents a controversial one for women in her book, "Girls Gone Mild".
America, "land of the free, home of the brave," is a place where women are not only encouraged but expected to engage in sexual experiences whether or not they actually desire them, often numbing themselves with alcohol in order to detach themselves from their true emotional inner life. Wendy Shalit dissects our popular culture and analyzes it with help from thousands of young American woman of various backgrounds who have provided her with first-hand accounts of what they are really feeling ... or not feeling. As a female junior in college these women's life stories resonate well with mine.
The tragedy of the death of courtship and the birth of hook-up scenes on college campuses is addressed not only with concern, but with hope. Because as much as some would love to muffle the sound, there are voices on campuses all over America which ask for something different -- the choice to abstain. They want an opportunity to live a lifestyle outside others' expectations without being ridiculed by their peers, their professors, or their parents.
Has guarding one's heart and valuing one's virtue become so offensive that there can be no tolerance or acceptance of such a choice? Listening to the loudest women on college campuses today, one might think so. But Wendy Shailt argues that there is a choice, though it may be quite difficult for those blinded by our sex-obsessed culture even to see that it exists. That one cannot make that choice without raising the hackles and incurring the ridicule and wrath of one's peers and of many soi-disant feminists makes their much-vaunted women's liberation a mockery. Are women really free if the only valid choices they can make are the ones mandated (womandated?) by their feminist leaders?
Everything I hesitate to say July 15, 2008
Sweetie7544 (IA United States)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Absolutely fabulous. What an eye opener! It's everything I've always wanted to say, but couldn't find the right words. My sincerest "thank you" goes out to Wendy Shalit.
 Very Disappointing July 10, 2008
Brigid Powell (Portland, OR USA)
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
After reading GIRLS GONE MILD, I was excited to see another book continuing her work. Now that I have received my pre-ordered copy today, I am disappointed to see that the chapters are basically reductions of the chapters in GIRLS GONE MILD.
I will read this further and see what new information she offers, but I can't believe this is much different, given that she uses many of the same chapter titles and anecdotes in both books.
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