#4 Slut!: Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation by Leora Tanenbaum

***Ahem, stepping onto my soap box***
First off, I want to say that I hate, hate, hate this word; not as much as this word but hate nonetheless. The topic of this book is part of what I do most of my free time doing, talking to people about why our sexual double standard is bullshit and how its all wrapped in sexism and how sexual assault is a part of that and I could go on and on about this forever, but luckily for you I won't. If you want to chat about it though, e-mail me and we will have a rollicking good time.

I think that the author missed her chance to say something really powerful. Maybe because I talk about this all the time, I didn't really take anything away with me at the end. Her original conclusion was that abstinence-only education is crap, and that if we teach our youth real sex ed then we wouldn't have these problems. Huh? I agree that is a solution for some of our society's problems but not the one that she focuses on in her book, namely young women being called names to be kept down and not challenge societal norms. I thought that was a bizarre note to end on. Her afterward, which apparently was only published in the paperback edition, was more fitting; essentially it was respect each other and stop calling one another names. It doesn't seem like much of a relevation to me but to others it can be the first step in recognizing that sexism does exist and it affects all of us, regardless of gender.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if we really had open discussions about why we use these words (ie bitch, slut, fag etc.) as weapons, what we get out of them and how their use can be devastating to some and why would be far more satisfactory, at least for me. A laundry list of personal stories without very much analysis just ain't doing it for me. I ought to write my own book. Anyone want to give me a publishing contract?

I got a little excited there. I'm off my soap box, at least for now.