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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Avg. Customer Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 97131
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0812975367
Dewey Decimal Number: 649
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 16 more reviews...
 Girls Gone Mild August 23, 2008
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
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
1 out of 2 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
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.
Purity: The New Alternative Lifestyle April 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As Wendy Shalit explores in her newest book, Girls Gone Mild, we're now living in a new paradigm where -- unlike pervious generations with bad boys like James Dean or the Fonz -- "badness" isn't regarded as "daring" or "cool" or "sexy"; it's become the new social norm, which Shalit explains has created a new kind of repression among girls.
In the same way young women of pervious eras were expected to be good, pure and well-mannered. Today's girls are faced with the social pressures and expectations to be wild, brought on by the media, skimpy teen clothing, sexualized toys like Bratz, boyfriends, cliques, and sometimes even their own parents.
In this much needed book, Shalit takes on the challenge of making a case for the "good girl." To help -- as her subtitle says -- Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to be Good.
Wendy Shalit's goal, she says "is not to attack those who want to be `wild,' but rather to expand the range of options for young people, who I believe are suffering because of the limited choices available to them." In other words, instead of trying to ban "wildness," she wants purity and innocence to be acknowledged for what they are - valid, practical options, even or especially in our sex-saturated culture.
I was originally under the impression Girls Gone Mild was written to middle school and high school age girls, but although there are short exercises and pop quizzes at the end of each chapter that have a vague teen magazine flare to them, Shalit talks more about girls then to them, and it's written in more of an upbeat report-style - very well researched and insightful, but not exactly the sort of thing I could see most middle school or high school girls wading through just for fun. It's also rather long.
In the first couple of chapters, when Shalit emphasizes how sex-saturated our culture has become, some of the examples (bad examples, but they're still in there)might not be appropriate for preteen girls. Because of this, even though Shalit doesn't go into much detail, I wouldn't feel comfortable giving Girls Gone Mild a recommendation to younger girls (maybe a select few, but not a general recommendation.
Although, it isn't the book I'd originally thought it would be, I do think Girls Gone Mild is a great, eye-opening resource for parents, teachers, youth workers and anyone else hoping to help girls and young women successfully navigate their way through their school years and beyond. And I hope, for the sake of the girls in their lives, they'll take advantage of it.
I could also see Girls Gone Mild being a good resource for girls planning or considering living on campus while attending college, because it could provide them with a chance to think through some of the potential problems college students can encounter (co-ed bathrooms, the hookup culture, roommates wanting to hookup in your room, etc.) and how they could handle some of the things they won't hear about on their college tour.
Wendy Shalit is an Orthodox Jew, but this book isn't written to those who are religious or conservative in their morals -- it's written to the general population, which I believe is its best feature because in questioning our culture's view on sexuality, modesty and being good, Shailt has opened the door for further discussion sparked by the question -- "Is it so bad to be good?"
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