They are anxious that their daughters are putting themselves at risk of not being taken seriously, or of being sexually harassed or assaulted.īut girls today are not behaving differently from girls of yesterday-their mothers-and there is no evidence that what a girl or woman wears influences her risk of sexual assault. Perhaps because they recognize that sexual reputations today are difficult or impossible to shed, parents regularly pull me aside, worried about their teenage and young-adult daughters’ crop tops and leggings and Instagram bikini selfies. Today, no one really gets to start fresh, ever. In the aftermath, they developed eating disorders, cut themselves, had sex that wasn’t coerced but wasn’t truly what they wanted and became severely depressed, even suicidal.īut as horrible, even traumatic, as these experiences were, the school slut of yesterday had an option that the school slut of today does not: She could transfer to another school and start a new life. In the 1990s, they shared with me stories of excruciating cruelty-classmates who threw bottles and cans at them, named them as a slut in graffiti on the back of the school building, told them to drink bleach and die, raped them and taunted, correctly, that no one would believe that they had said no. Three decades ago, I began speaking with girls in middle school and high school who had been called “sluts” and “hoes” by their peers. Meanwhile, the early-developing classmate rumored to let boys “feel her up” behind the A&P might very well find her phone hacked, her private images sold to porn sites and published along with her name and address. She may even jeopardize her own well-being, since data from her period-tracking app could become evidence against her if she seeks an abortion in a state in which it is outlawed. She might send one to someone she likes-because they asked for it, or because she just wants to.Īnd through these actions, she would be risking humiliation exponentially more dignity-crushing than anything her 1970 self could possibly imagine, with her selfies shared nonconsensually to everyone she knows. In the department store dressing room, trying on bras, she might take selfies to share with friends to ask which bra she should get, or just to savor the moment that marks becoming an adult. If Margaret were transported to 2023, she likely would have access to a smartphone (you can envision her grandmother secretly getting her one, her parents none the wiser) and would consider signing up for a period-tracking app. Girls in 1970-they’re just like girls in 2023!īut with one enormous difference: Whether they were sexualizing themselves or others, girls’ reputations could travel far, but not that far. They also have a history of singling out the early-developing classmate and fabricating stories about her to smear her as a “slut.” “Anonymous data captured by web pages and apps are easily matched with identifying information, revealing to companies and governments our identity along with our shopping and dating history, HIV status, even our masturbation frequency and methods, if we use a vibrator app.” (Getty Images)Īs the film adaptation of Judy Blume’s 1970 novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret reminds us, girls on the cusp of adolescence have long walked around wearing a bikini top as a shirt, posed suggestively and lied about being more sexually developed and experienced than they truly are. Slut-shaming has become more rampant and acceptable than ever before in our surveillance-saturated culture.
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