leora

Shere Hite exposed the truth. She paid the price.

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:07:28 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming + Bodily Autonomy

April 14, 2026

The Netflix series Bridgerton features a plotline about a nineteenth-century noblewoman desperately seeking a sexual "pinnacle" that cotius withholds from her — yet not her husband. Meanwhile, The New York Times Wirecutte r product review site recommends vibrators you can buy at Walgreens.

My, times have changed.

Fifty years ago, Shere Hite (1942-2020) published The Hite Report and revealed to the world that most women don’t orgasm from intercourse alone. Thousands of women had told her explicitly what worked for them and what did not.

And how did the American public respond?

Women were overjoyed to learn there was nothing wrong with them, and The Hite Report went on to sell an astounding 48 million copies. But the backlash was vicious, and many people who felt threatened by the facts sent Hite death threats. They were hostile when she appeared on talk shows. Critics picked apart her methods and ignored her message. Responding to the relentless attacks, in many ways she became her own worst enemy. She often behaved, unfortunately, like a diva.

I had the privilege of meeting Hite in 1995 and dining with her on the Upper West Side of Manhattan along with our mutual friend, author and women's-health activist Barbara Seaman (1935-2008). I still pinch myself that I had this extraordinary opportunity to share an intimate meal with two of the greatest feminist minds of my lifetime. Despite Hite's flaws, she was, and is, a hero of mine.

So I took great interest when, several months ago, Jennifer Baumgardner, the founder and editor of LIBER, the excellent feminist review journal, gave me a heads-up about a new book on Hite . As I read an advance copy, I was dismayed about how much the biographer got wrong. I did some fact-checking.

Here is my brutally honest review.

Book review: Shere Hite exposed the truth. She paid the price.

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:55:27 GMT

My, times have changed.

And how did the American public respond? Women were overjoyed to learn there was nothing wrong with them, and The Hite Report went on to sell an astounding 48 million copies. But the backlash was vicious, and many people who felt threatened by the facts sent Hite death threats. They were hostile when she appeared on talk shows. Critics picked apart her methods and ignored her message. Responding to the relentless attacks, in many ways she became her own worst enemy. She often behaved, unfortunately, like a diva.

So I took great interest when, several months ago, Jennifer Baumgardner, the founder and editor of LIBER, the excellent feminist review journal, gave me a heads-up about a new book on Hite .

As I read an advance copy, I was dismayed about how much the biographer got wrong. I did some fact-checking.

Here is my brutally honest review.

Why we need a word for what's happening to Jewish women

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 18:12:40 GMT

Ever since I’ve been writing about slut-shaming, I’ve been called a slut and a whore.

In the 1990s, the age of doorstopper phone books (the kind with white pages and yellow pages), I received alarming letters delivered to my mailbox. In the early 2000s, the letters morphed into emails. And when I began posting on Instagram, the insults followed me there, too.

Over three decades, the insults were consistent: I was called various synonyms for prostitute and vagina, and an ugly pedophile for good measure. The hatred was misogyny—targeted, specific and designed to put me back in my place.

Then Hamas brutally attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel retaliated in a devastating war in Gaza. The insults changed. I am no longer a regular slut and a whore; I am a “Jewish whore,” a “chosenite supporting the porn industry,” and a “whore” whom everyone could agree was bad apart from “tribes who hate Jesus.”

I had never posted anything about Israel or the fact that I was Jewish—I hadn’t even worn my chai symbol or Jewish star necklace on social media—yet the comments found me anyway, intent on outing me as if to clear up any possible misunderstanding of who I really am. And who am I, really, to the people denigrating me publicly? I experience being called a “Jewish whore” in public as a far more sinister act than when I receive hateful emails targeting me solely for being a woman and feminist because “Jewish whore” is not simply a modular combination of anti-Semitism plus misogyny. It is a container of a more complex tangle of hatreds.

The Louis Theroux documentary on Netflix about influencers of the “manosphere” makes this explicit. Theroux interviews Amrou Fudl, also known as Myron Gaines, who asked on his podcast Fresh and Fit: “Who pushed feminism? The fucking Jews. Who pushed homosexuality? The Jews.”

We need precise language to make sense of this phenomenon.

Continue reading to find out what word I coined and why.

Soft-core propaganda

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 19:38:57 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming + Bodily Autonomy

March 24, 2026

The women's magazine that channels Andrew Tate.

Disclaimer: This article contains explicit feminist content. It is intended for people who have a self. Reader discretion is advised.

The Louis Theroux documentary on “manosphere” influencers is streaming now on Netflix, and I urge you to view it. As Theroux shows, hugely influential content creators are going far beyond the “masculine energy” that Mark Zuckerberg touted to Joe Rogan last year. These influencers push white nationalist, misogynist, homophobic, antisemitic content (“Who pushed feminism? The f---ing Jews. Who pushed homosexuality? The Jews”) as they sell fake financial products to their young male fans.

At its core, the alt-right manosphere promotes a rigid gender hierarchy: men are naturally wired to be hyper-masculine providers and protectors, and women are meant to be submissive, domestically focused, and defined entirely by their roles as wives and mothers.

Meanwhile, the parallel alt-right “womanosphere” repeats the same messages to its own audience. Alongside extreme personalities such as Candace Owens (who says that vaccines are “poison ,” Brigitte Macron “is a man,” and “ that virtually every societal ill that we are facing today is because of women ”), Evie Magazine presents a sexier but no less extreme vision of femininity and masculinity.

Founded in 2019, Evie targets millennial and Gen Z women. It publishes an annual print issue and a daily Substack newsletter. Evie is not a fringe publication. It is a polished media property that attracts 175 million views per month .

Beneath its glossy aesthetic and wellness facade, Evie is a vehicle for the extreme political right: anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ+, and deeply invested in pushing women into traditional domestic roles. It unapologetically counsels women (and only women) to avoid sex until marriage because premarital sex decreases their “value” and opportunity to marry the man of their dreams.

If this sounds to you like slut-bashing, you have good ears.

I’ve been reading the Evie newsletter every day for the last several months, and what has surprised me the most is the massive amount of sexually explicit writing—generally there are one or two essays each week that read like something from a magazine you might hide if you bought it in public. At the beginning of every spicy article, you’ll find this:

Disclaimer: This article is intended for readers 18 and older. It contains explicit adult content and is intended for married women for educational purposes only. Reader discretion is advised.

I would have thought that graphic content would be considered slutty and off brand by Evie’s content strategists. How has Evie pulled off the trick of enticing readers with graphic sex to its slut-bashing platform?

By presenting a distorted view of sexuality under the guise of confessional service journalism. Here’s what Evie tells its readers:

Wait until you’re married. “Some gifts, some beauty, are only meant to be shared with a single other person. The evidence of this for sex is its two natural ‘consequences’—the bonding of the couple and children.”

Never say no to your husband when he wants sex . “I always say yes when my husband asks for sex… Sex (and dare I say, frequent sex) is a necessary part of marriage. …The responsibility to increase sexual frequency rests with you.”

A woman has an orgasm as a result of hormones being released during intercourse. “You may achieve orgasm as large amounts of oxytocin can be released during your first-time experience.” Also, “The female body is designed to release oxytocin during sex. The woman’s body becomes attached to the man who impregnates her for the sake of the potential child.”

His pleasure is the most important thing. “Focus on turning him on… It grounds you. It gives you control.”

A woman who out-earns her partner is more likely than a woman who doesn’t to fake orgasms. "Financial 'success' in a relationship doesn't always translate into relational ease. It's like buying a flashy designer handbag only to discover the zip is broken. ... We didn't realize that addressing the wage gap would bring about the orgasm gap." Relatedly, “it’s in our biology to want a man who’s more successful.”

Sex is best when you rip out all your pubic hairs . Sugar waxing led to “the most mind-blowing sex of my life…because of the smoothness.”

Are women actually writing this stuff? Are humans writing it? In the Substack content, there are no bylines. The science purportedly propping up these statements is junk. I mean no disrespect to soft-core porn, but this content is worse than awful. It erases women's agency and exploits young women fearful about being alone and unloved.

It gets even worse. Readers attracted to the sexual content stay for the patriarchal, homophobic, transphobic, white-nationalist messages:

Be heterosexual and cisgender. “I identified as a lesbian for a few years in my early twenties. This was a time before transgender ideology really took hold… This, looking back, was a clear social contagion.”

Get pregnant right now. “The window is real. The clock is ticking. And no amount of girl-boss mantras can stop it.”

Don’t use birth control . “There is no good reason for anyone to be on the pill. Put yourself first, and just say no to taking a daily dose of carcinogenic crap.” Relatedly, “My husband got a vasectomy and it ruined my marriage … Once a man makes that permanent decision to cut off his life-giving resource to a woman, that permanence lingers.”

Abortion is a feminist plot that will ruin you. “I realized abortion was wrong, feminism mainly hurts women.” Also, download the Plana app, which is the digital version of a crisis pregnancy center that fails to tell you abortion is an option.

Biologically, men are wired to be providers, protectors, and leaders. Women are not. “They should never be shamed or blamed for the very traits that make them who they are: their strength, their instinct to protect, their drive to provide, and their capacity to lead. … When something heavy needs lifting or a jar won’t budge, hand it over with a smile and say, ‘I love how strong you are.’”

White men have been short-changed, and we need to elevate them . "They are being punished for a legacy of historical privilege they never saw nor benefited from, to help the descendants of the oppressed who never reaped that oppression. … You would have to go pretty far back in history to identify a time when Black men who earned their place would be excluded or unwanted on the grounds that there were ‘too many’ of them, let alone routinely. But it is easy to find that happening to white men now, constantly, openly, and with no recourse."

The grievance politics of the manosphere find a comfortable home in the womanosphere. The intersection of antifeminism and racism is clear.

Evie sells young women a dangerous fantasy that erases their rights to reproductive autonomy and sexual refusal, setting them up for financial dependence, ignorance about their bodies, and elevated risk of exploitation, emotional abuse, and assault. It is particularly insidious because it speaks the language of women’s liberation while mocking women's independence.

All the more reason why those of us concerned about the manosphere must take the womanosphere just as seriously.

Mindvalley podcast: Why sexy selfies are a radical act of power

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 17:19:48 GMT

Sexy Selfie Nation was nominated for the Mindvalley Book of the Year Award. Here, I share my findings with Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani.

The Carolyn Bessette problem

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 20:24:52 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming + Bodily Autonomy

February 24, 2026

She wasn't a gold-digger. She was a woman.

The Hulu miniseries Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette is generating nostalgic frenzy, and I admit that I'm caught up in it myself. I lived in New York City in the 1990s: peak John-John era for New Yorkers. I had just graduated from the same college Kennedy attended, though we didn't overlap. He was often spotted biking around the city and seemed as normal as a person could be who was voted Sexiest Man Alive. He had finally passed the bar exam and, after being seen out and about with Madonna and various downtown Manhattan celebrity types, was now in a relationship with Daryl Hannah, whom I thought was brilliant in the 1984 movie Splash.

A colleague at my first post-college job mentioned to me offhandedly one day that she had also dated him. Whoa. I played it cool and didn't ask her, "What was he like?" or "Why did you break up?" or "Did you meet his sister or mother?" Pretending to be sophisticated, I acted as though her revelation didn't faze me because I knew from glamorous people, too. As if.

So when the relationship with Hannah ended and Kennedy dated Carolyn Bessette, I was voracious for the paparazzi photos and updates on their relationship. I remember two reactions to the gossipy revelations. My first reaction: I was bummed that my colleague wasn't the one being chased by photographers because, putting aside how threatening that experience surely must have been for Bessette, also, how cool would that have been?

Then there was the 1996 profile of Bessette in New York Magazine that ran a few weeks after Bessette and Kennedy married. (I never missed an issue, especially since my boss's husband was Clay Felker, the man who invented the magazine, though Rupert Murdoch had long since pushed him out.) I was deep in the early research that would eventually become my book Slut!, published three years later. Already steeped in the mechanics of how women get sorted into good and bad categories, I recognized what was at play when I read the profile: a sort of reverse-slut-shaming of Bessette.

Capitalizing on the Hulu miniseries, which begins with the couple's tragic 1999 deaths and then rewinds to their courtship, New York has republished the profile , written by Rebecca Mead, among the sharpest cultural observers writing for the magazine at the time. That's what makes the profile so instructive. A smart writer reproduced, seemingly without examination, sexist cultural assumptions about beautiful, heterosexual women in the dating scene. Rereading it today, I’m appalled by the ways many people then and now falsely imagine the power held by women, a misreading that would be laughable if it did not support a desire to keep women in their place.

Assumption 1: The smart ones hide their gold-digging ways

Read the article closely, and a portrait emerges: Bessette as genius gold-digger. Mead never used the term, of course. She didn't have to. The profile did the work through admiration. To be fair, Mead mostly repeated what her sources told her. She lauded Bessette for not seeming desperate. The implication was clear: Bessette knew what she was doing, and she hid her maneuvers brilliantly. The Hulu miniseries follows the same playbook, positioning her as a foil to the apparently fictionalized version of an attention-hungry Daryl Hannah.

The article's central argument, dressed up in fawning prose with quotes from mostly unnamed sources, was that Bessette landed Kennedy through strategic feminine manipulation. She was, in the magazine's framing, a kind of sorceress of seduction — "hypnotically attractive" according to an acquaintance, impossible to pin down, expert at making powerful men feel special while keeping them just off-balance enough to stay hooked.

Here's what Mead didn't say because she didn't have to: Bessette was white, tall, thin, and blonde. Her appearance was a prerequisite. Scan the article and you won't find a single woman of color in Kennedy's orbit, not because Mead invented that absence, but because Kennedy's documented social world was overwhelmingly white.

One source (“someone who knows her”) described her as possessing "a remarkable ability to find what it is in people that allows them to be seduced," adding, chillingly, that "she clearly knows how to find your weakness very quickly, and in a kind of scary way." A friend of Kennedy told Mead, "She knows where all the levers are, and she is very deft in her operation of them." Bessette came across as a calculated husband hunter with an almost supernatural gift. The article invoked The Rules — the infamous 1995 how-to guide for catching a husband — as a frame for understanding Bessette's behavior.

She didn't fall in love; she executed a campaign.

The piece reveals, accidentally, the impossible bind women were caught in then and still are now. The article bent over backward to distinguish Bessette from lesser women — those who, dazzled by Kennedy, "just can't talk one way or another around him," according to a friend of both bride and groom. Bessette, by contrast, "is very strong-minded and very decisive." In a man, these qualities (decisiveness, the ability to hold one's own) read as strength. In a woman, they are understood as manipulation.

Notice the assumption that a woman must be magnetic and smart to land a man — but that those same qualities make her dangerous.

Assumption 2: Gold-diggers are basically sluts in disguise

The insidious secondary message is that there is no “good woman.” There is only a woman who is better at performing goodness than you are. Bessette "knew how to disappear; she knew how to drive him nuts,” said “one person in the couple’s orbit.” When he seemed less than committed, she went off with other men to play on his ego. In the words of “an observer,” she was "cunning that way."

Bessette performed femininity perfectly. She made herself physically appealing and played hard to get. Equally important, she made her performance look effortless and uncontrived. By portraying her as a woman who held all the cards and operated them with cool precision, the article obscured the actual power dynamics at play. This article positioned Bessette as the one with power; she was a seductress who had cracked the code and figured out how to wrap Kennedy around her finger.

But who actually held structural power in this relationship? The sources in the Mead article suggested Bessette was genuinely formidable. Fine. But Kennedy was still one of the most famous, wealthy, and obsessed-over men in the country. He could, as one source noted, “basically order it up.” The portrayal of Bessette as a powerful schemer is a sexist fantasy.

Other women, according to Mead’s sources, were less "cunning," less "deft," less able to perform effortless femininity. Bessette was attractive to Kennedy, according to Mead, because she was excellent at making him feel like he was the one doing the choosing. A woman who fails to hide her efforts, who comes across as seeking attention, whose blouse is cut a tad too low and whose hem is a touch too high, is a member of a lesser class.

This is also, of course, a story about social class and power. The article's breathless admiration for Bessette's ascent from Calvin Klein salesgirl to "most sought-after woman in America" (in Mead’s words) implied that she was always climbing, always angling. Her career at the fashion house, her famous instinct for personal style, and her sharp opinions during fittings were all filtered through the lens of her ultimate prize: the Kennedy ring.

The double bind I've been describing — perform femininity badly and you're judged; perform femininity well and you're judged — is essentially a white woman's problem, and a privileged one at that. Women of color, and Black women in particular, aren't even invited to the same audition. The stereotypes they're handed have nothing to do with whether they played hard to get or hid their ambition well enough. They're structural, not behavioral. You can't perform your way out of them. I've spent three decades researching and writing about slut-shaming, and the through-line I've observed is that the system punishes all women, but it does not punish them all with the same ferocity.

The real harm of this framing isn't just to Carolyn Bessette's legacy. It is to all women. When women are presumed schemers and manipulators, feminine performance becomes a trap: do it well and you're calculating; do it badly and you're a slut. Every version of womanhood is suspect.

In this telling, men are victims of women who are puppet masters. With New York republishing the article as a companion to a prestige streaming series, it’s still the same story. I was voracious for it in 1996, but now I know it’s a lie. Why do we keep repeating it?

Aspire podcast: Leora Tanenbaum on sexual citizenship

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 18:57:16 GMT

Listen to me in conversation with Asipre hosts Katie Shipp and Chessy Prout , along with I Have the Right To communications director Maria Villegas and student intern Jonas Wahl. I explain the concept of sexual citizenship —everyone’s right to determine if, when, and how sexual encounters occur, and to respect others’ equal rights—and highlight how this core principle is undermined by gendered dress codes, non-consensual sexualization, and victim-blaming narratives. We dig into how societies police girls’ bodies, disproportionately target girls of color, and force young people to see themselves as sexual objects before they may be ready, as well as how students of all genders are organizing to rewrite these policies and reclaim their autonomy.

Parent Venture webinar: Changing the narrative around girls' body image

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 21:29:18 GMT

In this December 2025 presentation, I share my research and tips for parents, caregivers, and educators

on how to address the body image issues of the young women in their lives.

3 Favorite Reads in 2025

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 21:16:35 GMT

My three favorite reads in 2025 focus on overcoming discrimination and bigotry. Learn more .

Let's talk about the Barbiecore dorm-décor trend

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 20:57:28 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming + Bodily Autonomy

November 18, 2025

If you’re in college or know someone in college, you’ve probably seen the TikToks. College students—primarily women, often in Southern universities—arrive on their campuses with more than the clothes, notebooks, twin XL sheets, and posters that generations of young people before them lugged. Over the last decade, students have been bringing peel-and-stick wallpaper, upholstered headboards, matching curtains, rugs, throw pillows, makeup tables, and ottomans. (If you haven’t seen these TikToks and want to dive in, start by searching for #dormmakeover and #collegedormdecor.)

In viral reveal videos, students show what their room looked like before and after they transformed it into a stylish, expensive haven. Pink, pastels, and ruffles dominate the aesthetic, especially when White students drive the narrative. We don’t see male or nonbinary students on social media investing nearly as much money and effort in their decorating efforts.

In some cases, parents hire professional decorators, spending as much as $20,000 for the eight months their daughter lives in their dorm room. For students decorating solo, this University of Alabama student helpfully shares where she bought her rug, artwork, bedding, lamps, chairs, and mirror.

On the face of it, whether or not a student brings gilt photo frames and extravagant lamps to their dorm room may seem like a trivial issue and not worthy of serious discussion. Nevertheless, I am concerned about the Barbiecore décor trend. To my eyes, it appears that students and their parents are succumbing to excessive commercial pressures, vastly overspending for a temporary space, and that helicopter parenting has reached new heights of absurdity.

But what I worry about even more is how this trend appears to dovetail with expectations about what it means to be a woman. Research shows that many women of all ages believe they must present themselves–their home and their body–as sites of “effortless perfection.” Meanwhile, in our culture of slut-shaming, young women are lauded for appearing to abstain from sexual behavior, even while they’re simultaneously told they should look hot and sexy.

Could this ultra-feminine dorm aesthetic reinforce the culture of slut-shaming by suggesting that "good" girls and women are childlike and asexual?

I also have been speculating that parents want their daughters to live in a space evoking girlish, asexualized innocence as an unconscious coping mechanism of sorts because they know that 13% of students experience rape or sexual assault, with rates even higher for undergraduate women (26.4%) and students with nonconforming social identities (21%), according to RAINN .

Unsure if I was overthinking this, I reached out to someone with answers: a resident advisor at a medium-sized private university on the east coast whom I met during my research for Sexy Selfie Nation who is exceedingly thoughtful about issues of self-representation and sexual objectification. Biracial and queer, she is a graduate student who also worked as a resident advisor at her undergraduate institution.

In our conversation, the resident advisor (who asked to remain anonymous to protect the privacy of the students she oversees) agreed that many young women feel pressured to follow a narrow script of what femininity should look like, which is heterosexist and overemphasizes becoming a well-groomed wife and mother while underemphasizing intellectual and other valuable traits. But she also shared optimism about the capacity of students to critique the ideologies they’ve grown up with. Here is an excerpt.

Leora: I love home décor and believe there’s nothing inherently wrong with a hyper-feminine design aesthetic. Yet I can’t help but notice that this aesthetic aligns with an ideology that positions women students both as future wives obsessed with creating picture-perfect homes and as little girls who are presexual.

Resident Advisor: I’ve seen a lot of dorm décor over the last few years, at both my large public undergraduate institution and my now medium-sized graduate institution. I agree that dorm decoration is a big trend, and I want to point out that it’s related to the fact that student housing provides lucrative revenue for universities. People need to know the context—that universities themselves are behind this trend, which encourages private companies to reach out to students and their parents to sell them dorm-room products.

Also, I have seen a notable aesthetic difference with sorority dorm rooms. The difference is like night and day in terms of the way they’re decorated. For sororities in particular, where a frilly look dominates, I see a gender performance being enacted.

There’s a particular feminine aesthetic that is also childish, so I am seeing a fetishization of girlhood similar to how mainstream media has generally represented young women.

Do you think this emphasis on gender performance could be a reaction to current cultural and political messages about “tradwives,” being a wife and mother above all else?

Yes, and there are celebrities like Sabrina Carpenter who subvert that ideology but also seem to play into it at the same time.

Are you concerned that this trend can be harmful to young women in that they may feel pressured not just to decorate their rooms in a girly way but to behave in a restrictive way?

That is true for some students. But I’ve had the benefit of watching students develop from the time they come in as first-year students through graduation. They tend to arrive with certain values and socialization that was not in their control as a result of the household they grew up in. Once they settle into college life, which tends to be a more diverse space, a good number start making their own decisions.

The reality is that this is a sexist society, and many young women are told that their value mostly comes from bearing children and having a husband, and they are socialized to think they should become a homemaker. As a young woman myself, this disturbs me. At the same time, I also get to witness a number of young women as they discover alternative ways of being and further develop their critical thinking skills.

I’m really encouraged to hear you say this! So is a pink duvet just a pink duvet? And are there any goth or messy or undecorated rooms? Because on TikTok, I’m not seeing anything like that.

There’s more diversity in dorm room aesthetics than you see on TikTok. Social media algorithms distort that reality. I actually see many different setups, many of them quirky and a fair number totally undecorated.

But I do think that what’s trending matters because that is what is being pushed on us. I agree with you that we need to pay attention to what goes viral because students are influenced by those trends, which can feed into sexist beliefs.

I’m curious if you think there could be a connection between decorating this private space and confronting the frightening reality that undergraduate women are at heightened risk of sexual assault on campus.

Women on campus, especially in their first semester, face a real risk of sexual assault. Unfortunately, some of the parents who decorate their children’s room also help their daughters get fake IDs and bring alcohol to campus, which is against the law in the US if you're under 21 and does not help with the problem of sexual assault. I’ve actually had to tell parents to take the alcohol back home with them.

Key takeaways

On the negative side: Many young women receive mixed messages that it's okay to drink underage, but they should sleep in a frothy duvet that would look appropriate in a ten-year-old’s room. The culture of slut-shaming tells girls and young women they should appear sexy... yet be asexual.

On the positive side : Just because teachings are ubiquitous does not mean that all people accept them. To set up young people of all genders for success, we need to ensure they receive education in critical-thinking skills.

Do you know their playbook?

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 23:13:04 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming + Bodily Autonomy

October 15, 2025

Last weekend, I visited a chilling exhibit at the New York Historical, “Blacklisted: An American Story,” which focuses on two decades of attacks on people in Hollywood suspected of having ties to communism, beginning after World War II. The exhibit demonstrates the ways in which political conservatives manufactured and then exploited fears of Soviet espionage, using it as a pretext to roll back New Deal policies and inflict cruelty on citizens holding left-leaning political beliefs.

People alleged to be left-wing were accused of being “un-American.” Their careers were destroyed and passports confiscated, and in some cases they were sentenced to jail. This piece of US history, which reached far beyond Hollywood and touched the lives of Americans from all walks of life, is known as the “Second Red Scare” (the first took place after World War I) and as "McCarthyism."

The analogy to the historical moment we experience now in the US is obvious, as the president claims that the US must battle the "enemy from within" and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller compares political opposition to terrorism.

From the indictments of New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s show, and from the arrests and violent treatment of peaceful protesters to the firings of people who made private comments criticizing Charlie Kirk after his death, people are being punished over their political beliefs.

Even journalists documenting the actions of masked ICE agents are being deported "for the crime of committing journalism." And Trump is bragging that he "took the freedom of speech away" from protesters.

As a result, many of us in the US are carefully choosing our words. In some spaces, “diversity,” “equity,” “white supremacy,” "gender," and “they/them” can lead to the termination of grants and employment.

At the same time, many people are also being targeted today simply because of who we are: women, people of color, and trans people, among others. This was also true during the Second Red Scare: Antisemitism was foundational to the accusations of communism, with Jews disproportionately singled out.

When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed hundreds of military leaders at the end of September and complained that women in the military are not as fit as men, even though fitness standards are gender-neutral for high-risk positions, his message was: Women, you're inherently not competent and are placing our country at risk.

When the president stated without evidence in January that a fatal airplane collision was the result of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at the Federal Aviation Administration, his message was: People of color, and women of all races, you are naturally unqualified and causing innocent people to die.

And when he declared without evidence that autism is caused when a pregnant woman takes Tylenol, his message was: Women, you are the root of widespread pain, and you deserve to suffer.

Blaming individuals and holding them accountable for societal problems is nothing new.

Mothers have long been accused of generating their children’s autism, as Jessica Grose reminds us . Victim-surviviors of sexual assault are commonly told they either weren’t assaulted or at all, or they were asking for it, because of what they were wearing. Many who seek out abortion care or birth control are denied the health care they need and are told they are sluts and hoes threatening traditional families.

A recent news story particularly haunts me: A woman who spoke up against injustice, as Apera Tobiason bravely did when she reported the torture and assault of developmentally disabled adults at an Oklahoma institution, was met not with gratitude but with a public smear campaign advertising her photo and phone number with the false statement that she is a sex worker.

And many people of color living in white supremacy are accused of being intellectually inferior, sexually dangerous, undeserving of success, and “replacing” white people. In the last few months, the president has gone on a firing spree of Black leaders in high-profile positions.

In short, we are experiencing two tracks, often intersecting, of cruelty and hatred. Some victims are selected because of their opinions and statements, while others are targeted because of their identities.

I am learning more about the Second Red Scare, starting with a book I bought at the gift shop of the New York Historical, The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left by Landon R. Y. Storrs.

I advise us all to familiarize ourselves with this piece of our history that is repeating itself so that we are best prepared to challenge the ongoing destruction of social justice and equity.

Authentic Parenting podcast

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 13:07:21 GMT

Listen to me discuss how young people navigate the nonconsensual sexualization they face from school dress codes to deepfakes.

Raising a feminist child in a Sánchez-Bezos world

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 13:12:33 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming + Bodily Autonomy

July 22, 2025

Many people criticized Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos when they married several weeks ago for their conspicuous consumption and dismissive behavior toward the residents of Venice. A disproportionate amount of viciousness was directed specifically toward the bride. What had she done to earn the wrath of the people?

She wore corsets.

Listen, I'm also influenced by this toxic culture in which we demean women as desperate and slutty when they wear provocative clothing, and I was tempted to add my own snark. But no matter what you or I think about Sánchez's clothes, when we assess the behaviors of the bride and groom that truly matter (such as dodging taxes and shortchanging employees on their paychecks ), it is clear which one has caused enormous harms. It’s not Sánchez.

(For more on the double standard in the Sánchez-Bezos wedding coverage, read this excellent analysis by Holly Baxter.)

A few days later, the verdict was issued in the P. Diddy federal criminal sex crimes case: He was acquitted of the most serious charges (racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking). A man with enormous money and power was given a pass and not held accountable for causing other people to suffer (his legal team said the verdict was a "great victory"), while the women who said he abused them were discredited during the trial as confused and manipulative liars.

If you have a young person in your life, these events may cause you to wonder: How should you talk about the penalties women pay as a result of gendered discrimination? Can you overcome the biases that you also have absorbed? What is the best way to open conversation about fake versus actual power for women, and everyone?

For answers to these questions, I enthusiastically recommend Sexism and Sensibility: Raising Empowered, Resilient Girls in the Modern World . Author Jo-Ann Finkelstein, PhD, a psychotherapist providing therapy to teens and a mother of teens herself, offers practical tips for parents to address sexual objectification, slut-shaming, microaggressions, and more.

For example, Finkelstein features an eighth-grader who sent a nude photo to a boy, who—you guessed it—shared it with other students. She was tormented by her classmates and refused to go to school.

Finkelstein breaks down why this usually rule-following kid sent the photo and how (through an alternate Snapchat account her parents didn’t know about), as well as the reality that even though she didn’t do anything morally wrong, “she’ll likely struggle for a long time with the shame of having become the sexual entertainment for her peers and with self-image issues stemming from the cruel comments about her body.”

Finkelstein’s analysis of a variety of scenarios many children and young people face, including sexual harassment and assault, is clear-eyed and compassionate, and she encourages parents to create teachable moments so that their daughters recover from adversity. I particularly appreciate her advice regarding what to do when you believe your daughter is wearing clothing that is too sexy or inappropriate, and she pushes back against the idea that sexual attention is a form of power:

If you’re a parent or educator of young people of any gender, go read this book.

Why these bikini pics give me the ick

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 00:58:02 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming + Bodily Autonomy

June 18, 2025

Even if you haven’t looked at the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in years, it continues to exert influence over beliefs about femininity, beauty, and sexiness. News outlets report on the cover-model choice with the same excitement that political junkies reserve for the surprise announcement of a political convention keynote speaker. And the magazine hosts a runway show every year at Miami Swim Week, which gets covered in sites like the Cut and USA Today . Whether or not you knew when you woke up today that the swimsuit issue still exists, there’s a good chance you’ve been exposed to its portrayal of idealized femininity.

Sports Illustrated has widened its lens to include women of color, women in their eighties, trans models, out lesbians, plus-sized women, pregnant women, and professional athletes (historically regarded as unfeminine) of differing body types. I give the magazine a lot of credit for their pro-DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) message, which may be among the strongest corporate support of diversity we’ve seen since Trump took office five months ago. The models are portrayed not just as photo models but as role models who are, according to the magazine, "a beacon of inspiration" enabling a "repossession of agency for the multitude of women who are able to see themselves reflected in the pages."

Nevertheless, I am troubled by the swimsuit issue because it continues to portray women in sexualized poses, served up as sexual objects, with their sexuality as their primary currency—suggesting that being sexy is the most important thing about them. Throughout the pages, they express excitement over being judged sexy enough to be chosen and, as gymnast Jordan Chiles said, it was "a dream come true."

Here’s how Salma Hayek Pinault, the 58-year-old Lebanese-Mexican actor, reacted when she learned that she was invited to pose as a cover model:

“It’s so bizarre! … I’m nearly 60! At this stage, it wouldn’t have crossed my mind. The first thing you get is— what is that word?— imposter syndrome. … I thought there was a catch… Having been invited to this club that I never thought I would be a part of. I kind of wanted to cry.”

And then, she told the magazine, to prepare for the photo shoot, she went on a diet and added ankle weights to her exercise routine.

I have empathy for women who are sexualized against their will and who seize control over their image to take back their bodily autonomy. And I bet that for many of the models in these pages, indeed that has been their experience. But that is not the narrative of the swimsuit issue. In these pages, the story told is about pride and joy over being regarded as sexy and hot.

Imagine if instead Hayek Pinault had said that she feels comfortable with her body; is fulfilled by her work as a director, producer, and actor; wishes that all women, particularly women of color, could wear what they want without fear of victim-blaming; and, to celebrate being asked to participate in the issue, ate a pint of ice cream.

No one should be held up as a role model solely because other people think they're hot. That a wider range of women is considered hot is not progress.

Find Your Feminine Fire podcast

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 18:46:40 GMT

Listen to me discuss my book Sexy Selfie Nation on this podcast.

Why Cassie stayed

Sun, 18 May 2025 19:37:01 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming + Bodily Autonomy

May 19, 2025

In the sex trafficking case against Sean “Diddy” Combs, his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura has testified that Combs beat and raped her. She also revealed a form of abuse that gets too little attention: when a partner or former partner threatens to release images of nudity or sexual activity. The fear of being exposed was so great, Ventura testified, that she decided to stay with Combs, putting her life at risk.

Ventura told the court that Combs had threatened multiple times to post online videos he had made of their sexual encounters and “freak-offs,” or days-long sexual performances involving sex workers and drugs, that he had recorded. He made it clear, she testified, that his intention would be to damage her reputation as punishment if she didn’t comply with his wishes. On one occasion, he showed her videos that she thought had been destroyed, saying, “I’m going to put out two embarrassing videos of you.” As a result, she felt “trapped,” she told the court.

Young women tell me that taking ownership over their bodies is a response to being treated as sexual objects. Central to many of their stories is the experience of having their most private images distributed publicly against their will, which shatters their sense of trust and makes them fearful in some cases to even leave their home.

As you follow the trial, remember that while details of the “freak-offs” may represent extreme behavior, the act of using footage of nudity or sexual encounters to blackmail or punish a partner or former partner is exceedingly common. In fact, whether you know it or not, you probably have someone in your life who has experienced this form of abuse .

Should Bill Murray be held accountable for aggressively kissing Naomi Watts without permission?

In my previous newsletter, I addressed the incident in which Bill Murray aggressively kissed Naomi Watts on live television. A reader wrote in:

This is a great and enlightening article. Sadly, so many of us are busy with fighting our own battles that we don’t address this moronic and aggressive behavior. Yes, it’s an unwanted, nonconsensual assault. And women often have to “laugh,” make the situation “not a big deal,” etc., rather than confront the idiot and say, “Where do you get off thinking that that is okay?!!”

Ugh. Exhausting. Kudos to Leora for being direct, honest, and educational.

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment?

 Check out my useful cheat sheet .

Why do MAGA women dress like that?

Wed, 14 May 2025 00:42:05 GMT

My research on young women’s clothing choices shows that the political right and left are aligned on wearing sexy outfits, but not on what “sexy” means.

No judgment, but the women featured in Evie Magazine —a “conservative Cosmo” for women 18-34—are more likely than not to show off their breasts. In a nod to the tradwife fashion trend, milkmaid dresses with low décolletage are featured on young, voluptuous white women. An article making the case against body positivity and fat acceptance, “The Return of Skinny,” is accompanied by a photo of a busty white woman on a beach wearing a thong bikini. A photo spread of Eva Vlaardingerbroek showcases the Dutch right-wing activist wearing a gold cross necklace—along with her breasts falling out of a low-cut gingham dress.

There’s nothing wrong with wearing revealing clothes, and no one should be slut-shamed for doing so. Yet it’s curious that Evie ’s content strategy favors Playboy -esque lingerie over Handmaid’s Tale dresses. After all, this is a publication whose sex columnist presumes everyone seeking advice is married and heterosexual; advises pregnant teenagers that their only option is adoption, not “panic-driven abortion”; steers readers away from birth control and toward rhythm-method fertility tracking apps; and informs readers that “men typically prefer virgins.”

It’s not just at Evie .

Continue reading.

Bill Murray: Hello, you can't just grab and kiss people

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 23:41:16 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming + Bodily Autonomy

April 21, 2025

Earlier this month, actors Naomi Watts and Bill Murray appeared on a talk show to promote their movie “The Friend.” Watts was asked about the best movie or TV kiss of her career. Before she had an opportunity to respond, Murray grabbed her face, yanked her head back, and kissed her.

Watts appeared shocked, placed her face in her hands, and then laughed. Murray gave the camera a thumbs-up. The host, Andy Cohen, said the moment was "so good."

Let me be clear that this moment was the opposite of good. It doesn’t matter how great an actor Bill Murray may be ( Groundhog Day and Lost in Translation are two of my favorite movies). To my mind, he committed an act of nonconsensual sexualization, and I would go so far as to say that it may have been an assault.

I’ve been talking with young women about their experiences of nonconsensual sexualization, including assault, for my forthcoming book, Sexy Selfie Nation: Standing Up for Yourself in Today’s Toxic, Sexist Culture (coming out next month). They are fed up with being sexualized against their will, whether from having teachers look them up and down and deciding whether or not their spaghetti straps are noncompliant with the school dress code or being grabbed by guys as they walk in public spaces.

USA Today reached out to me to ask what I thought, and I told the excellent reporter Alyssa Goldberg that many people who watched the TV clip don’t recognize that what Murray did may have been an act of assault because they do not know what assault looks like. Most sexual assault is not an act of a stranger jumping out at the victim at night. It is most often done by someone you know and trust. And because acts of assault are ubiquitous and normalized, they hide in plain sight, and perpetrators often are not held accountable.

Okay, so why did Watts laugh along? Victims of assault don’t necessarily react the way we think they’re “supposed to.” I don’t truly know why Watts laughed along, but I do know that women are pawed without consent so regularly that we develop coping mechanisms, and laughter is one of them.

Laughing along can make sense for at least three reasons:

It signals, “Hey, I’m not a humorless bitch! I’m a fun person, and I know how to take a joke. I’m safe to hang out with, and I won’t tell HR or the police on you.”
It’s exhausting telling guys to stop touching us without asking first. Laughing along can feel easier emotionally.
We get so accustomed to being sexualized against our will that sometimes we may stop noticing how inappropriate and disgusting this behavior is—like the proverbial frog placed in warm water who boils to death as the water becomes hotter because the frog becomes used to the heat.

Besides, Watts probably was shocked and powerless. After all, she was grabbed in front of a huge audience. She had to make a snap decision. We shouldn’t judge or blame her for laughing along, and we shouldn’t assume she laughed because she didn’t care or didn’t mind being grabbed.

For viewers who have experienced assault, watching Murray could elicit renewed feelings of helplessness and anxiety. But I worry about other viewers, too. Because the host legitimated Murray’s behavior, and he has not been held accountable, viewers may believe that what he did was acceptable. And that’s why, even though Murray is an extremely talented actor, it’s on all of us to call him out.

If Murray had asked Watts if he could kiss her on live TV, and she had said yes, the result would have been a fantastic moment: comical, respectful, and educational, teaching a lesson about consent. And if she had said no, the nonconsensual act would have been averted. But Murray blew it. We ended up with a TV moment that was worse than cringe. It was potentially borderline criminal.

Should schools expel students for racy social media posts?

In my previous newsletter, I wrote about Kimberly Diei, who had been expelled by the University of Tennessee because, the administration claimed, her personal social media posts were "vulgar" and "crude." I asked readers if universities should be permitted to dictate how students represent themselves on their personal social media. One reader wrote in, "no!!! a school SHOULD NOT!! like, expel the nazi students. there are bigger issues (like students that are openly white supremacists!). (not referencing a specific instance at U of Tennessee but rather my general experience of having gone to a southern PWI state school)."

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment?

 Check out my useful cheat sheet .

Wait—why was she expelled?

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 16:35:57 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming + Bodily Autonomy

March 18, 2025

Pharmacy doctoral student Kimberly Diei was expelled from the University of Tennessee . Was she caught plagiarizing, cheating on an exam, harassing a student? No. Diei was told she was being disciplined because her social media posts, which included photos of her wearing tight, cleavage-baring dresses and sexualized rap lyrics, were “vulgar” and “crude.”

To Diei, her selfies and captions were “sex-positive,” had nothing to do with her status as a student, and were created for an audience of Black women like herself. “I use words and phrases common amongst our community,” she said, adding that if her posts “have a sexual aspect,” the reason is that she is a “sexual being.”

Diei, now a practicing pharmacist, sued the university for violating her right to freedom of speech. Her expulsion was reversed, and she has now settled with the university for $250,000 .

In my observation, parents, more than university administrators, are the ones who tend to express alarm over young women’s sexy selfies. They worry their daughters' sexy selfies carry reputational risk with potential professional repercussions. So I was refreshed to discover that to Diei, "her comfort with her own sexuality has been an asset" for her work as a pharmacist. She explained to The New York Times , "Viagra, that’s a very, very big seller ... Sexual lubricants, condoms, all of that. I can’t say every day somebody’s asking me about sexual products, but it’s fairly frequent across the age range.”

Imagine that: Being comfortable with her sexuality makes her better at her job—a job that her university wanted to take away from her because she's comfortable with her sexuality.

Are sexy selfies good for women? It's complicated. In Sexy Selfie Nation , I explore the negative consequences of feeling pressured to share sexy selfies and having these images circulated, with or without consent, in a public digital space. I don't want to give the impression that they are unambigiously beneficial, as that is not true for many people.

But there is value for many young people in posing for the camera. Controlling the frame enables many to shape an identity of confidence and autonomy.

“I knew what was happening was unfair,” Diei said. “Personally, I never felt shame. But I did not appreciate the fact they were wanting me to feel shame.”

Why did I write Sexy Selfie Nation?

It started with panicked parents. In this reel, I explain.

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment?

 Check out my useful cheat sheet .

Naked dress at the Grammys

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:57:01 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming + Bodily Autonomy

February 12, 2025

Was the transparent dress worn to the 2025 Grammys by Bianca Censori, the wife of Kanye West, or Ye, empowering or degrading? This is a question only she can decide.

For context, Rose McGowan said years later that she wore an ultra-revealing dress to the 1998 MTV VMAs to take back a sense of ownership of her body after being sexually assaulted by film mogul Harvey Weinstein. For her, wearing that dress was part of her healing process. Yet, at the time, many people condemned her.

I’ve spoken with thousands of teenage girls and young women about their experiences with being sexually objectified and assaulted. Like McGowan, many have told me that wearing sexy outfits is a positive, even joyful, response to the harmful sexual attention they receive every day—a way of taking back a sense of control that had been stolen from them.

But while someone may feel an enhanced sense of individual power by wearing a body-revealing outfit, she may cause others to feel a diminished sense of power—for example, if other women then feel pressured to wear less clothing when they may prefer to be more covered up.

We need a nuanced understanding of “empowerment,” and we should keep in mind that empowerment operates on both individual and systemic levels. A revealing outfit can help one person heal, but simultaneously it may cause others to feel they possess fewer choices.

There's an additional conversation we need to have about the naked dress—how it benefits Ye while diminishing Censori.

USA Today asked me if I thought that Censori and Ye were trying to make a statement. I answered that I doubt their objective was to make a statement about women’s bodies or sexuality but to elevate Ye at Censori's expense. After all, a woman revealing her body in public is hardly earth-stopping news, and Censori has worn next to nothing many times previously.

To my mind, the naked dress was a strategic move to benefit Ye at the expense of his wife. Censori’s nudity shifted attention toward her body and away from Ye's identity as someone with a history of odious, hate-filled comments and behavior. (He spewed a fresh batch of revolting public comments about Jews as recently as three days ago.) Remember, Ye has made many harmful anti-Black, antisemitic, and anti-women statements. Diverting attention from his behavior while showcasing his identity as an alpha male with a sexy wife serves only his advantage.

We don't know if Censori was a passive or active participant in the naked dress stunt. Regardless, in our culture of slut-shaming, it can be challenging for women to feel comfortable with their bodies. If they wear revealing clothes, it’s practically inevitable they will be called out for being sluts or hoes. But when they cover up, they’re still called out for being sluts and hoes. So if they’re going to be slut-shamed no matter what, why not have some fun and wear whatever they want?

Just as long as they are the ones making the decision and aren’t being pressured into it.

My recent mentions in USA Today

Blake Lively + Justin Baldoni

The naked dress

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment?

 Check out my useful cheat sheet .

Making a movie about it isn't enough

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 22:50:09 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming

January 13, 2025

The most recent celebrity accusation of workplace sexual harassment has received an enormous amount of media coverage and interest, with The New York Times treating it as a major news story. But the most important part of the story is buried.

Actor Blake Lively ( Gossip Girl) accused actor Justin Baldoni ( Jane the Virgin) of sexual harassment on the set of the movie they costarred in and that he directed, It Ends With Us . Notably, the movie is about a man, played by Baldoni, who abuses his girlfriend, played by Lively.

Last month, Lively filed a lawsuit alleging that Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath engaged in unwanted physical advances and created a hostile work environment through numerous inappropriate sexual comments, acts, and boundary violations.

Lively further alleged that after she raised concerns, Baldoni sought to damage her reputation through social media manipulation.

Baldoni denies the allegations and has filed a libel lawsuit against The New York Times , accusing the newspaper of misrepresenting communications and colluding with Lively to tarnish his reputation.

This story has garnered massive interest, in part because over the past eight years, Baldoni had crafted a public identity as a feminist. Followers of this story have been wondering if Baldoni's feminism had been performative and fake. Meanwhile, Lively has been a polarizing figure ever since she held her wedding with actor Ryan Reynolds on a plantation , so Baldoni fans asked if it was possible that the media campaign against her in fact was organic (though evidence suggests it was manufactured) .

Here's what I think: Who cares!

These questions are nothing more than distractions from the most important element in the story, and the one receiving the least amount of attention: A woman was objectified and treated like public property.

All people, including celebrities, and regular people like you and me, should be able to go to work and not have to hear stories from colleagues about their sex addictions, be shown videos featuring nudity for no justifiable reason, and have colleagues barge into their private space uninvited while breastfeeding and changing.

Brava to Blake Lively for protesting her appalling treatment and taking a huge professional risk against a colleague widely congratulated for supporting women.

It's not enough to make a movie that raises awareness about abusing women. You have to follow through and not abuse women.

My recent mentions in USA Today

How feminist sex Is changing

Sabrina Carpenter's display of sexuality

My hot takes on dress-coding

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment? Check out my useful cheat sheet .

Why I Don't Use Girl Math

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 21:51:34 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming

December 3, 2024

USA Today reached out to me to ask what I think about terms like “girl math” and "girl dinner.”

I told reporter Alyssa Goldberg that we need to differentiate between calling an adult person a girl as opposed to using “girl” as an adjective.

The first lesson I learned when I arrived at Brown University in August 1987 was to never refer to an adult as a girl. Ever. Fifteen years after Helen Reddy sang “I am woman/hear me roar,” those of us at Brown who identified as women felt strong and invincible as women. We believed that calling a person a "girl" was insulting. And from what I recall, everyone on campus, regardless of gender and identity, respected this rule.

Yet, a few years earlier, Cyndi Lauper’s song “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” had been so happy and catchy, suggesting that adult women, including feminists, were not humorless and strident; we knew how to have a good time, too—and were demanding our right to sexuality without slut-shaming. As girls.

"Girl” as a synonym for adult of any gender has never waned in women’s music, from Beyoncé to Charli XCX. Bikini Kill coined "girl power," inspired by the slogan "Black Power," and the Spice Girls built their entire brand around it. Regardless of ethnicity and race, songwriters identifying as women have used “girl” to evoke playfulness, power, and sexual freedom.

For adult women, it can be exhilarating to remember what it was like to be a girl before our bodily autonomy was taken from us through gendered and racialized dress codes, image-based and other forms of sexual abuse, and slut-shaming.

“Girl” also can evoke a yearning for the time when abortion was a constitutional right in the US . We were so innocent then, were we not, thinking that our right to reproductive and sexual health care was protected?

And, when we were girls, it was unthinkable that a convicted rapist would be elected, and re-elected, president.

Meanwhile, many queer men have embraced “girl” for themselves to take ownership over the femininity that’s used to belittle them.

While college-aged me would never have said so, the me I am today believes that “girl” is an acceptable, sometimes even desirable, synonym for “adult woman,” provided that the speaker is not belittling women. (It goes without saying that “run like a girl,” “throw like a girl,” and the like should never be considered acceptable when they are unambiguously pejorative.)

But what about “girl dinner”— a term popularized on TikTok that refers to eating a snack, with no cooking involved? Theoretically, “girl dinner” could have been a slyly subversive term. It could have signaled refusal to cook well-rounded meals, as women stereotypically are expected to do for others, with a protein, starch, and vegetable.

Unfortunately, “girl dinner” is not a poke at sexism but rather an embrace of the idea that women should eat snacks rather than meals. No thank you.

Likewise, “girl math” also accepts a negative and hurtful stereotype—that women lack mathematical skills and financial acumen. When someone says she’s using “girl math,” she is building on the stereotype to joke that she’s saving money, even though she is spending money.

I ask you to think hard before using these terms. If you want to eat a snack for dinner, go for it—and please call it, well, a snack. If you want to pretend you’re saving money when you’re not, call your calculation “delulu" ( slang for "delusional") and leave girls and women out of it.

ICYMI

Democratic and Republican members of Congress are working together to pressure social media and technology companies to implement safeguards and accountability systems to prevent the circulation of sexually explicit deepfakes. These AI-generated images harm girls, women, and others, inflicting depression, anxiety, job loss, and withdrawal from public life. Read the bipartisan congressional letter spearheaded by Representatives Dingell and Pfluger.

My hot takes on b odily autonomy

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment?

Check out my useful cheat sheet .

Tucker Carlson's Spanking Metaphor

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 18:55:32 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming

October 30, 2024

Last week, ultra-conservative TV personality Tucker Carlson spoke at a Georgia rally for Trump and compared those who politically diverge from Trump as “a hormone-addled 15-year-old girl slamming the door and giving you the finger… Dad comes home and he’s pissed. He’s not vengeful; he loves his children. Disobedient as they may be, he loves them… And when Dad gets home, you know what he says? 'You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it’s not. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl, and it has to be this way.'”

Translation: Carlson equated those who politically diverge from Trump to little girls and justified violence against them. He then went even further and said that the person experiencing this violence deserves to feel physical pain.

I told USA Today that I get that he was speaking metaphorically, but his metaphor justifies violence against girls, women, and others who present as women, identify as women, or who are disparaged as women. This is terrifying language with real-world consequences. People now believe they have permission to inflict physical harm on others, particularly girls and women.

Spanking references parental discipline, but it also has sexual connotations. Carlson implicitly endorsed sexual assault, especially when you don’t like or agree with someone. He mocked the principle that “no” means “no.” And he was rewarded with the approval of Trump's supporters, who loved this message.

It should surprise no one that Carlson was asked to warm up the crowd at the rally of a slut-shamer and convicted sexual abuser. These are the same rallies, by the way, where T-shirts calling Vice President Kamala Harris a "hoe" are best-sellers .

Decent people need to speak up loudly to denounce these comments not only in the next few days before Election Day but also afterward. Regardless of who wins the election, the fact is that millions find Carlson's endorsement of violence against women entertaining, and that is something we will need to contend with no matter who is sworn in on January 20.

Starting to think about holiday gifts? You can never go wrong with a book.

I selected my top three books of 2024 . These books, all nonfiction, focus on women’s bodily autonomy. You can read about them on Shepherd.com .

Celebrating Halloween? Read my piece on costumes and slut-shaming . (From 2015)

My hot takes on dress-coding

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment? Check out my useful cheat sheet .

3 Favorite Reads in 2024

Sat, 19 Oct 2024 22:09:08 GMT

My three favorite reads in 2024 focus on bodily autonomy. Learn more .

Let's Get Rid of Revenge Porn and Deepfakes

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 23:07:30 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming

September 26, 2024

Hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was charged in a federal court with running a “criminal enterprise” that included sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy . Among other acts of horrific abuse, Combs is accused of coercing victims to appear in sexually explicit videos, which he then used as leverage to keep his victims from coming forward. In a culture of slut-shaming, these victims knew their accusations against Combs would not be considered credible if they were identified in sexually explicit videos.

This sordid story is another reminder that we need to protect victims of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA), the overwhelming majority of whom are girls and women.

IBSA does not deserve free-speech protections. It is a form of abuse. So what we can we do about it?

You may be familiar with two varieties of IBSA: "revenge porn" and "deepfakes." Regarding deepfakes, Google announced in July that it’s taking steps to prevent sexually explicit deepfake content from appearing in top search results and making it easier for victims to request the removal of this content.

But because of the enormous scope of the problem, Google’s efforts are inadequate. After all, why can’t sites that traffic in these images be removed from searches altogether?

And while there’s talk about technical interventions to mark fake content as fake, like watermarking and protective shields , these are insufficient because even when it’s made evident that an image or video is fake, it still has the power to destroy someone’s reputation and life.

What I Learned About Deepfake Abuse

Legal Relief

In the US, nearly every state, as well as the District of Columbia, has a law against "revenge porn," when private images are shared without consent. A number of women victimized have prevailed in civil courts.

But state laws are ineffective when online distribution crosses state lines. Additionally, while these victories enable victims to collect financial damages (if their perpetrators have the resources to pay), the abusive images remain online.

Online platforms such as Pornhub that sell sexual images and videos without the consent of those depicted are not held liable because of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act , which shields companies like Meta, X, Pornhub, and others from liability when they publish harmful content posted by users.

Clearly, we need more protection—regulation with muscle, along with criminalization. Here’s a summary of recent efforts, along with information on action you can take to make a difference.

The SHIELD Act

The SHIELD ((Stopping Harmful Image Exploitation and Limiting Distribution) Act is a federal law criminalizing the distribution of private sexually explicit or nude images online. The Senate passed this bill, and it is headed to the House (H.R. 3686).

Action you can take: Reach out to your Representative and urge them to vote to pass the SHIELD Act (H.R. 3686).

The DEFIANCE Act

The first federal legislation giving survivors of deepfake abuse access to justice, the DEFIANCE ((Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits) Act is targeted legislation with bipartisan support. Like the SHIELD Act, it passed in the Senate and is now in the House (H.R. 7569). This legislation is necessary to ensure that big tech companies and other online businesses do not profit from abuse.

Action you can take: Reach out to your Representative and urge them to vote to pass the DEFIANCE Act (H.R. 7569).

Biden-Harris Administration Actions

Earlier this month, the White House celebrated the 30-year anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) , signed into law by Joe Biden when he was US Senator in 1994. To mark this anniversary, the Biden-Harris Administration announced, among other actions, funding to help prevent, enforce, and prosecute the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images and other forms of technology-facilitated abuse.

The Biden-Harris Administration also secured commitments from several major tech companies including OpenAI, Microsoft, and Adobe to remove nude images from their AI training datasets.

Action you can take: Vote for politicians who support these measures.

Key takeaway: Every single one of us is at risk of being harmed by image-based sexual abuse. I encourage you to take action, spread the word, and never, ever blame someone for “letting” this happen to them.

ICYMI

There’s also been recent US activity to try to protect minors from online content harms:

Instagram

Last week, under pressure from a lawsuit filed by 30 attorneys general, Instagram announced it is restricting the settings of teenage accounts . These accounts will now be set to “private” automatically (only approved followers can see the account holder’s content).

Online

Legislation introduced in Congress two years ago with bipartisan support known as KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act) is intended to protect children online. However, some LGBTQ+ and free-speech advocacy groups warned that KOSA could lead to censorship of useful information , such as life-saving resources on sexual health care. KOSA may be brought back to the House for vote after being revised.

My hot takes on dress-coding

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment? Check out my useful decoder .

Good Grades or Happiness

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 22:54:24 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming

August 28, 2024

Two years ago, I received an invitation from a Bronx High School of Science sophomore, Liza Greenberg, to come speak at her school’s National Organization for Women (NOW) Club about slut-shaming. Bronx Science has a reputation of being an academic powerhouse school, so I wasn’t sure how many students would choose to stay after hours to hear my presentation when they could be using that time to keep up with their academic commitments, or rush home to relax after a long day of learning. I was delighted that over two dozen mixed-gender students showed up, and we had a lively conversation about their experiences with dress-coding and other acts of slut-shaming.

A few weeks ago, I was reading an article in the nonprofit education news website Chalkbeat, “NYC girls outperform boys in academics. But they’re unhappier in school,” and was excited to see that one of the coauthors of this eye-opening report was none other than Liza. Based on New York City public school data , the article demonstrates that while girls outperform boys academically, they are far less satisfied with their school experiences in and out of the classroom. Liza and her coauthors wrote that girls are more likely than boys to report feeling stressed during learning–yet less likely to receive support from their teachers.

A few points jumped out:

Girls are 7 percentage points more likely than boys to say students at their school harassed, bullied, and intimidated each other, both online and in person.
Black girls reported the lowest level of satisfaction of any race and gender group in 55% of survey questions, and were most likely to say students at their school bullied each other.
Asian American girls reported feeling the most academic stress and pressure, and were the least likely to say a teacher would notice when they had struggled in class.

I reached out to Liza, now a senior and a member of the NOW club for the past three years, to learn more.

If girls in NYC public schools are doing well academically, why are they having negative experiences in school?

Liza Greenberg: This article is based on NYC school survey data, where hundreds of thousands of students rated how they felt in school across different areas. The data showed some striking differences between how boys and girls rated their school experiences, but it didn’t tell us why these differences exist.

There could be many reasons why girls seem less happy in school despite doing well academically. One possibility is that girls and boys are treated differently by their teachers and peers, often in subtle ways. For instance, traditional gender roles may still influence how girls are expected to behave. Girls might feel pressure to be quiet, compliant, or less assertive in class, while boys are encouraged to take the lead and speak up. Research also suggests that boys might get more “wait time” from teachers to think through their answers and more attention overall, which can impact girls’ confidence and participation.

Another reason that some girls mentioned is they often feel more self-conscious about things like their appearance or how they’re perceived by others, which adds another layer of stress. Additionally, girls may interpret situations differently than boys. For example, what one student sees as harmless teasing might be seen as bullying by another. Finally, some suggest that boys may be less likely to admit feeling stressed or anxious, leading to a difference in how boys and girls report their experiences rather than a difference in their actual experiences. Personally, I think there’s truth to all of these explanations.

Have you personally seen girls being unsupported or singled out?

Liza Greenberg: There are definitely incidents where girls have felt unsupported or singled out. Often, it’s the little things that add up—like offhand comments or jokes that don’t land right. For example, I think many teenage girls have witnessed a female peer being interrupted or talked over in class, and while it might seem minor at the moment, these experiences can build up over time and affect one’s confidence in the classroom.

There’s also research showing that girls experience things like sexual harassment and slut-shaming, which can make school a very uncomfortable place. These incidents may happen inside or outside the classroom, but they contribute to a negative overall experience. Even if they don’t happen directly to you, just being in an environment where these things are happening can make the school feel less enjoyable and supportive.

I enjoyed visiting the Bronx Science NOW Club in 2022. I was excited to see that so many students cared about feminism! Could you describe the club and how it helps with girls' negative experiences in school?

Liza Greenberg: The NOW club at my school is essentially our feminist club, and it’s a space where students can come together to discuss issues related to women’s rights. We talk about problems that girls our age face, both in high school and beyond, and also broader issues related to women’s rights around the world. One of our recent projects was organizing a pad and tampon drive for a local women’s shelter. We collected over 60 boxes after setting up a drop-off donation bin in our school cafeteria and one very rainy afternoon the NOW club walked over to the shelter to deliver them.

Clubs like NOW are important because they provide a supportive community where students who care about these issues can connect with others who feel the same way. These clubs help students feel more confident when it comes to confronting sexism or standing up for themselves and others if situations arise in school. They also offer a space to learn about different perspectives and develop a deeper understanding of the history of the women’s rights movement. While we wish we had more members, we hope by fostering these conversations and connections, clubs like NOW can be a powerful force in addressing some of the negative experiences that girls face in and beyond school.

What do you wish NYC public schools did differently to help all students, regardless of gender?

Liza Greenberg: The first important step, which is already done, was collecting data about how different groups of people are feeling in their school environment. The survey data we looked at doesn’t just highlight the experiences of girls, it also shows that other minority groups aren’t feeling as fulfilled in school.

The second step is for schools to take this data seriously and use it to identify what’s happening in the classroom and elsewhere that’s contributing to these disparities. In my opinion, the students are making it clear how they feel, so it’s now the responsibility for administrators, teachers, and even the students themselves to figure out the most effective strategies to fix the problems. As we highlighted in the article, many schools are already doing this, and having success in that traditional gender stereotypes are being dismantled and equal emphasis is placed on making school a positive educational experience for all students.

As a senior, are you and your friends planning to do anything this year to uplift girls at your school or elsewhere?

Liza Greenberg: Absolutely. The NOW club at my school is continuing its work, and they have a lot of exciting discussions and activities planned for this year. Beyond that, I’m also part of the Gender Equity Board (GEB), which focuses on increasing female enrollment in classes that are male-dominated at our school, primarily advanced math, computer science, and physics.

Through GEB, we’ve been working to identify what’s happening in the classroom that might discourage girls from taking these courses, and we’ve been proposing solutions to address those issues. We’ve presented our ideas to the faculty, sharing our own experiences, and offering suggestions for how to create a more equitable learning environment. This work is something I’m really passionate about, and I’m excited to continue it during my senior year. We have some promising projects on the horizon, and I’m hopeful that we can make a real difference.

Key takeaway: Liza and her peers are taking steps to create supportive environments for students of all genders. School administrators would do well to follow their lead.

What do you think? Email me and share your thoughts.

My hot takes on dress-coding

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment? Check out my useful decoder .

Should Women Athletes Wear Sexy Uniforms?

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 22:52:31 GMT

The Latest on Slut-Shaming

July 25, 2024

If you were competing in the Paris Olympics, would you want to wear a uniform so revealing your pubic hairs were exposed?

I’m no athlete, but I imagine it would be challenging to focus on competing if I had to dress like a lingerie model. Yet Nike created a women’s track and field uniform for Team USA requiring a bikini wax before jumping and sprinting.

When Nike revealed the uniform in April, someone asked on Instagram , “If the labia are hanging out on a still mannequin, what do we expect to happen to a moving person?”

Members of the team can select an alternate uniform if they wish . But why was the so-called “Baywatch” uniform designed in the first place?

Because women athletes are caught in a bizarre trap. Athletics historically has been seen as a masculine endeavor, with women athletes mocked as unfeminine. However, paradoxically they also are sexualized.

Looking sexy could be regarded as a shrewd strategy in the face of the sexist stereotype of the ugly, masculine woman athlete. But it's the stereotype that needs to be examined, not what women athletes wear. They should not be pressured against their will to wear skimpy uniforms. Meanwhile, many runners find that running in a sports bra without a shirt enables them to compete most effectively; they choose their attire with the objective of performing at their best, not putting themselves on display as sexual objects.

If the Paris Olympics uniform controversy sounds familiar, it’s because women athletes have been putting up with this nonsense for a long time. Until 2021, the international federation of beach handball mandated that women had to wear bikini bottoms as part of their uniform at the international level (they could wear shorts in domestic tournaments). Men, however, were permitted to wear long, loose shorts.

In 2021, members of Norway’s women’s beach handball team protested by wearing shorts during a championship game—and were fined 150 euros each—prompting the International Handball Federation to drop the bikini bottom requirement .

Will Team USA women’s track and field take home a gold medal? To my mind, if they feel comfortable in their uniforms and can compete without being sexualized, we should consider that a victory.

Key takeaway: Women athletes are alternately masculinized and sexualized. Let them wear whatever makes them feel confident, comfortable, and able to compete.

What do you think? Email me and share your thoughts.

ICYMI

I'm quoted this week in USA Today about J.D. Vance's "childless cat lady" comment and the Kamala Harris memes .

My hot takes on dress-coding

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment? Check out my useful decoder.

How This Powerful Black Woman Is Being Slammed

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 23:00:43 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

June 26, 2024

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, victimized by image-based sexual abuse ("revenge porn" and "deepfakes"), and need an abortion.

Trump prosecutor Fani Willis indicted the former president and 18 of his allies for illegally attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. They have responded not by addressing the substance of the investigation but by openly mocking Willis over her sexuality.

Trump has ridiculed Willis' name—properly pronounced FAHN-ee—by intentionally mispronouncing it "fanny, like your ass." Co-defendant and former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani called Willis a "hoe" and, like Trump, boasted about intentionally mispronouncing her name.

"I've lived the experience of a Black woman who is attacked and over-sexualized," Willis said in response earlier this month to leaders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. "See, I'm so tired of hearing these idiots call my name as 'Fanny,' in a way to attempt to humiliate me. Because, like silly schoolboys, the name reminds them of a woman's rear, of her behind."

Trump has a history of publicly trashing prosecutors and judges handling charges brought against him. He attacked Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg , the prosecutor who led the criminal hush money case leading to Trump's indictment, for being a "a local failed district attorney" and "psychopath." He bashed New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan , who presided over the case, as a "partisan hack." He vilified Merchan's daughter for working for a company with ties to Democratic political candidates. He claimed, falsely, that t he clerk of Judge Arthur Engoron —presiding over another of Trump's business fraud matters—was the girlfriend of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and that therefore there was a political conflict of interest.

Willis is the only one targeted over her sexuality. It appears that she is being attacked in this manner, as she noted, because she is a woman who is Black.

While all women are at risk of being slut-shamed, Black women are at extraordinary risk. Because of misogynoir , the intersection of racism and misogyny named by Moya Bailey, Black women are presumed to be always sexually available—and worthy of ridicule.

Lest one argue that Willis deserves to be called out in this manner because of her relationship with attorney Nathan Wade, whom she had hired to manage the prosecution team, I offer some context.

Trump's lawyers tried to remove Willis from the election interference prosecution, or have the case dismissed, because they argued that she benefitted from a conflict of interest. The judge in this matter ruled that Willis could remain as long as Wade stepped down, which he did, and that while there was no conflict of interest, there was an "appearance of impropriety."

To my mind, Willis exercised poor judgment in having a relationship with Wade while he was working on the Trump election interference case. This weak judgment, though, does not affect the merits of the case and is not a legitimate reason to dismiss her as an attorney or discredit her as a human being.

We can acknowledge Willis' error and also recognize that she does not deserve to be reduced to her sexuality.

The treatment of Willis shines a light on misogynoir. It also is notable because we have yet another example of Trump's brutish behavior toward women. He has been found liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. He has bragged about grabbing women without consent. He takes credit for the rise of cruel abortion bans that make reproductive health care inaccessible to one-third of American women. Now he openly sexually ridicules Fani Willis. Anyone who respects women knows how to vote in November.

Key takeaway: The slut-shaming of Fani Willis is a stark reminder that while women of all racial identities are slut-shamed, Black women experience a unique form of discrimination because racism combines with sexism in insidious ways.

What do you think? Email me and share your thoughts.

My hot takes on dress-coding

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment? Check out my useful decoder .

If Someone Deserved to Be Slut-Shamed

Mon, 13 May 2024 21:09:57 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

May 14, 2024

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, victimized by image-based sexual abuse ("revenge porn" and "deepfakes"), and need an abortion.

Stormy Daniels is an adult film actress and director often described as a "porn star." In the hush-money criminal trial currently underway, is her profession relevant? No.

Daniels is a hero to many for standing up to Trump, yet others trash her. In the documentary about her life , she shares some of the messages she has received from random people:

“Stormy, you’re a lying slag.”

“Whore you will die and be forgotten.”

“You’re nothing but a fat hillbilly. Trump would never touch you. Stop lying before I’m forced to shut you up myself."

“You’re going to die, bitch.”

Daniels deserves to be called whatever she wants, and she is proud to be described as a porn star. But in our slut-shaming culture, in which violence toward women is a serious threat, should journalists use this language?

I’m not sure. When reporters covering the trial identify her by her profession, audiences are conditioned to discredit her, as I told Politico . Given that clearly there are unhinged people who wish to harm her physically, even murder her, the language we use to describe her is not a trivial matter.

How about if journalists covering the trial call her… “an actress and director”?

Besides, it is ironic that Daniels is positioned in the trial coverage first and foremost as a sex worker—yet according to her testimony, he is the one who behaved promiscuously, and in a predatory manner. She agreed to meet Trump at his hotel suite on the advice of her publicist, with the understanding that they would then go out to dinner. He then disrobed while she was in the bathroom and even suggested that she invite a friend for a three-way sexual encounter.

To better reflect what transpired, news outlets should stop referring to Daniels as a “porn star” and instead refer to Trump as “a sexual predator.”

Key takeaway: Daniels deserves praise, not insults. She is the one person among the countless mistreated by Trump who has been powerful enough to shine a light on his corruption.

What do you think? Email me and share your thoughts.

My hot takes on dress-coding

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment? Check out my useful decoder .

What I Learned About Deepfake Abuse

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 23:32:59 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

April 18, 2024

Last month, I attended the 2024 Virtual Summit on Deepfake Abuse, organized by #MyImageMyChoice , where victims of synthetic non-consensual intimate images—known as “deepfakes”—shared stories of being sexually objectified and violated by strangers on the internet. Deepfake technology enables your face to be superimposed on another person’s body, including the body of someone engaged in sexual acts.

It is clear that the US urgently needs laws criminalizing the creation and distribution of these images.

Fake sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift went viral in 2024, with one image viewed 47 million times on X before it was taken down. In 2023, 143,000 new deepfake videos, many featuring underaged girls, were posted online, according to the Associated Press . Even middle-school students create and distribute fake naked photos of their classmates, as students in Beverly Hills, California discovered in 2024.

What had been a fringe practice just a few years ago has now become a mainstream industry, and it is a big business. Anyone can easily superimpose a facial image from one photograph onto an image of someone else’s body using “nudify” apps, which are available on the App store. Everyone is at risk, and by the time a fake photo is flagged and removed, millions may have seen it. Ben Colman, chief executive and co-founder of cybersecurity company Reality Defender told the New York Times , “The toothpaste is already out of the tube.”

Said actor and podcast host Sophia Bush at the conference, the quality of deepfakes has improved so greatly that “now you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.” She added, “This is digital rape. It is a violation of your body.”

Here are a few things I learned:

· Girls, women, and members of marginalized groups are disproportionately targeted.

· They report that they experience serious, deep harm. It is deeply troubling to know that your identity is sexually objectified without your consent by strangers on the internet.

· These images trick us into thinking that what we are seeing is real.

· Because the images often appear authentic, victims often are not believed when they explain that

that what the eyes are seeing is not real.

· These images become part of people’s memories, even though they are synthetic.

“It’s not as imaginary as people want to make it seem,” said US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-D) , herself a victim of this form of sexual abuse, to Rolling Stone . “It has real, real effects not just on the people that are victimized by it but on the people who see it and consume it.”

Key takeaway: Circulating sexual deepfakes is a form of sexual abuse—and it should be a federal crime.

What do you think? Email me and share your thoughts.

My hot takes on dress-coding

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment? Check out my useful decoder .

When Parents Pimp Their Daughters on Instagram

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 21:50:03 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

March 19, 2024

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, victimized by image-based sexual abuse ("revenge porn"), and need an abortion.

As a chilling New York Times investigation by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Michael H. Keller uncovered, thousands of mothers on Instagram, or Instamoms, post images of their young daughters that draw in adult men sexually attracted to children, and many mothers exploit the interest of these men for financial gain. (Instagram prohibits children under 13 from creating an account, but the company does allow a parent to create an account featuring their under-13 child.) Mysteriously, the Times did not address the involvement of fathers and wrote about the phenomenon as though fathers have nothing to do with their daughters’ lives.

The objective of these mom-run accounts is to transform their daughter into a lucrative influencer or model. Some child influencers earn six-figure incomes from companies, especially those selling gym or dance attire that may pay thousands of dollars for a single post, and through monthly subscriptions offering exclusive pictures to individuals. (Instagram began offering paid subscriptions in 2022 to compete with sites like OnlyFans.) Companies also give the girls clothing and other merchandise, as well as discounts.

Entwined with the financial incentives is the allure of being famous on Instagram. These two strands are braided together. The greater the number of followers you have, the more companies want to associate with you and sign you on as an influencer promoting their products—and the greater your chances of boosting your follower numbers even more, since the Instagram algorithm favors accounts that have large followings.

The reason many of these accounts become phenomenally successful is that adult men take a special interest in the daughters, and many moms either look the other way or actively engage the men’s sexual interest in their daughters. Of the 5,000 accounts examined by the Times, 32 million followers were adult men. Many mothers, the Times found, sell the men sexualized images of their daughters as well as items their daughters have worn, such as leotards, which a child safety expert told the Times can lead men to believe “they have a special connection to the girls and the girls believing they must meet the men’s needs.”

One account for a 14-year-old girl advertised a “Bikini Week.” An account for a 17-year-old promoted a photo set of the girl wearing workout clothes without underwear, making the images “a lot spicier than usual.” This girl’s highest-level monthly subscription cost is $250 per month.

Meta, the parent company of Instagram, found in a 2020 internal study that 500,000 child Instagram accounts had “inappropriate” interactions every day. One follower commented on a post of a five-year-old in a bikini, “You are so sexy.” A comment on the video of a 10-year-old dancing in a cropped shirt said, “Those two little things look great thru ur top.” One parent reported that a user offered $65,000 for an hour with her daughter. Another parent said that her daughter received a direct message with a photo of an erect penis.

In its own exposé, the Wall Street Journal reviewed conversations by men about the mom-run accounts on other platforms in which they reposted images of the girls and wondered if the parents would sell them racier content privately. Some of the men shared advice with one another on how to locate the home addresses of the girls. After describing his sexual fantasy of a 14-year-old, one wrote, “I swear I need to find her somehow.”

“It’s like a candy store,” one man wrote on Telegram. Another wrote, “God bless instamoms.”

What does Meta do when parents complain? Nothing. In a 2020 internal document , child safety was described as a “non-goal” at the company. “If we do something here, cool. But if we do nothing at all, that’s fine too.”

“As long as this stuff legally exists, I just enjoy it : ),” one man wrote. “Exactly,” wrote another. “It’s all over Instagram.”

None of this should surprise us. With the rise of the online creator economy, when each of us is encouraged to market ourselves and develop a personal brand, sexy selfies are business cards promoting one’s own sexually objectified self. It was only a matter of time before adults, including parents, added little girls to the product catalog.

I reached out to an Instagram and TikTok content creator I greatly respect, Jilly, 23, who experienced nonconsensual sexualization when she was dress-coded in high school in Washington, DC. She was featured in the 2020 Smithsonian exhibit on dress-coding and posts sexy selfies as a statement that only she owns her body, and no one else. Jilly uses her sexy selfies to show the world that she is a Black woman who refuses to be slut-shamed and belittled by racist ideas about Black women’s sexuality.

Jilly described the mothers’ behavior as “alarming” and “vile.” She is concerned about the social development of the girls, who are growing up with the expectation that they owe adults a private piece of themselves. “These are little kids whose frontal lobes are not developed, yet they are working a job and making an income. They don’t have the ability to say, ‘These are my boundaries,’ or ‘No, please stop.’”

Jilly noted that her own experience with social media has been vastly different. “I’ve learned over time what I’m comfortable sharing. But I didn’t figure that out by myself; I had my parents helping to guide me. And now I have autonomy and can post what I want about my body.” She continued, “I’m worried about the relationships they have in the future. Are they going to be able to say no when someone wants something from them that they don’t want to give?”

What advice would she give the moms? “Put yourself in your daughter’s shoes,” Jilly said. “In 10 years, when she looks back at these photos and sees the comments that people made about them, how will they feel?”

While Jilly and I were talking on zoom, I heard a voice from off-camera. It was her mother, who was listening in on our conversation and sharing her own thoughts with Jilly (though I couldn’t hear what she said); she then left the room. Jilly appeared embarrassed, but I thought her mother’s brief presence was an excellent and fitting rebuke to the Instamoms. It seemed that Jilly’s mother was providing exactly what Jilly lamented was missing from the girls’ lives: protective guidance.

Key takeaway: If parents fail to recognize they are offering up their daughters as sexual bait to predators who are harming them even from afar, then tech companies like Meta must take a stand and shut down this sickening trend.

What do you think? Email me and share your thoughts.

My hot takes on dress-coding

@LeoraTanenbaum on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Want to learn the difference between a compliment and a creepy comment? Check out my useful decoder .

When Is a Compliment a Creepy Comment?

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:11:42 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

January 18, 2024

I research and write about slut-shaming to raise awareness about the harm it causes. W hen people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, victimized by image-based sexual abuse ("revenge porn"), and need an abortion.

You see someone who presents as a woman and you wish to pay her a compliment about their appearance. Should you?

The answer is: sometimes.

I recently advised air travelers to never comment on the appearance of cabin crew—and went a step further, adding that one should never comment on the appearance of a stranger, period. (I was discussing on Instagram a British Airways uniform that unintentionally included a see-through blouse.)

Some commenters called me to task for closing off the opportunity to compliment a woman, or one who presents as a woman, on their appearance. Many people suggested that feminists like me obliterate the joy of daily life, which should include complimenting random women, and that feminists like me don't know how to accept a good-faith compliment without transforming it into something ugly. But others genuinely were confused. They want to give compliments once in a while; is that really a bad thing?

I should not have advised "never." That was a mistake. The true answer is complicated.

Let me be clear. When a human being experiences the impulse to compliment a stranger over their appearance, it can be a beautiful and glorious moment. The recipient may feel validated, and the giver may become energized. A new human connection may be created.

Yet the interaction can also go terribly wrong. What the giver may perceive as a compliment can be interpreted by the recipient as creepy, or worse—especially if the comment addresses the recipient's body or sexuality. The recipient may experience the comment as rude or as an act of slut-shaming or harassment.

I decided to evaluate commonly uttered compliments—"You're a sight for sore eyes"; "You look sexy in that outfit"—to help people determine if they likely will be received as compliments, or not. I created a one-page decoder, Compliment or Creepy Comment? , and am offering it for sale at $2.99. This decoder contains six statements with my analysis of whether they are safe to use as compliments or risky and could lead to discomfort.

When I began this newsletter in 2021, I committed to providing my research on slut-shaming, along with my evidence-based advice on how to minimize or eliminate slut-shaming, without cost. And I will continue to do so. Compliment or Creepy Comment? is the first product I am offering for sale, aside from my books. If you choose to purchase it, please tell me what you think. I take your suggestions seriously. And if there are other statements not included that you would like me to decode in a sequel knowledge product, please let me know that as well.

Access the Compliment or Creepy Comment decoder.

My hot takes on dress-coding

@leoratanenbaum on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Dolly Parton Can Wear What She Wants

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 00:03:55 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

December 14, 2023

I research and write about slut-shaming to raise awareness about the harm it causes. W hen people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, victimized by image-based sexual abuse ("revenge porn"), and need an abortion.

Music legend Dolly Parton, 77, dressed as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader during a halftime performance on Thanksgiving. It was a cheeky, humorous move—and most fans loved it.

“She’s rocking that outfit” and “SHE ABSOLUTELY KILLED IT!” were among the comments .

Others said , “I love her but I don’t want to see her in a cheerleading outfit” and that she should act her age .

USA Today weighed in, noting that the negative comments were driven by ageism. And, of course, sexism played a big role.

The article quoted me saying, “When you're younger, the pressure is to look sexy, to look hot. As you get older, and you age out of those pressures and expectations, you're still supposed to conform to a very narrow set of rules and guidelines that are never really spelled about what you're supposed to look like physically."

If you know me and my work, this quote is not particularly notable; it's the kind of statement I provide reporters regularly. What made this one unusual is that the reporter had not in fact reached out to me to ask for my response about Dolly Parton. Instead, she recycled a quote I had provided for a previous USA Today article on Dr. Jill Biden and Diane Keaton, published in 2021. Biden, then 69, had been criticized for dressing “inappropriately” for her age when she wore patterned tights, while Keaton, then 75, had worn thigh-high boots.

In other words: Nothing has changed, and reporters can safely reuse quotes from years-old stories about gendered ageism without incident. It's the same story, but with a new protagonist. (To be clear, I don't find fault with the reporter for reusing the quote. It was a smart move because the quote fit the Dolly Parton story seamlessly and enabled the article to go live quickly on a holiday.)

Here’s what I told USA Today last time, and it applies to us all: Older women "should just own [their look]: 'This is who I am. This is what I decided to put on this morning. This is what I look like. Deal with it.'”

And if next time the subject of the story is an older woman of color having fun with fashion or costume, she will be at greater risk of judgment because of the stereotype that women of color are more sexually available than White women. Looking "appropriate" means different things depending on who you are.

My hot takes on dress-coding

@leoratanenbaum on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

There's a Feminist Book for That

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 01:32:14 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

November 16, 2023

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, victimized by image-based sexual abuse ("revenge porn"), and need an abortion.

Have you started drafting your holiday gift list? You can never go wrong with a book. Especially, if I may, a feminist book.

The excellent books website Shepherd asked me to share my three favorite reads of the year . I selected nonfiction titles that examine the history of people in the US flipping out whenever young women have chosen comfortable clothes; the racial roots of anxiety over fat women’s bodies; and campaigns to “love your body” and “believe in yourself.”

Read about my three favorite reads.

In other book news, I am excited to tell you that I just signed a contract with Rowman & Littlefield to publish my sixth book, Sexy Selfie Nation, in 2025. In Sexy Selfie Nation, I explain that many teen girls and young women* choose an aesthetic of crop tops and sexy selfies as a method of standing up for themselves and taking control within a toxic, sexist culture where they are constantly sexualized against their will. I show that the panic of parents and educators in response to crop tops and sexy selfies is misplaced and offer another path forward.

I am nearly done with my research but would love to hear from you if you have something to say on this topic!

* "Women" refers to those who identify as women and/or are woman-presenting.

Responses to last month’s newsletter

In the October 2023 Leora Letter, I wrote about a horrifying incident in which a high school girl’s breast was accidentally exposed when a teacher broke up a fight. The bare breast was seen on the school’s security video footage, which two school principals turned into a meme and distributed to school faculty. Here is what you said:

“This is abuse, full stop.”

“I hope they were fired.”

“This young girl is meant to be under the school's supervision and protection—not the object of a sexually charged joke. This situation should be treated exactly for what it is: a case of pedophilic sexual abuse.”

My hot takes on dress-coding

@leoratanenbaum on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Even School Principals Treat Girls Like Sex Objects

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 17:17:05 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

October 18, 2023

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, victimized by image-based sexual abuse ("revenge porn"), and need an abortion.

A Black high school girl’s breast was accidentally exposed when a teacher broke up a fight. The bare breast was seen on the school’s security video footage. Two school principals created a meme , attaching an image of Janet Jackson’s face on the student’s body, and distributed the meme to school faculty.

We need to talk about this horrifying incident and what it represents. So often, girls—especially girls of color—are reduced to their body parts and treated like sexual objects, not as human beings.

To my mind, this is not an aberrant and random incident. I see a connection with school dress codes because these rules make it acceptable to openly scrutinize girls’ bodies. Even, or especially, adults in positions of authority look at girls and see nothing but legs and behinds and breasts.

To be clear, what these principals did is an act of image-based sexual abuse (sometimes known inaccurately as "revenge porn"). Yes, this act was a form of sexual abuse.

What do you think? Email me and share your thoughts.

On a lighter note

In the September 2023 Leora Letter, I shared a slut-shaming story about a woman who came of age in the 1980s, and she referenced the Jordache jeans ads that had been ubiquitous. I asked readers to share their thoughts about the tv commercials. Here’s what you wrote in:

“The commercials are so cringe, but also nostalgia-filled for those of us who absolutely HAD to have a pair growing up in the '80s. They're so cringe as to be worthy of an SNL parody, so even though they're all sorts of wrong, I love them!”

“I just recently turned 40 and have received a lot of questions on how it feels, the underpinning that I must be depressed to be aging. According to these commercials I should feel old, fat, and undesirable—a thing of nightmares. The fact that I’m still being asked this decades after these Jordache commercials aired indicates that we’ve not come far enough in how we think about women and portray them in media, but certainly there’s been progress. At least now I can see a commercial of beautiful older woman smiling…after her Botox injections.”

"It is fascinating to me how much the beauty ideal has changed in terms of hair and clothes, and yet not at all in terms of body shape/size. Hair and clothes have all gotten much smaller—and body size has stayed thin, thin, thin. Many companies are now featuring more diverse body sizes, as well as more diversity of race—I think I saw one brown man and one Asian woman in all of these commercials. In some ways they are so innocent, though, compared to advertising today. With one exception, everyone is fully clothed. I also thought about the gender roles and toxic messages to men — around ambition, earning power, creativity, love, priorities.
Oh, shout out to the actress impersonating Molly Ringwald who called herself chubby and freckled. What."

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

The Jordache Look: Why tight jeans never get old

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 21:35:52 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

September 20, 2023

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, victimized by image-based sexual abuse ("revenge porn"), and need an abortion.

For my research on the ways young women are sexualized in non-sexual situations, I usually speak with people ages 14-30. But I recently talked with a white woman, Janet, in her fifties. Her cultural references are from a different era, but the conflicts she describes are as fresh as a new Barbie-pink crop top or vegan leather maxi dress with a dangling price tag.

“Before I started developing,” Janet told me, “when I was eight or nine, I got my shoulder-length hair cut short. I wanted to look like Dorothy Hamill [the 1976 Olympic champion figure skater with a pixie hair style]. I remember coming home with my mom from the salon, and my dad looked at me disapprovingly. ‘You shouldn’t have cut it so short,’ he said. ‘Long hair is sexier.’”

That’s when Janet discovered that being sexy is important and valued—something she should aspire to but was failing at. After all, her father was a smart man—a teacher—and she looked up to him, so it must have been true.

When she was 12, Janet started to develop breasts and a curvy physique. “I still was letting my mother choose clothes for me. Then I started seventh grade and noticed what the girls in my class wore and realized that my clothes were boring and unflattering. Theirs were cool and exciting.”

The cornerstone of a cool wardrobe, she realized, was a pair of tight designer jeans. This was in the early 1980s, when the concept of designer, luxury jeans—an alternative to androgynous Levi’s and Wranglers—was new. The racy Calvin Klein ads with Brooke Shields were all over television, and jeans were being marketed as an item that could boost a woman’s sex appeal.

She requested a pair for her birthday and spent the fall plotting her choice, homing in on dark-denim Jordache. “I had no interest in Calvins. No interest in Gloria Vanderbilts. I don’t remember the reason, but it had to be Jordache.”

Perhaps Janet had been influenced by the catchy “ Jordache Look” commercials .

(You might cringe watching these commercials now, but when I was growing up in the early 1980s, my friends and I lustily sang the “Jordache Look” lyrics in harmony while waiting for the school bus and hummed it to ourselves on auto-repeat.)

Did she want the jeans to look sexy? I asked.

“Yes and no,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about sex, but I knew that wearing tight jeans equated with being cool and pretty and someone people wanted to be around. I wanted to look sexy but not in a way that meant I wanted to have sex.”

Her birthday finally arrived, and at the local strip mall, Janet selected a pair that was the tightest she could pull up over her thighs and stomach—the way the models in the ads wore them. Success.

“I’d never had jeans that expensive,” Janet recalls, “and it was a big deal for me when I wore them the first time.” What she remembers most is her father’s reaction. He looked at her with approval—the opposite response to when she’d cut her hair short. He said, “It’s good that they are so tight.”

“After that, I lost interest in them,” she says. “They were now tainted. I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it at the time, but the ickiness of my dad eyeing my behind and evaluating me on some sexiness scale—it ruined the jeans for me.”

But it wasn’t just the jeans that were tainted. “That was a transformative moment,” Janet told me. “If I looked attractive, which is something I wanted, it meant opening myself up to icky reactions from people who had no business looking at me like that.”

She continued, “Basically, wanting to look attractive became this thing that was dangerous, even though it also seemed compulsory. And I still feel that way even today. I am never unambivalently satisfied with my appearance—ever.”

I don’t know how common it is for a father to sexualize his daughter in this way (though I would guess it occurs more frequently than people want to consider). I do know that it is quite common for adults in general to comment on girls’ bodies. While Janet’s story is unique to her, it also sheds light on the experiences of many people of all ages who are never at peace with the way they imagine they appear to other people.

If smart phones and social media had existed in the 1980s, I asked, would you have posted sexy selfies in your new jeans?

“Definitely! I probably would have done that pose all the girls do today where you see my full body from behind and my head is turned back toward the camera. But I would have done it just to show my friends that, hey, now I had a pair of designer jeans, too.”

Any advice to adults today who are concerned when they see a young woman they regard as looking “inappropriate” or “too sexual”?

Janet thought for a moment. Then she said, “You never really know why someone chooses to dress or look the way they do. And unless there’s a safety issue, why is this your business?”

Which Jordache commercial is your favorite? Which makes you cringe?

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Mindshift podcast: Inclusive dress codes

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 00:33:53 GMT

In recent years, dress codes have been undergoing significant shifts in many schools across the nation. With language targeting hair, visible skin, and footwear, dress codes are often touted as promoting professionalism and eliminating distractions in the classroom. However, policies around dress codes are receiving pushback from students and parents for disproportionately impacting students of color, LGBTQ+ students, and students from low-income backgrounds. In response to student-led research, one Washington DC-based school decided to center input from students to reevaluate their policies to ensure they are inclusive and respectful of all students.

In this podcast episode, I share my insights on school dress codes with MindShift. This episode investigates the reasons for creating rules about what students wear, whether dress codes work the way adults hope they do, and one school’s process of creating a more relaxed dress code.

Listen to this episode on Apple podcasts.

Read the transcript.

Oh Barbie!

Mon, 14 Aug 2023 23:01:36 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

August 15, 2023

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, victimized by image-based sexual abuse ("revenge porn"), and need an abortion.

Laugh-out-loud funny? Check.

Clever, creative, campy? Check.

Feminist? Um…

It’s not every day we have the chance to watch a Hollywood blockbuster exploring male privilege and gender roles within capitalism, and I don’t take that for granted. I felt validated by the fact that when Barbie enters the human world, for the first time she encounters sexual harassment, assault, and slut-shaming because of her appearance. I enjoyed watching her transform from plastic doll to flesh-and-blood human as she experiences the relentless stings and slings of sexism—and resolves to fight back.

Yet the movie—more concerned with outdated “girl power” rhetoric than systemic change—is feminist only in the sense that the Spice Girls and Dove commercials are.

The movie depicts a binary universe in which there are two genders (albeit with a few characters who don’t completely conform) and heterosexuality is assumed, with one gender subordinating the other—in the human world and also in Barbie Land. When the Barbies have power, they discriminate against the Kens. When the Kens discover “the patriarchy,” they oppress the Barbies.

The Barbies take back control by feigning stupidity and adoration to deceive and distract the Kens so that they forget to vote themselves into power. Really—women’s power lies in their ability to manipulate and hide their intelligence?

The movie concludes with Barbie becoming a true woman: she grows a vagina. So, biology is the essence of womanhood?

I left the theater speculating that if Barbie had had a vagina all along—and had been sexually active—she would not have been a sympathetic character. The same most likely would have been true if she had been a woman of color and/or genderqueer. Audiences root for her in large part because she is asexual, cishet, and white.

Don’t get me wrong—Barbie is a joyful and wonderfully absurd film. Best of all, it features the excellent music of lesbian folk rock duo Indigo girls and passes the Bechdel test!

But simplistic, outdated feminist language is used throughout to sell “girl power”—the idea that if a girl is socialized to be confident, assertive, and independent, that is enough for her to achieve success and realize her dreams. “Girl power” elevates the myth of meritocracy and the belief that anyone with grit can succeed if they just work hard enough. If you have “girl power,” you don’t truly need, for example, affirmative action.

Key takeaway: Barbie is a feminist success because it is motivating people across the globe to talk about women’s equality. But the most likely result is not raised consciousnesses—just an increase in Mattel sales.

Want more Barbie commentary?

The Muddled Feminism of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie

What Black Barbie Means to Black Women and Girls

She’s Had a Whip-Smart Hollywood Facelift, But Barbie Still Isn’t Much of a Role Model

I Saw Barbie With Susan Faludi, and She Has a Theory About It

Is the Barbie Movie the Greatest Biblical Retelling Ever Made?

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

"You Need to Dress Like a Mom!"

Thu, 13 Jul 2023 00:24:58 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

July 13, 2023

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and need an abortion.

Actor Keke Palmer was called out by her boyfriend. Was it because she wore a bodysuit beneath a sheer dress at an Usher concert? Not exactly. It was because she wore a bodysuit beneath a sheer dress at an Usher concert as a mom.

“It’s the outfit tho…you a mom," Darius Jackson, father of their son, complained publicly on Twitter. Jackson later added, again in a tweet, “We live in a generation where a man of the family doesn’t want the wife & mother to his kids to showcase booty cheeks to please others & he gets told how much of a hater he is."

"This is my family & my representation," he continued. "I have standards & morals to what I believe. I rest my case."

USA Today asked me for my reaction. I pointed out that Jackson was outraged not by Palmer's outfit per se but because she had violated his particular norms of femininity.

In addition, when he said, “This is my family,” Jackson implied that he owns Palmer and has the right to control her.

Jackson seems to regard women as sexually innocent virgins, wives, or mothers—or as dirty sluts and hoes. In his opinion, Palmer should strive to appear sexually innocent.

This kind of thinking suggests that only some women deserve to be treated with respect. The fact that Jackson shamed Palmer in public on Twitter confirms that he believes it is acceptable to inflict her with psychological harm.

Jackson defended his reprehensible behavior by saying, “I have standards.” Note his usage of the plural—he has different standards for different women. Freudian slip? In fact, there should be one standard for everyone (regardless of gender).

Learn more about this sad slut-shaming incident in USA Today.

Key takeaway: All women, and especially entertainers, are pressured to look sexy. Whatever you think about this situation, denigrating a woman for looking sexy because she is a parent feeds sexist double standards suggesting that only some women deserve to be treated with empathy, kindness, and respect.

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Does This Fashion Trend Ward Off Slut-Shaming?

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 23:38:24 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

June 15, 2023

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and need an abortion.

As temperatures in New York City climb, young women face a dilemma: They want to wear summery tank tops and miniskirts but are concerned that as they travel around the city, especially on the subway, they will be met with predatory stares, harassing “Hey baby, won’t you give me a smile?” comments, even unwanted touches and gropes.

And so, being resourceful New York women, they have hatched a solution: the “subway shirt.” An oversized, shapeless shirt one slips over her “real” outfit, the subway shirt—also referred to as an “outfit dampener”—hides the contours of one’s body from neck to thighs, shielding from view the skimpy outfit beneath. And, because this is the age of TikTok, a number of women have shared their genius trick with other women on social media. The cover-up has gone viral.

As I told The Guardian, it's fantastic that women on TikTok are raising awareness of the harm caused by sexual harassment and assault in public spaces. Hopefully, the result is that now more people recognize how scary it can be to simply go about your day, including taking the subway, when you present as feminine.

Read more about “subway shirts” at The Guardian.

Key takeaway: The "subway shirt" trend is a genius trick created by young women to avoid being slut-shamed. Unfortunately, slut-shaming is not so easily prevented. Nevertheless, women who wear the shirts deserve credit for creative problem-solving.

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Are You There God? My Nude Photos Are All Over the Internet

Fri, 12 May 2023 23:02:33 GMT

As 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. They also have a history of singling out the early-developing classmate and fabricating stories about her to smear her as a “slut.”

Girls in 1970—they’re just like girls in 2023!

But with one enormous difference: Whether they were sexualizing themselves or others, girls’ reputations could travel far, but not that far.

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 . 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. She might send one to someone she likes—because they asked for it, or because she just wants to.

And 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. 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.

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.

Learn more about how girls today face unique challenges by continuing to read this article at Ms. Magazine.

Are You There God? My Nude Photos Are All Over the Internet

Fri, 12 May 2023 22:40:29 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

May 12, 2023

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and need an abortion.

Girls in 1970—they’re just like girls in 2023!

But with one enormous difference: Whether they were sexualizing themselves or others, girls’ reputations could travel far, but not that far.

Learn more about how girls today face unique challenges by continuing to read this article at Ms. Magazine.

Key takeaway: By normalizing the behavior of pre-adolescent girls obsessed with sexuality that they don’t yet comprehend, Are You There God? is an excellent reminder that girls—like all of us—need space to act foolishly, sometimes cruelly and then grow up—without being treated like a sexual object and without the whole world knowing all about it.

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

"These Pictures Were My Brand"

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 23:46:51 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

April 11, 2023

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and need an abortion.

What motivates young women to share provocative images of themselves on public platforms? Teenage girls and women in their twenties repeatedly tell me stories in which an experience of sexual trauma—involving slut-shaming, or harassment, or assault—undergirds the desire to post these images.

Not everyone has experienced sexual trauma, of course, but all young people today grow up in a theater of slut-shaming, dress-coding, and inescapable surveillance; all are shaped in some way by this oppressive environment in which the character of girls and women is judged by physical and sexual appearance.

Isabel, 26, a graduate student in New York City, grew up in North Carolina. She shared her story with me.

Leora: You had a reputation in your high school as a slut. How did this come about?

Isabel: When I was 14, I sent nude selfies to a friend, who then shared them with my boyfriend. He took advantage of the situation to make me dependent on him. He circulated the pictures around the school and then told me, “Look, you need to be with me. You’re so slutty, and no one else would ever want to be with you.” So I stayed with him.

He would grab my body in a very public way in front of the other students. He would touch the insides of my thighs in front of other people to show them that he had that option. Previously that year I had been sexually assaulted at a school dance, so he used these moments to further my reputation and discredit my assault.

What prompted you to post sexy selfies?

When I was 16, I started posting pictures on Tumblr that I didn’t think were sexual, but I did think they were sexy and hot. I was never completely naked. If I showed my breasts, I would cover my nipples. I posted mirror selfies where I had on a black dress and ripped fishnet tights. I showed cleavage. I thought of them as arty, sensual, personal pictures. I then started posting on Snapchat stories. On these platforms, I basically created a character. I didn’t post photos of myself in my daily life. These were all posed. The people who followed me didn’t know me in real life.

How did you feel about creating and sharing these pictures?

I was looking for a way to express myself. You have to understand that it is very common for young women to share photos like this, including nude photos. Everyone does it. And I liked the way I looked in the pictures. People gave me positive feedback.

I also felt a sense of gratification from being totally in control. Like, if I didn’t want to do it, I could just stop doing it. This was the first time in my life, actually, where I felt fully in control over my life. This was my decision. I felt that I was controlling the ways that other people perceived me. But I also sensed that maybe this was not healthy behavior.

Why wasn’t this healthy?

The people who were following me were strangers. And even before OnlyFans was created, I was selling videos and pictures, beginning when I was 19. I created an Amazon wish list of lingerie and bikinis, and I told my followers, “If you buy me something from my wish list, I’ll send you a photo of myself.” I received so many packages in the mail. That felt good. And all I owed them was one picture.

The bikini pictures, the pictures where you could kind of see my nipples, helped me feel good about myself because I was expressing a style; I was making a statement. These pictures became like a brand for me.

But then I started wondering: Where does my authentic sexuality start and the sexuality that resulted from trauma [of being slut-shamed, in an abusive relationship, and assaulted] end? I know this is an unanswerable question. I know that so much of sexuality is shaped by our experiences, and everyone is shaped by something. Mine is shaped by trauma.

I am very sex-positive and open about my sexuality. But there have been times when I intentionally posted provocative pictures to get a reaction from certain people, or to make someone jealous and text me when I was feeling low. And that is not healthy. That was me seeking validation through my sexuality, and that can put a person in dangerous situations. For example, I needed to make sure that my location [GPS] would be off. And I would get some really aggressive and scary messages from people. I got messages that were threatening. They were strangers but they were real people and they were out there. And I don’t know what they are capable of. It took me a long time to get to the point where I felt it was okay for me to block people.

OnlyFans is hugely popular, which has normalized the idea that women’s bodies should be monetized. What do you think about that normalization?

After OnlyFans was created, a lot of people suggested to me that I go down that road. I did consider it, but I decided not to because, for one thing, creating an OnlyFans is a big time commitment; it’s a lot of work. But also, I knew that if I went down that road, it would make me feel that other people owned a part of me.

One thing I’ve noticed is that OnlyFans makes slut-shaming even more culturally acceptable. I’ve had a lot of conversations with women, including friends, where they are, like, “You should create an OnlyFans! But I would never do that myself.” They are slut-shaming me when they say that.

Interesting—they are positioning themselves as supportive of you for making money off of your sexuality but also distancing themselves from that behavior. They wouldn’t stoop to that level and sully themselves—but you should! I agree with you: That is slut-shaming behavior.

I don’t like the suggestion that sex means nothing to me. I’m still a person, you know. When someone says something like that, it makes me feel that my body is just a commodity, and that is all there is to me. But there is so much more to me. And no one ever says that to guys.

But you did monetize your sexuality when you exchanged nude photos for items off of your Amazon wish list. So why is it unreasonable for someone to suggest that you could monetize your sexuality on OnlyFans?

Because OnlyFans is different. You need a subscription [to access the purchase of photos]. If I had an OnlyFans, I would feel that I owe something to my subscribers. That wouldn’t feel good because it would be putting other people in a position of power. When I got the bikinis from Amazon, I felt that I was in control over the situation.

So if you sold your pictures and videos on a platform where there are people paying a monthly fee to access your content, you would feel you are giving up control, which would not feel good, and that experience could make you feel slutty. Am I summarizing the situation correctly?

Yes. Also, pictures and videos get leaked all the time, and if you have a subscription model, you really have no grounds to complain, since your customers have paid for the content. But the main thing is that I do not want to be known for just this one thing—for being sexy or selling sexy pictures. I don’t want that to be my online identity.

You also have an Instagram. Are the photos you post there different?

Yes. I started that account in my early twenties, and the people who follow me on Instagram know me in real life. My intention with these pictures is totally different, even though I have lots of sexy pictures on my Instagram.

But don’t some of the photos that are on Tumblr and Snapchat versus the ones on Instagram look the same?

For me, they don’t feel the same because I know how I was feeling when I took the pictures. And I feel much better about the ones I took for my Instagram. The intentions and the audiences are different, even if the pictures look more or less the same.

Key takeaway: Sexy selfies can be a sign of feeling secure and confident, but sometimes they are a signal that something is terribly wrong. As Isabel shows, though, in either case, the images may look exactly the same to the viewer. Therefore, we need to look beyond the images and at the circumstances of the creators. Check in on the young women in your life. Build an environment of trust. Are they doing okay?

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

When a 15-Year-Old Girl Has a Secret Instagram Account

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 01:06:24 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

March 16, 2023

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and need an abortion.

I recently had the pleasure of guest-lecturing at the Contemporary Feminist Theories class taught by Jean Halley, PhD , in the sociology department of the CUNY Graduate Center. I spoke about the perniciousness of slut-shaming and dress-coding, and during my presentation I shared a video clip from the television show “And Just Like That…,” the reboot of “Sex and the City” that aired on HBO at the end of 2021.

In the scene, Charlotte looks at her 15-year-old daughter Lily’s phone and discovers that she has a private, secret Instagram account and has just posted the image below. To Lily, this is an innocent selfie showing her friends that she feels good about herself. But Charlotte is shocked and assumes that her daughter is intentionally trying to attract the attention of men.

A lively conversation about this scene followed. Edited excerpts are shared below, with permission.

Leora Tanenbaum: What do you think about Lily’s selfie?

Isabel (26, cishet, White): I posted bikini pictures on my Instagram, especially during Covid. It was just fun for me to do. It was a way for me express myself. But then, my aunt’s ex-husband's sister called my mom, after taking a screenshot of my Instagram, to ask her about why I was posting such sexual pictures. And my mom was, like, she's 24 years old!

Leora: You were posting your photos as an adult in your twenties. What do you think about a 15-year-old girl posting sexy selfies?

Isabel: My selfies were more sexual than Lily’s—I was wearing bikinis. What she was wearing is so normal for teenagers. But the point is that there's something empowering about being able to take these pictures and feel, “I look good.” It doesn’t seem in this show that she is trying to get sexual attention or to get men to hit on her or anything like that. She was just posting it because she felt confident and attractive. And that’s okay, even at 15. It’s okay to be, like, “Wow, I look good in this outfit; I feel good about myself.” It doesn’t mean you’re looking for sex. Being 15 is a rough time in your life, especially as a girl, and you’re just trying to look human and look good. If you feel empowered posting a selfie like that, then go for it.

The conversation turned to the fact that some girls are called out for dressing in an androgynous or masculine manner and are told that they should wear more “feminine” clothes and makeup.

Beans (27, nonbinary, lesbian, Cuban): I have experienced both sides of this—I’ve been feminized and also masculinized, which gives me an interesting perspective. I’ve noticed that as I have become more masculine-presenting, I’m sexually harassed much less than I used to be, when I was in high school and was seen as feminine, as someone sexually desirable by dominant society. There is nothing you can do to avoid being discriminated against. It’s not just about sexual harassment—it’s also about getting called back for jobs. If you are a woman and look too masculine, they don’t want you in their workplace.

Either you're wearing too little and being sexualized and discriminated against for that, or you're not sexualizing yourself enough and people discriminate against you for your perceived gayness. It seems like this is the struggle that girls and young women have to deal with—there is no way to win this.

Key takeaway: Being a woman is an experience of entrapment. We are told to make ourselves sexually attractive--and punished when we follow instructions.

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

This Is What Makes Her a Slut

Tue, 07 Feb 2023 23:09:45 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

February 8, 2023

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and need an abortion.

What is the number 1 ingredient of sluttiness?

After speaking with over a thousand girls and women about their experiences with slut-shaming for close to three decades, I have found that agency lies at the heart of this harmful form of name-calling.

Those who point a finger at the slut claim that she actively did something to provoke her reputation —dressing in a sexually provocative manner, signaling sexual neediness, being sexually active in a manner regarded as promiscuous, and so on.

Never mind that much of the time, the targeted person is not actually engaging in any of these behaviors, that they are fabricated or presumed, or that her intention is not to call attention to herself sexually at all. (And if she is an older teen or young adult and is engaging in sexual behavior, so what?)

Or, she has been the victim of sexual harassment or assault, and people don’t believe her when she says that she said “no”; they say she is lying to protect her reputation (see the circular reasoning here?) and that she consented to sexual behavior that in fact was forced upon her.

But there is another ingredient of sluttiness that often is mistakenly associated with agency: physique. Repeatedly, girls tell me that they are presumed to be sexually active simply because they are early developers. Even teachers and parents—who obviously should know better—think that if a girl looks sexual (to their eyes), then she must be sexual.

Girls of color, especially Black girls, most regularly face this faulty logic. The National Women’s Law Center has shown that schools are more likely to remove Black girls from the classroom than other girls because their clothing is regarded as too revealing, and therefore violates the school’s dress code. This may be because, as a Georgetown Law study has demonstrated, adults see Black girls as young as five as more sexual and less innocent than their White peers.

In her new book Butts: A Backstory , author Heather Radke writes about eugenicist efforts to classify people, and determine their character, according to their bodies. The repugnant treatment of Sarah Baartman, the Indigenous Khoikhoi woman forced to display her naked behind to White British and French audiences in the early 1800s, “offered a kind of evidence for the belief that Black women were, by their nature,” writes Radke, “sexual, a logic that many used to justify the rape of enslaved women.”

Ultimately, women’s bodies are regarded as sexualized even when we are doing nothing sexual at all. Just existing marks us as sexual agents. And this means, the thinking goes, we are not entitled to say “no,” and that we are culpable for whatever happens to us.

Key takeaway: Any girl or woman can be called out as a slut for any reason or no reason at any time—and, we are meant to believe, it is our fault.

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Women Don't "Cry Rape"

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 18:53:19 GMT

U.S. News & World Report, January 10, 2018

Some women lie to their health care providers about their number of sexual partners because they're tired of being met with judgment. A 26-year-old therapist in California felt so ashamed after a nurse expressed alarm over her number of sexual partners, she told me she never wanted to go to the clinic again.

No one ever has told me, however, that after a regretted consensual sexual encounter, she lied and accused her partner of sexual assault. Instead, women who regret an act of consensual sex are quick to blame only themselves.

Read the rest of the article on US News & World Report.

Are Guys Distracted by Girls' Clothes at School?

Tue, 15 Nov 2022 08:06:50 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

November 16, 2022

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and need an abortion.

Many school administrators claim that regulations over girls’ clothes are necessary because otherwise, guys will be “distracted” and won’t be able to focus in the classroom.

Let’s put aside the problematic assumptions of this thinking (that all students are heterosexual and cisgender and that the learning and comfort of boys are more important than those of girls). Is it even true that boys can’t focus in the classroom when a girl sitting nearby is wearing a crop top or shorts or has a visible bra strap?

Let’s find out.

Danny (22, California, bisexual): The clothes that distracted me in high school were not necessarily clothes that revealed body parts. Sometimes I would be distracted by clothes that were just very colorful.

One day in high school, a girl in my class was not wearing a bra. My friends and I noticed and talked about it. But my learning was not affected.

I went to college in southern California, and everyone dressed like they were going to the beach. There were a lot of short shorts and crop tops. It’s part of the culture because everyone bikes and surfs, and lots of people go to the gym and work out all the time. When you see everyone dressed in that style every day, your brain stops processing it, and it becomes a non-issue. I can’t remember any time where I was distracted in the classroom because of the way people were dressed.

Look, people notice if you show up dressed like a Hooters waitress. But just because they notice doesn’t mean they will be distracted. On the other hand, if a guy thinks a girl is hot, he will look at her in the classroom no matter what she’s wearing.

Jake (21, Colorado, non-binary, male presenting): I never heard anyone say they were distracted from learning by the way a girl was dressed. But they did notice. There’s a difference between noticing and being distracted.

My high school had a dress code. It didn’t seem sexist because it was the same for everyone. But it was enforced differently for girls. Guys could wear shorts that were on the shorter side, and that was never an issue. But when girls wore shorts that were the same length, then it would be an issue.

At one point, some guys made a list of all the girls and ranked them on attractiveness. They called it the Big Booty list. The girls I was friends with were, like, “This is really rude; this is not cool.” It made the girls really uncomfortable. I would think that they found that distracting.

Zach (24, Pennsylvania, heterosexual): Yes, I was distracted when certain girls wore revealing clothes, but I would not have been less distracted if they had covered their bodies more. What I’m saying is that it would not have made any difference if they were covered up or not because some girls are hot, and it really doesn’t matter what they wear. If I think a girl is hot, then she’s hot. The real issue is that if girls want to wear revealing clothes, that is their choice, and young men need to know how to control themselves when they think a girl is hot.

Key takeaway: Does a girl’s outfit matter in the classroom? No, these guys say; they may become distracted because they like her or are attracted to her, but her outfit has nothing to do with it. Meanwhile, girls are distracted when guys circulate a list ranking them according to their appearance. Instead of policing girls’ clothes, schools should teach everyone to treat each other with respect, free of sexual objectification and slut-shaming.

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

“No” Does Not Mean “Convince Me”

Wed, 12 Oct 2022 08:37:06 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

October 12, 2022

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and need an abortion.

No means no. Yes means yes. You can’t consent when you’re passed out. No matter what you’re wearing, you weren’t asking for it.

All of this is true—but not enough. Sexual assault on US campuses is just as prevalent as ever, involving between a fifth and a quarter of students. Clearly, a new approach is needed.

Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan proposed exactly that with SHIFT (the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation). The key findings of this initiative were reported in 2019 and expanded in the 2020 book Sexual Citizens: Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus . They bear repeating today because they are so monumentally important yet largely under-discussed.

Hirsch and Khan conducted 1600 surveys and interviews with 150 students about campus sexual assault at Columbia University. Most incidents of assault in this study occurred when one or both students were heavily intoxicated. But just telling people to reduce their alcohol intake isn’t working and can imply that the victim is at fault. And many students reported that they were verbally coerced into having sex they did not want.

Hirsch and Kahn concluded that prevention efforts focus too heavily on individual attitudes and behaviors. Instead, higher education, along with the K-12 system, must look holistically at their social and community environment.

Hunter Schafer and Zendaya in a scene from “Euphoria,” a show that unflinchingly depicts sex, drugs, and violence among teenagers.

Students need better, more comprehensive sex education that starts years before they arrive on campus and that promotes a concept of “sexual citizenship.” Hirsch and Khan define “sexual citizenship” as “an internal sense of one’s own right to sexual self-determination, and others’ equivalent right to decide if, how, and when to have sex.” They add that this “sense of oneself as a sexual agent lays the foundation for meaningfully being able to consent.”

Most students are not properly educated about their right to sexual autonomy and sexual refusal. They don’t know how to say no and how to recognize when their partner is saying no, or wants to say no but can’t. Many women do not feel they have this right. As one woman said, ‘It would have been rude to say no.’”

When T he New York T imes interviewed college students in 2018 about their experiences with sex and consent on campus, one student said, “‘No’ does not mean ‘convince me,’” and another reported, “I felt like I owed him something.”

Here’s my take: With 62% of public middle schools and 56% of public high schools enforcing “strict” dress codes, often with the justification that girls’ clothes are “distracting,” young people are absorbing lessons that are the opposite of what Hirsch and Khan recommend.

When your teachers and school administrators routinely look you up and down, you learn that being sexualized is normal, that people with power get away with it, and that you have no ability to challenge your treatment without consequences. You also internalize that some girls, maybe including yourself, are slutty because of physique.

As I have demonstrated , girls told by their peers or adults that they are slutty often become sexually active sooner than they might otherwise, with their reputation serving as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many participate in sexual behavior they don’t particularly want but believe they should engage in because that is the core of their identity.

In a culture of slut-shaming, anyone sexualized without their consent learns how not to be a sexual agent. Meanwhile, everyone witnesses a cultural disregard for good sexual citizenship—which can lead to an inability to recognize refusal.

Here is one easy fix that would make a real impact: K-12 schools should ditch their dress codes and create opportunities for students to learn how to stand up for themselves when facing unwanted attention, sexual or otherwise. These lessons in sexual citizenship would enable students to build healthy social and sexual relationships that would have an impact for the rest of their lives.

On my night table

Consent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention | Book | Donna Freitas

“We have made consent out to be something straightforward, as straightforward as the single word no, but we are lying to ourselves and one another about this. If stopping someone’s behavior were as magical as uttering a two-letter word, then my professor’s behavior would never have gone on as long as it did.”

“The Victim Who Became the Accused” | Article | Rachel Aviv

“The legal system generally puts sexual intercourse into two categories—rape or not rape—a binary that is at odds with the way these things often unfold: two drunk people with unequal power who find themselves sexually involved for reasons that are complex and unstated. Such encounters are rarely not confusing.”

Dressed and Ready to Learn: A Resource for Students, Parents and Educators to Identify, Challenge and Change Gendered Dress Codes in K-12 Schools | Educational Resource | Legal Momentum, the Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund

“Many of these dress code restrictions ignore body diversity—particularly at the ages surrounding puberty—and assume all students will meet the same unrealistic body types portrayed in fashion ads and media.”

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Women World Leaders: Have Fun, Get Slut-Shamed

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 12:38:49 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

September 14, 2022

Prime Minister Sanna Marin of Finland attended a party last month with friends. She danced and had a good time.

This became a huge news story .

Critics said her behavior was “inappropriate” and “unprofessional.” Some called for her resignation. Others demanded that the 36-year-old world leader take a drug test, even though there was no evidence that she had taken drugs or that drugs were available at the party. (She took the test. She passed.) As to accusations that she was “drunk,” Marin said that she had had only a small amount of alcoho l and “could have left to take care of government tasks” if necessary.

I have shown previously that women believed to drink alcohol are perceived as not credible, even in the face of sexual assault. The disapproval of women believed to have been drinking is linked with sexualized stereotypes and slut-shaming.

According to Eeva Luhtakallio, professor of sociology at the University of Helsinki, those who criticize Marin dislike the fact that “she dresses sexy and moves sexy.”

This was not the first time that Prime Minister Marin was denigrated for being sexy.

In 2020, Marin posed for a magazine wearing a blazer with no top underneath. She looked like the young, fashionable world leader she is—but the photo prompted critics to question her competence and describe her with sexualized slurs.

Marin has been widely praised for her handling of the Covid pandemic as well as her ability to win support for NATO membership in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

No matter. Women in leadership positions are held to a stricter standard than men are in the same roles. They often are sexualized and belittled because they are women, and women too often are reduced to their sexuality.

“Even normal things,” Marin noted, “are made to look bad.”

On my night table

Under The Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and On the Health of Our Nation by Linda Villarosa

“Yes, something about being Black is creating a health crisis, and that something is racism.”

Woman: The American History of an Idea by Lillian Faderman

“The term ‘woman’ had long conflated anatomical sex and gendered behavior. … Such conceptions of woman left no space for women who did not fit.”

Threadbare: Clothes, Sex, and Trafficking by Anne Elizabeth Moore

“The garment industry plays a significant but complicated role in how we define and legislate sex work—around the world and here in the US.”

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Beyoncé, You Can Do Better

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 12:57:34 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

August 17, 2022

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and need an abortion.

If you’re a woman leader and you sometimes like to relax and have fun, watch out.

Beyoncé at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards

Several weeks ago, Beyoncé agreed to change the lyrics to one of her new songs after activists criticized her for using a term that insults people with disabilities. In the wake of this development, Monica Lewinsky tweeted that Beyoncé could also consider revising a line in her 2013 song “Partition” in which she equates Lewinsky with a sex act, reducing the woman who had a sexual relationship with President Bill Clinton to a vulgar punchline.

Lewinsky is right. As I told USA Today earlier this month, if Beyoncé is open to revising lyrics to eliminate ableist language, she also should eliminate slut-shaming language.

For that matter, so should Kanye West, Eminem, and every other entertainer who has mocked Lewinsky. But Beyoncé has raised the stakes of her treatment of women because she famously e mbraces the label “fem inist”; therefore, she should be the one to set an example.

Slut-shaming is a method of judging, shaming, and policing a woman for being inappropriately sexual. It is sexist because we don’t judge, shame, and police men in the same way. I have been tracking slut-shaming for over 25 years and have spoken with over a thousand girls and adult women who have been harassed verbally and assaulted physically as a result of their reputation. (Being sexually harassed or assaulted also can leads to the reputation in the first place.) Repeatedly, I see evidence that many people hold the mindset that boys will be boys, but girls will be sluts.

Slut-shaming matters. When people are reduced to sluts—or synonyms such as “hoes” or “thots” (“thot” is an acronym for “that hoe over there”)—they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are s exually harasse d , sexually assaulted , and need an abortion .

I have spoken with women of all ages, including girls as young as 11, who have had soda cans thrown at their heads, been told they should kill themselves, and gang-raped because of their reputation as a slut, hoe, or thot. In response, they have gone on to abuse alcohol and drugs, cut themselves, develop eating disorders, and attempt suicide—and some succeed .

A cheap laugh at the expense of Lewinsky—or anyone regarded as slutty—is never just a cheap laugh. It enables a warped, sexist mindset that dismisses the humanity of many people.

Shutterstock

When news broke in 1998 about the Lewinsky-Clinton relationship, culturally we were primed to discredit Lewinsky as an oversexed and pathetic bimbo. This was the decade in which Anita Hill testified that she was sexually harassed in her workplace by her boss, Clarence Thomas, and was mocked by David Brock as “ a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty .”

It was just a few years after Bill Clinton, governor of Arkansas, campaigned for the presidency and his political consultant Betsy Wright dismissed allegations of the candidate’s sexual affairs as “ bimbo eruptions .”

This kind of thinking was acceptable, normalized, and ubiquitous. Bill Clinton was just a guy doing what guys do, having sex on the side, while the women he was involved with were bimbos, i.e., deviant and disgusting people.

Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.

In the 1990s, there was no language to talk about slut-shaming from a feminist lens. The term had not yet been coined. I created “slut-bashing” in 1999, and “slut-shaming” sprouted from the cultural conversation that ensued.

So why in 2022—when “slut-shaming” is part of the vernacular, #MeToo is in our rear-view mirror, and many have reassessed Bill Clinton’s role in the relationship as an abuse of power—do people continue to mock Lewinsky? Today, don’t we know better?

The answer lies in the main ingredient of sluttiness: sexual agency. What makes a slut a slut is the belief that she has actively participated in sexual behavior—and that is what continues to trouble many people. This is the reason that harassment and assault victims who were wearing clothing considered revealing, provocative, or inappropriate are often met with indifference or, worse, blame. This is why rape victims believed to have been “asking for it” are less sympathetic than those who are regarded as sexually innocent. The thinking goes like this: See, she actively did something to provoke her reputation—so we can assume she did something to provoke being harassed or assaulted (which means she wasn’t truly harassed or assaulted). This is one of the factors leading to—as Nona Willis Aronowitz calls it— bad sex .

Lewinsky tests the boundary of compassion for sexually active women because, as the Starr Report recounted, she flirted openly with the president, even exposing her underwear. And even today, many of us still can’t accept a woman who is sexually assertive. It’s telling that the Beyoncé lyric that degrades Lewinsky places Lewinsky as the agent of a specific sex act that in fact the president engaged in, not Lewinsky.

Because Lewinsky exercised sexual agency, many people—including one of the world’s most famous and successful performers who identifies as a feminist—refuse to recognize her humanity.

Beyoncé should apologize to Lewinsky and undo the harm she has inflicted—just as she held herself accountable for perpetuating ableism. Language that degrades one specific human being—leading to the degradation of other human beings—is not innocent. It seeps into our thinking. We need to get rid of it.

On my night table

Bad Sex by Nona Willis Aronowitz

“I’m particularly concerned with a dilemma recognizable to many women who f**k men: sex has never been more normalized, feminism has never been more popular, romantic relationships have never been more malleable—yet we still haven’t transcended the binds that make sex and love go bad.”

When Rabbis Abuse by Elana Sztokman

“I learned that abusers do not always look like what we expect. Abuse is rarely done by an ugly stranger in a dark alleyway. Usually it’s by a charming, friendly, trusted face in a place that is considered safe and embracing.”

Sexual Consent by Milena Popova

“Yet when it comes to negotiating consent, [the dominant “yes means yes” and “no means no” approaches] do not account for a significant range of sexual encounters that are experienced as violations by individuals but would not be classified as rape…”

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

And Then They Came for Birth Control

Mon, 25 Jul 2022 13:19:19 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

July 25, 2022

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots , they are denied care and compassion as human beings and in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and need an abortion.

Birth Control is next

Shutterstock

Opposition to reproductive and sexual health care is rooted in hostility toward women’s sexuality. Women seeking abortion health care often are called sluts, hoes, and thots. And now, after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, new limits on access to birth control—and gay and transgender rights—are coming our way.

Efforts to take away birth control from women are not new. The 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case, when the US Supreme Court ruled that some employers could deny birth control coverage to their employees, was a billboard announcing that women’s bodily autonomy was under attack.

Last week, the US House voted to pass legislation to protect the right to access birth control. But 195 Republicans voted against it .

I can think of only one reason to limit access to birth control: the belief that there is something morally wrong or deviant with being a sexually active woman, especially a sexually active woman of color—which is nearly always coupled with contempt or lack of empathy for people victimized by rape and sexual assault. In short, banning access to birth control stems from lack of concern for women, especially women of color, as people.

Remember this when you cast your vote in November.

Boarding pass-or fail?

It’s summer—time to go to the beach and feel the sand in your toes, time to get kicked off an airplane because you’re wearing a crop top or tank top . The most recent high-profile incident occurred on Southwest Airlines.

Remind me again why they’re sluts? Oh right…they’re women who did the right thing

Cassidy Hutchinson and Alyssa Farrah Griffin, who testified about Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, were called “thots and hoes” by their former Trump White House colleague Garrett Ziegler.

On my night table

Bad Sex by Nona Willis Aronowitz

When Rabbis Abuse by Elana Sztokman

“ I learned that abusers do not always look like what we expect. Abuse is rarely done by an ugly stranger in a dark alleyway. Usually it’s by a charming, friendly, trusted face in a place that is considered safe and embracing.”

Sexual Consent by Milena Popova

My hot takes on dress-coding

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

If You're Sexy, Are You Powerful?

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 14:34:46 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

Boys will be boys…and girls will be sluts.

June 15, 2022

Slut,” “hoe,” and “thot” are slippery and subjective terms that can apply to any girl or woman, regardless of how they dress or behave. I shed light on slut-shaming—how and why assumptions about being “too” sexual are applied, the consequences for women, and the impact on everyone, regardless of gender.

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts, hoes, and thots, they are denied care and compassion in a variety of situations, including when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and need an abortion.

My Body by Emily Ratajkowski

Photo credit: Shutterstock

In her 2021 memoir My Body , supermodel Emily Ratajkowski reveals the tension between profiting off her body and feeling violated when others profit off her body without her consent, as well as her experiences with sexual assault. Many people no doubt can relate to Ratajkowki’s fervent desire to “control” and “own” their images and the stories that are told about them.

Ratajkowski writes, “For most of my life, I thought of myself as savvy, a hustler. I understood that I had a commodifiable asset, something the world valued, and I was proud to have built a life and career off my body. All women are objectified and sexualized to some degree, I figured, so I might as well do it on my own terms. I thought there was power in my ability to choose to do so.”

In 2012, Ratajkowski dropped out of UCLA to pursue modeling full-time. She appeared naked on the cover of a limited-edition Playboy-esque magazine, Treats!, in 2012. She was catapulted to international fame in 2013 when she appeared in the music video for the song “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke, T.I, and Pharrell Williams. Ratajkowski and two other models danced goofily while the three men, fully clothed, sang lyrics that justify sexual assault (“I hate these blurred lines/I know you want it/But you're a good girl/The way you grab me/Must wanna get nasty”).

There are two versions of the video—“ official ” and “ unrated .” In the official version, Ratajkowski and the other models wore lingerie, short shorts, and crop tops. In the “unrated” version, they were almost completely naked.

“Blurred Lines” was torn apart as “rape-y” and demeaning. At the time, Ratajkowski recalls in her memoir, she defended her performance as “empowering” because “I felt confident in my body and my nakedness, and who was anyone to tell me that I wasn’t empowered by dancing around naked?”

Yet, Ratajkowski also reveals that Thicke assaulted her during the shoot by grabbing her breasts.

The year before, Ratajkowski was sent by her agent to a photo shoot with Jonathan Leder at his home in Woodstock for a small-circulation magazine, Darius, featuring nudity. With no way to get home after the shoot ended, Ratajkowski spent the night at Leder’s house, where he sexually assaulted her.

Later, Leder sold several books featuring hundreds of nude photos he had taken of her that night—even though her agreement covered distribution only in the magazine. Ratajkowski’s lawyer advised her not to pursue a lawsuit because even if she won in court, the photos were already published and circulated. These violating photographs were also featured at a gallery on the Lower East Side, even though Ratajkowski publicly protested the exhibit.

I ask that you please not search online for these images.

In her book, Ratajkowski also recounts that in high school, she was raped by her first boyfriend. When she was 22, private photos on her phone were stolen through an iCloud phishing scam and published on the internet. The artist Richard Prince took one of her Instagram images and repurposed it to profit himself.

Ratajkowski describes her efforts to push back against these multiple experiences of violation and predation. She also shares that when she tweeted about the fact that Leder was using her image without her consent, one woman commented, “You could always keep your clothes on and then you won’t be bothered by these things.”

And when a magazine fact-checker reached out to Leder (the essay about him originally appeared in New York Magazine), he responded that Ratajkowski’s allegations were “too tawdry and childish to respond to” and added, “You do know who we are talking about, right? This is the girl that was naked in Treats! magazine and bounced around naked in the Robin Thicke video at that time. You really want someone to believe she was a victim?”

This memoir is an important and fascinating illustration of the limits of the power of being regarded as a sex object. And you don’t have to look like Ratajkowski to be sexually objectified. Many people, especially women, have experienced objectification. For several years, Ratajkowski looked up Leder online. “I almost felt like I was checking in on a part of me, the part of me he now owned,” she writes.

Key takeaway: Read this book to learn about a supermodel’s failed attempts to wrest control over her image and body. Her story sheds light on the breadth and depth of the culture of slut-shaming.

ICYMI: Recent Instagram Reels

@BeingDressCoded on Instagram

“Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” — Leora Tanenbaum

Let Your Daughter Wear a Crop Top

Tue, 17 May 2022 07:05:46 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

Boys will be boys…and girls will be sluts.

May 18, 2022

“Slut,” “hoe,” and “thot” are slippery and subjective terms that can apply to any girl or woman, regardless of how they dress or behave. I shed light on slut-shaming—how and why assumptions about being “too” sexual are applied, the consequences for women, and the impact on everyone, regardless of gender.

Q&A with Cristina Alexander

Girls in middle and high school tell me that the experience of being dress-coded—disciplined by a school administrator or teacher because they are wearing clothes that are said to be “inappropriate” for school and “distracting” to boys—causes them to feel mortified, unable to focus on schoolwork, ashamed of their bodies. But what happens when the person dress-coding them is a member of their family? I spoke with Cristina Alexander, 28, who has been challenged several times by family members over her clothing.

Cristina is an autistic freelance journalist covering video games, entertainment and technology, and social media. She graduated from Florida Atlantic University with a BA in Multimedia Studies in 2018. Her hobbies and interests include feminism, anime, literature, fashion, and visiting Disney World. She lives in South Florida, where she grew up.

Leora Tanenbaum: Tell me about your experiences with being dress-coded by members of your family.

Cristina Alexander: The spring semester of my second year of college, in 2015, I was getting ready to leave home—I was living with my mom and stepdad—to go to my Western civilization class. I was running very late and was worried I was going to miss the bus, so my stepdad offered to drive me. I threw on a pair of shorts and a Black Bu tler tank top, which was not a crop top. My stepdad saw what I was wearing and told me that it was “inappropriate for school,” even though there was no dress code at my college, and this was South Florida, where the weather was in the 80s or 90s, and everyone wears shorts and tank tops.

First, he told me to change because my outfit “made me look like a little kid.” So I quickly changed into a pair of pink skinny jeans and a white crop top. On the ride over to my class, my stepdad asked, “Are you trying to dress like a slut?”

His words, like, shook me. As soon as I got out of the car and walked into class, I started crying. I was crying so much I could barely take notes.

Leora: Wow. Thank you for sharing that with me. Do you remember what your thoughts or emotions were at that moment?

Cristina: I was shocked that he would say that to me, since I was 21 and a student in college. And then, when I was going into class, I told my professor what my stepdad had said. And my professor told me that he agreed with my stepdad, and that my stepdad was just trying to protect me from guys. And I was kind of gob smacked. I asked my classmates what they thought, and they were all, like, “Oh, your outfit’s fine.”

Leora: What do you think about your stepdad’s impulse to protect you?

Cristina: That was, like, very shitty reasoning. Because I have worn crop tops with shorts out in public without any issue. I’ve worn them to class with no problems. I mean, it just sort of made me feel as though my body wasn't my own.

Leora: Would you also tell me about the incidents that took place a few years later, in 2018?

Cristina: On Mother’s Day weekend in Miami in 2018, when I was 24, I was at a family pool party with my aunt and uncle and little cousins. They were in third grade, fifth grade, around those ages. During the day, we were all wearing bathing suits. That evening, the only change of clothes I had brought with me were short shorts and a tank top. So I was wearing those clothes while I was hanging out with my little cousins watching Nickelodeon. Then my grandmother called me over to the living room. When I came in, my uncle started scolding me in Spanish, saying, “Why are you wearing such short shorts?” Then my brother confronted me in front of everyone and said, “Oh, Cristina. Do you know who wears short shorts on purpose? Little sluts.”

Cristina dressed up for Halloween as Sonic the Hedgehog, 2018

Unlike with the previous incident with my stepdad, this time I had the vocabulary to push back. I told my brother, “What you’re doing is slut-shaming, and you’re doing it in front of everybody, and that is unacceptable.” But my aunt and my grandmother added insult to injury by defending him, said that he was just trying to protect me from getting raped if I dress like that in public.

That fall, on Halloween, there was another incident. I was co splayin g —dressing up as a fictional character—as S onic the Hedgeh og . I've been a huge Sonic fan since I was nine years old. I tried to look as similar as possible to the character, which meant wearing a blue crop top and blue skinny jeans. I wore that to school all day, as I had done the year before, with no problems. But the next night, my mother asked me to send pictures of my Halloween costume to my grandmother. An hour later, she called and told me she loved my costume, but didn't like the fact that I was showing off my stomach. She’s Cuban and spoke to me in Spanish, saying that I had dressed “muy provocativa,” and that an outfit like that would attract creepy guys. Basically, she was telling me that I looked slutty.

Leora: How did you feel about what she said to you?

Cristina: I was not trying to get sexual attention. I never am. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to go back to the 1950s, where they belong.

Key takeaway: Family members, when you belittle your daughter, granddaughter, or sister over her clothes, your intention may be to protect her. But you are doing the opposite. You are, as Cristina says, making her feel that her body is not her own.

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Miss America: It's Not What You Think

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 12:08:33 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

Boys will be boys…and girls will be sluts.

April 13, 2022

Q&A with Fiona Lowenstein

Complete this sentence: “Miss America is a __________.”

(a) Beauty pageant (b) Scholarship program (c) Site of iconic 1968 bra-burning protest.* (Scroll down to find the answers.)

Stumped? The best person to explain Miss America is a genderqueer feminist journalist who participated as a contestant— Fiona Lowenstein .

Lowenstein, 28, immersed themself into the Miss America world in 2014-15. Crowned Miss Stamford, they participated in the Miss Connecticut competition as a finalist. Lowenstein went on to speak with approximately 20 trans or gender-nonconforming teenagers and young adults who also had competed in the Miss America system. Their fascinating and important article about LGBTQ+ experiences, which appeared in Teen Vogue , may surprise you. (Hint: There are some pockets of resistance to heteronormative femininity.) One of the many illuminating takeaways from Lowenstein’s piece for me was the way the experiences of contestants align with the experiences of so many of us.

I spoke to Lowenstein—a producer, speaker, and journalist—about the events that motivated them to compete; what they observed about expectations and pressures for women’s appearance; and, of course, about the role of slut-shaming.

Leora Tanenbaum: Before you entered the Miss America competition, what did you know about it? And what prompted you to enter the competition in the first place?

Fiona Lowenstein: I didn't have a deep knowledge of the Miss America system at all before I participated. I grew up in New York City and never watched Miss America on TV. I couldn't have told you the differences among Miss America and Miss Universe and Miss USA. And then, when I was a sophomore in college, I was a part of the Yale International Relations Association and produced an event series. That year, the first Miss America of South Asian descent, Nina Davuluri , was crowned, and there were a lot of racist and xenophobic comments about her on social media. So I thought it would be interesting to invite her to speak about her experiences. When I prepared for the event, I watched a bunch of old Miss America competitions on YouTube, including the one that she had participated in. What I saw was a lot of women in bikinis and sparkly high heels. There wasn't a whole lot of intellect being displayed on stage. That's not to say that it didn't exist. But that's just not what the competition was highlighting.

But when Nina Davuluri came to campus and spoke, I was really impressed. She reminded me of a politician in that she was great at interacting with everyone and kind of making them all feel seen the way that she was pushing her platform, which was about diversity and cultural competency. Here she was, speaking at Yale, and she was around 25 years old—and the next day, she was going to another state to promote her platform with elected officials.

I realized that being Miss America is actually an incredible opportunity. The following year, I was in an upper-level journalism class, and we had an assignment to immerse ourselves in a world unlike our own and then write about it.

Tanenbaum: You wrote in Teen Vogue that when you were crowned Miss Stamford in 2014, you strutted across the stage “in nothing but a bikini and a pair of heels.” Did you have to wear that outfit under the rules at that time? And when you walked on that stage, did you feel objectified?

Lowenstein: The rules at the time were that you had to participate in a swimsuit competition. When I competed at Miss Stamford, which was my local competition, I did not wear a bikini—I think I wore my mom’s tankini from L.L. Bean. The norm was that you also wore heels. When I competed at the next level, for Miss Connecticut, they gave us all bathing suits. And my understanding was that we had to wear the bathing suit they had given us. And to be honest, it did not occur to me to push back because my project was to try to have the most authentic experience as possible as long as it didn't harm my academic career or alter my appearance permanently. So, for example, I refused to do the tanning beds, but I did do the spray tanning.

I have talked to plenty of people who have participated in this system who found it empowering to walk on stage in a bikini in heels. But for me, I felt sickened by it. I disassociated myself from the person on the stage. Mostly, I had to focus on not tripping in the high heels.

I tried to think of myself as a supermodel and get into the experience, but I just couldn’t feel sexy. When I do feel sexy, I am typically not wearing an outfit like that. That’s not, you know, what generally goes with my gender expression.

Contestants in the 1994 Miss America Pageant, Atlantic City. Photo: Shutterstock.

Tanenbaum: Did you experience or witness situations where there was slut-shaming?

Lowenstein: Yes, when I participated, there was a very strong “politics of respectability” at play in the Miss America organization. They talked about women’s empowerment, and women leaders, but at the same time, it was clear to me that you could not become Miss Connecticut, and certainly not Miss America, if you were going out on lots of dates, for example. And there was essentially only one way to look—to be sexy, but not too sexy. It was okay to wear a dress with a plunging neckline, but it had to be in baby pink, not red. And it was okay to do a sexy dance as your talent, but then your interview had to be very polished. I had a nose ring at the time, but I took it out to participate, and there were girls with tattoos who covered them up.

And there were a lot of incredibly infantilizing rules that felt like an attempt to prevent the slut persona from circulating. For example, there were numerous situations when you needed to have a chaperone. You were not allowed to wear the crown and sash when you were driving a car, though you could wear them when you were in the passenger seat. Another title holder told me that she once got in trouble for having a glass of wine at an Italian restaurant with some girlfriends; they said it looked like she could have been partying. You were not allowed to go to the bathroom without bringing a buddy with you. Remember, these are people between the ages of 17 and 25.

Tanenbaum: What was the reason for the bathroom rule?

Lowenstein: I think it was due to a fear that strange men could come after you and follow you into the bathroom. When you put on the crown and sash, it was very much like waving a sign that said, “Hey, random men, come ask me questions that are inappropriate.” That happened all the time when we did public appearances. At one basketball game at the University of Connecticut, a few drunk guys came up and said lewd things. And you had to smile and keep this level of decorum. You certainly could never give out your number or go out with any man you met that way. So the bathroom rule was to protect us from the leering men. But it was the leering men who were watching Miss America a lot of the time.

Key takeaway: Miss America contestants—they’re just like us! Encouraged to appear sexy—but not too sexy—in a stereotypically heteronormative way, they are then told they need to be “protected” from harassment and assault, or are blamed for being harassed and assaulted because they look sexy.

Quiz Answer

*(a) Miss America strenuously denies that it is a beauty pageant. (b) It is one of the largest providers of scholarship assistance to young women in the world. (c) No one burned bras at the 1968 protest.

Share Your Story

Have you been sexualized against your will? How did this experience make you feel, and did you push back—or not? Email me at leora@leoratanenbaum.com and let me know if I may quote you—anonymously—in a future issue of this newsletter.

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Your Asian Fetish Is Not a Compliment

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 12:25:55 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

Boys will be boys…and girls will be sluts.

March 15, 2022

Q&A with Political Philosopher Robin Zheng, PhD

Different communities of women experience slut-shaming differently . Asian and Asian American women often face a specific form of nonconsensual sexualization that is rooted in racial stereotypes. But because some men, particularly White men, prefer to date and marry Asian and Asian American women (known as “yellow fever”), the consequences of this preference tend to be erased; after all, isn’t it complimentary when you are a member of a group that has favored status?

Not at all, says Robin Zheng, PhD . In fact, “yellow fever” is a harmful racial fetish. In her article “Why Yellow Fever Isn’t Flattering,” Dr. Zheng argues that this preference is part of an oppressive system of structural racism.

Dr. Robin Zheng is Lecturer in Political Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on issues of moral responsibility, structural injustice, and social change, with an emphasis on issues of gender, race, and social inequality.

Leora Tanenbaum: Your article is titled “Why Yellow Fever Isn’t Flattering.” Why is it not flattering—and why and how is it oppressive?

Dr. Robin Zheng: Learning that someone has a preference for your race might seem like it’s a compliment (to the way you look, your culture, etc.), but many people don’t experience it that way. Instead, they feel uncomfortable. In my view, this is basically because you are being treated differently, not like a normal person, when you are the object of a fetish.

On the one hand, you're viewed as importantly different from the mainstream (e.g., “exotic”). I call this otherization . But at the same time, you’re viewed as being essentially similar to everyone in your racial group—what I call homogenization. You’re not being appreciated for the unique individual whom you are, which is what people who are not pursued on the basis of a fetish get to experience.

In my view, “yellow fever” and other racial fetishes are oppressive because of the way they reinforce our ideas of racial difference. This basic belief that there is something essentially different about different races of people is the foundation for all sorts of racial injustice, and fetishes contribute to that even if the traits attributed to some group are positive.

Tanenbaum: Do you see a connection between “yellow fever” and hate crimes against Asian American women, including the Atlanta murders last year?

Zheng: I do see a connection, but a somewhat complex one. When the Atlanta murderer went after women whom he considered to be sexually tempting him towards sin, he specifically targeted massage salons owned and operated by Asian and Asian American women. These cultural associations between sex, sinfulness, and Asian women are precisely the same associations that make them so attractive to people with “yellow fever.”

Tanenbaum: My research on slut-shaming demonstrates that the stereotype of the “slut” in North America typically is a woman who violates White feminine norms by exercising sexual agency—e.g., a Black or Latina woman regarded as hypersexual because of assumptions stemming from White supremacy, or a White woman perceived as out of control sexually, busty, needy for attention, etc. In my observation, the hypersexualization of Asian American women looks different; notably, the stereotype does not include the element of sexual agency. Does this observation align with what you see in your work? What is the role of sexual agency in the stereotype of the sexualized Asian woman? And why is this important?

Zheng: Actually, l think there are enough stereotypes about Asian and Asian American women to cover all the bases! What you’re probably thinking of is what scholars have described as the “geisha girl,” “lotus blossom,” or “china doll” image of a docile, demure, and sexually willing Asian woman. But the flip side of this is the “dragon lady” image of Asian women who are scheming and malevolent and who use their sexual allure for deceitful ends — which does characterize them as exercising sexual agency. But, in line with what you noted, this understanding of sexual agency violates the norms of morality and feminine decency. This is important because it reinforces the patriarchal notion that any sexual agency on the part of women should only be directed towards serving men’s desires, rather than their own.

Hundreds participate in an anti-Asian violence rally in San Francisco on March 26, 2021. Photo credit: Sheila Fitzgerald, Shutterstock

Tanenbaum: Could you explain how "yellow fever" and slut-shaming intersect?

Zheng: There are definitely important intersections between slut-shaming and Asian fetish, because both phenomena are highly concerned with female sexuality. To take one example: It is a very regrettable fact that many Asian men vocally disapprove of relationships between Asian women and White men (due to an implicit and highly problematic assumption that Asian women “belong” to men of the same race). Sometimes, [this disapproval] takes the form of slut-shaming because the supposed sexual appeal of Asian women makes them easy targets for assumptions about their promiscuity.

Key takeaway: A “preference” for Asian and Asian American women is not a compliment. This attitude is a dangerous fetish and form of racialized slut-shaming. It is never acceptable.

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How to Tell a Good Abortion Story

Tue, 15 Feb 2022 05:19:00 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

Boys will be boys…and girls will be sluts.

February 16, 2022

Q&A with Abortion Onscreen Researcher Steph Herold

Slut-shaming matters because when people are dismissed as sluts and hoes, they are denied care and compassion in a variety of situations: when they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted—and when they need an abortion. To my mind, you can’t truly understand what it’s like to face these experiences without understanding slut-shaming.

When I worked at Planned Parenthood, I regularly received emails and letters expressing opposition to abortion, saying that anyone who was pregnant and didn’t want to be had gotten themself into that situation and needed to be taught a lesson. This argument, in essence, is that a woman who has had heterosexual intercourse (consensually or not) without the intention to procreate is a slut or hoe who deserves to be punished—and, indeed, the words “slut” and “hoe” were used often.

We know that some religious communities promote this viewpoint. Popular culture has also often reinforced the idea that nonprocreative sex is deviant and deserving of punishment—if you are a woman.

But we can change the narrative, and a number of researchers are engaged in important work to do just that. At this precarious moment in the US, when access to safe, legal abortion is severely curbed in many states and may become outlawed entirely, regardless of what state you live in, we need more fact-based representations, and we need more empathy.

Steph Herold is a researcher in the Abortion Onscreen program at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health . Along with her colleagues Dr. Gretchen Sisson and Renee Bracey Sherman , she studies how abortion is portrayed on film and television and what those depictions can tell us about how our culture understands abortion. Herold and her team investigate questions like: How does television impact people’s knowledge and attitudes about abortion ? How do racial stereotypes shape depictions of abortion? How have depictions of abortion changed over time ?

Currently, Herold and her team are analyzing over 40 interviews they conducted with content creators (showrunners, writers, producers) to understand how they make decisions about including abortion in their plot lines. They also are getting ready to launch a national survey to better understand if and how watching multiple abortion plot lines influence attitudes.

Leora Tanenbaum: What role does slut-shaming play in representations of abortion in popular culture?

Steph Herold: Sex and abortion are inextricably linked, since abortion can be a consequence of sex, so of course slut-shaming is part of many onscreen abortion depictions. One consistent trend is that often certain types of characters get abortions – the “bad girls.” Rebellious Maeve on Sex Education is called a “cock biter” by her classmates, a nod to her reputation as sexually promiscuous. On Bridgerton , Mariana faces relentless criticism from her family about having sex outside the confines of marriage, and they work tirelessly to hide her pregnancy, a source of familial shame. On CLAWS , nail salon owner Desna scolds her employee Virginia, a former exotic dancer, for not using a condom, saying, “You [were] giving happy endings behind the steak and shake! Your little ass is a lot of things but clean ain’t one of them!” Taken together, these types of depictions link abortion with irresponsible sexual behavior, inviting audiences to judge these characters instead of empathize with them. Even though Maeve, Mariana, Virginia, and other characters like them may be sympathetic in many ways, they are absolutely slut-shamed by other characters on the show. We also see this trope of “bad girl gets the abortion” play out through omission; there are very few characters on television who are parenting at the time of their abortions, suggesting a dichotomy between “good women” who are mothers and “bad women” who seek abortions, a dichotomy that just doesn’t exist in real life. In the US, about 59% of people are raising children at the time of their abortions.

Many shows depict characters who are worried about what their parents or other loved ones will think of them for having sex, for getting pregnant, for having an abortion. On both Chicago Med and New Amsterdam episodes, for example, teenagers worry that their legal guardians will stop loving them if they knew about their sexual activities. Two recent movies, Never Rarely Sometimes Always and Unpregnant , follow teenagers who take extensive measures to make sure their parents don’t discover their pregnancies and abortions, fearing judgment and shame. These characters go through extraordinary efforts to conceal their abortions in an attempt to avoid slut-shaming.

Tanenbaum: Your research shows that fictional characters on American television who obtain abortions are not representative because they tend to be Whiter, younger, and with a higher socioeconomic status than real American women who have abortions. What are the implications of this break from reality?

Herold: There are many possible implications here. First, for people who have had abortions, seeing people who don’t look like them, who don’t have their lived experience of being Black or Latina or Asian or mixed, being a parent, of struggling to make ends meet, of working multiple jobs and going to school, or whatever combination of real life experience, can have a real negative impact. It can increase feelings of shame and isolation, a sense that people who look like you and have your life experiences don’t or shouldn’t have abortions. Of course, television and film aren’t the only places where these cultural messages permeate, but they are pretty powerful.

Second, these inaccurate portrayals of abortion may lead to a misunderstanding of who has abortions, why they have abortions, what it takes to get an abortion in the US. Because abortion is such a stigmatized issue, one that people don’t often talk about from personal experience, what we see represented on television matters, and might stand in as someone’s most personal exposure to a person seeking abortion care. If they see representations that suggest that it’s easy to obtain an abortion, that no one needs financial or logistical support in obtaining abortion, and that the majority of people who have abortions look or act a specific way, that may influence how audiences conceptualize abortion as a cultural issue and a political issue. Does seeing more teenage characters obtain abortions make audiences more sympathetic to anti-abortion parental consent laws? Does seeing more white characters obtain abortions make viewers more susceptible to racist tropes about declining white birth rates? Does seeing abortion portrayed as medically risky make viewers more likely to support anti-abortion laws claiming to increase abortion safety, when they actually decrease abortion availability? We don’t know—these are all research questions worth exploring.

Tanenbaum: Could more realistic portrayals of women who have abortions in fictional television programs have an influence on public opinion and public policy?

Herold: This is a great question, and the answer is: maybe. There’s a wide body of research on how television influences viewer attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, including on reproductive health topics issues, whether it’s sexual behavior (like condom use) or beliefs about childbirth . It’s a bigger leap to make the direct connection between television and public policy, but I think it’s safe to say that television can influence viewers' attitudes, and in turn, those viewers may bring those attitudes to bear in the voting booth. When it comes to abortion specifically, we just don’t have many studies on the impact of television viewing – that’s something my team is working on right now. In 2021, we published a study looking at if and how a specific episode of Grey’s Anatomy, with an abortion plot line, impacted viewer attitudes about abortion. In this episode, a character named Cassie first tries to self-manage an abortion with herbs she purchased on the internet, and when this fails, she obtains a medication abortion from the hospital. We found that people’s knowledge of medication abortion significantly increased after watching the episode, but their support for abortion in general didn’t. To me that suggests that the implied causality – e.g., more abortion plot lines = more political change – is faulty, and the reality is more nuanced. It really depends what people are seeing on screen, what messages they’re taking away from that, how often they’re seeing these abortion plot lines, and if they retain any of the information for longer than the duration of watching the show. All of this is to say that television may have some effect on public policy and public opinion on abortion, and we’re still working to understand what that is.

Tanenbaum: What is one thing you wished more Americans knew about abortion? How can we get this across?

Herold: Abortion is unique among American cultural, political, and personal issues for many reasons, chief among them that knowledge, data, and facts don’t necessarily change how someone feels or thinks about abortion. So I’m not sure that there’s one thing in particular I wish that people knew about abortion, per se, but I wish there were some way to convey just how safe, common, simple, and loving abortion is, and just how many people have some experience with abortion in their lives (often many experiences, whether having abortions themselves, or helping friends through abortions, or considering abortion as a possibility for a current or future pregnancy). I think it will take accurate, compassionate portrayals of, and conversations about, abortion across all mediums – entertainment news, TV news, politics, communities, institutions – to make this giant shift. And of course, for that to happen, abortion has to stay legal, and become much more widely accessible than it currently is.

Tanenbaum: What is your favorite TV show or movie with an abortion storyline, and why?

Herold: It’s hard to pick one favorite! There are a few that I really love. Recently, 2021’s Love Life for showing the complex dynamics between a Black protagonist confronting his white sex partner about her racist microagressive comments about having a “cute mixed baby,” and how expectations are different for him as a Black dad. I loved The Letdown ’s representation of abortion as a key part of motherhood, parenting, and friendship. CLAWS did an incredible job putting abortion in the context of many people’s lives and centering the experiences of women of color in particular, which we so rarely see on television.I love the compassion and support for Xiomara on Jane the Virgin – watching a daughter support her mom after an abortion was particularly moving. BoJack Horseman ’s classic abortion episode is maybe one of my favorite episodes of TV of all time, both for having the most hilarious abortion jokes, at the expense of abortion restrictions, and setting the bar for abortion comedies.

My favorite movie with an abortion plotline is obviously Dirty Dancing , because how could it not be – Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, that soundtrack? Sign me up.

Key takeaway: Knowing the facts about abortion does not necessarily change how someone thinks about abortion. But pop culture may make a difference—so it is essential that narratives reflect the real conditions that actual people experience regarding their reproductive health.

Share Your Story

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Perfect and Nice Are a Hoax

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 05:32:56 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

Boys will be boys…and girls will be sluts.

January 19, 2022

Q&A with Author Caralena Peterson

Slut-shaming is not about being too sexual, as my research demonstrates. A person may be singled out solely because she appears to exert effort to attract attention to herself.

So if you’re trying to avoid being slut-shamed, is your best strategy to make your accomplishments seem effortless?

Um, no. That path does not work for women, either.

Caralena Peterson , author of a fascinating book, The Effortless Perfection Myth (coming out in September), spoke with me about the pitfalls of exercising effort, particularly among women college students. Peterson is a graduate of Duke University, where the phrase “effortlessly perfect” was coined in an influential 2003 report on the pressures faced by Duke women . Nearly two decades later, Peterson demonstrates, women on college campuses continue to experience the pressure to be effortlessly perfect, leading to hot-button gender issues of self-esteem, assertiveness, body image, hookup culture, mental health, and identity.

I asked Peterson how the pressure to appear effortlessly perfect intersects with slut-shaming and how it can quash sexual agency.

Leora Tanenbaum: What is “effortless perfection”?

Caralena Peterson: “ Effortless perfection ” is all about coming across as smart, beautiful, accomplished, popular, etc., without it seeming like you put in any effort. As one of my interviewees put it: “It’s the intense pressure to get good grades, be a good person, a good student, good daughter, good friend, be beautiful, and have it seem like that’s all just flowing out of you as who you are and not something you constantly have to think about and live up to.”

Tanenbaum: Why is demonstrating effort a problem for women?

Peterson: Demonstrating effort has become taboo in the hookup world. The mindset is: I shouldn’t have to put in effort or show interest to get a guy or a girl to notice me. They should just flock to me. So effort gets equated with sluttiness because it is you admitting you want that attention, and wanting that attention makes you somehow “desperate” or “easy.”

Many women have told me they feel pressured to play the part of the “chill girl” in their social circles and dating scene—to appear as though they have mastered effortlessness by always appearing a perfect mix of amiable, unbothered, and down for whatever.

Under this paradigm, a heterosexual girl is allowed to show effort to attract sexual attention, but only in ways that put the man in control. If she exercises agency—saying “yes” to this, but “no” to that—she is perceived as slutty for acting on her own desires, for being willing to ask for what she wants and to put in the effort to get it. An “effortlessly perfect” or chill girl does not do that.

Tanenbaum: You show how "niceness" can get women in sexual situations they don't feel good about and may not want. Can you break down how this happens—and what the implications are?

Peterson: One of the most important lessons I learned as an undergrad was this: It’s not rude to stand up to someone who is making you uncomfortable. When I was in college, I had an overwhelming desire to placate and keep everyone happy. This was the result of the fact that we tend to raise girls in a way that prioritizes following rules and not rocking the boat—sugar and spice and everything nice, and all that. And when girls grow into adulthood, they may not have learned how to be assertive in unpleasant and demeaning situations.

In my book, I talk about my own experiences with being groped at a mixer (hands fully down my bra); having a guy I’d only met five minutes earlier taking me onto a dance floor and proceeding to try and finger me up my skirt; and saying “no” to a guy multiple times before being made to feel so uncomfortable, so ashamed that I was not meeting his sexual expectations, that I ended up going further than I wanted.

I made excuses like he was drunk or I was being too passive because I didn’t want to cause conflict; it’s really my fault. Obviously, neither of these justifications is valid. And by swallowing the blame and remaining silent, I surrendered my power to do or change anything. But all those times I was in those coercive situations—the reason I didn’t just leave, didn’t just walk away and get out of there—was because I honestly didn’t feel like that was something I was allowed to do.

I now see I had been conditioned to feel like I owed something, like I was required to still act courteously, to people-please, and to avoid making any trouble despite the way I was being treated. I did not understand yet how these same habits and behaviors made me prone to things like abusive relationships, sexual assault, harassment, and other serious consequences if left unchecked.

How much effort goes into appearing effortlessly perfect… and what is the price?

Tanenbaum: What can a woman do to interrupt this conditioning and take control or ownership over their sexual identity to demonstrate sexual agency?'

Peterson: Short answer is: Adapt an “intimate justice” mind frame. This term was coined by Sara McClelland of the University of Michigan to address the ways in which sex has personal and political implications that are connected to issues like inequality, power, violence, and mental and physical health. This framework asks questions like: Are both partners entitled to enjoy this experience? Is there a primary beneficiary? Are levels of expected satisfaction similar?

Based on my personal experiences, and the experience of the women I interviewed at more than 15 US colleges and universities, we are far from achieving intimate justice on our campuses. Women seem to care a lot more about whether or not their partner is pleased than if they, themselves, are pleased. As an unfortunate extension of this, women are four times more willing than men to engage in sexual activity they don’t like or want, such as oral and anal sex, to please or appease partners. And that’s where our people-pleasing tendencies and desire to be seen as “nice” can lead us into particularly dicey waters.

For instance, one of my interviewees admitted, “In a way, when you are at a party and a guy tries to hook up with you, you may not be totally into it, but you kinda feel like, ‘Well, maybe I should’ because the attitude at a frat party is like, if you aren’t here to do that, than what are you here for?”

Many of us feel guilty for leaving a guy wanting. Guilty! My research showed themes of women feeling that:

If they say no to sex, they need to “at least” perform oral as a consolation before leaving a hook-up;
If they accept an invite to a date function or exclusive event, there is a socially enforced expectation they will get intimate with the guy extending the invite;
If they dance in a risqué or flirtatious manner with a guy for an extended portion of the night, their body language is consenting to later sexual activity.

I think part of achieving intimate justice is getting angry about the levels of sexual entitlement demonstrated by these kinds of social accepted norms. I think agency will come from being furious that these notions are so prevalent that many of us fall prey to them to the extent that we feel guilt when we don’t fall in line with them.

Tanenbaum: What can women do to protect themselves and their peers from the pressure to give in to sexual entitlement?

Peterson: In addition to adopting an “intimate justice” mind frame, it’s important to recognize red flags. One of my interviewees talked to me in depth about a former boyfriend who had demanded certain things from her sexually and how she had felt immense pressure to oblige. He’d also do things like ask to “just cuddle” and then inevitably start touching her sexually to get her to cave. She can see now that his unrelenting behavior was inappropriate, but in the moment, she wasn’t able to recognize this because it “didn’t feel like he was being outwardly vindictive.” She did not know at the time that many scenarios leading to sexual violation and assault can involve “guilt-inducing tactics” like persuading and pleading, often combined with complimenting and flattering.

The language and behavior used to elicit a “yes” in these situations were intentionally manipulative and display sexual entitlement. We must learn to recognize these kinds of red flags and run.

Finally, we need to talk to our peers about our experiences. Despite the fact that hook-up culture is touted as a major part of the college experience and is understood to be a major part of acquiring social status, many women don’t feel comfortable talking about what actually happens behind closed doors. And we absolutely need to because we often don’t realize what we are allowed to be outraged by until we say things out loud and see others’ reactions. This perspective helps individuals rid themselves of self-blame and better understand that what they are going through is bigger than just them, because there is actually a structural issue at hand.

Key takeaway: Let’s celebrate effort rather than hiding it. “Effortless perfection” is not only impossible; it’s a hoax that entraps women and causes great harm, from assault to mental health issues to abusive relationships.

For more information on The Effortless Perfection Myth, subscribe to Caralena Peterson’s newsletter .

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The One Good Thing About School Dress Codes

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 18:18:32 GMT

Slut-shaming dress code regulations are galvanizing a generation of activists like Riley O’Keefe.

School dress codes are agents of slut-shaming, driven by the belief that girls who don’t cover up are deviant and distracting. But the one exciting upside is that students are so disgusted and outraged by these sexist, racist regulations that they are galvanized to become feminist activists.

“The administration had been looking at my photo, and what they saw was my chest,” says Florida high school junior Riley O’Keefe. “It was concerning to me that they were basically viewing us just as bodies that were distracting. They were sexualizing us even though we’re still children.”.

I spoke to Riley, 16, about her experiences at Bartram Trail High School.

Read my interview with Riley , which appeared in Ms. Magazine on January 18, 2022.

You've Been Shamed. Here's Why.

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 09:40:36 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

Boys will be boys…and girls will be sluts.

December 15, 2021

Shame as a Form of Control: Q&A with Colin Wayne Leach, PhD

Over the last decade, the word “slut-shaming” has become part of vernacular language, referring to the experience of calling out a woman for being “too” sexual—regardless of her actual sexual experience. But what do we really mean when we talk about “shaming” a woman in this manner—what does shame feel like, what does the act of shaming look like, and why are some people targeted in the first place?

Colin Wayne Leach, PhD, professor of psychology at Barnard College, Columbia University , is a leading expert in status and morality in self-evaluation, emotion, and motivation. He has done extensive research on guilt and shame and comments on emotions such as schadenfreude .

Dr. Leach discusses his research and shares insights on the meanings of “shame” in the context of slut-shaming and other forms of social control.

Leora Tanenbaum: What is the focus of your research on shame?

Colin Wayne Leach, PhD: My general interest is emotion, especially emotions that have a moral component. I had been doing research on guilt, which is a close relative of shame. I then turned to shame, but unlike many people studying it in the field of psychology, I am most interested in the social and cultural approaches to shame rather than the individual psychology alone.

Tanenbaum: How does slut-shaming connect with your work?

Leach: I’ve been influenced by the work done on honor , including feminine honor . In societies or groups with a code of feminine honor, there is a policing of women by families or groups when they believe that honor has been damaged or is under threat by a female member of the family or group. And in the case of honor, it is possible that the woman has not actually committed a moral violation, but others who are connected to her see her as having done so, and they then accuse her of damaging the social image and reputation, i.e., the honor—of the family or group. Honor becomes a way to reinforce and regulate particular behaviors, and in this case the behaviors are connected with women’s sexuality. Now, she may be accused of having violated the honor code, but the woman may not think she has done anything wrong, and she may not feel bad about what is said that she has done wrong.

In my work, originally with Nicolay Gausel, I try to separate the psychological side—when I’m criticizing myself for something I have done—versus the concern where I am worrying about what other people think about me for what I have done. Those are two different things, and both are really powerful.

Tanenbaum: What I find really interesting is the way that other people perceive me, and how that perception influences my self-image—even if, up until now, my self-image was fine. But now, I’m hearing that you are saying that I am a “slut.” So now, all of a sudden, my self-image is called into question, even if I have not engaged in behavior that is “wrong,” and there is nothing to regulate.

Leach: On the surface, what you are talking about sounds like what psychologists describe as “shame.” But psychologists misunderstand a number of aspects of shame. I believe that they underplay the social nature of shame.

If I think I’ve done something wrong, and I blame myself and hold myself accountable, that is very different from the experience of other people putting me down. In both situations, I may feel down about myself, I may feel lessened self-worth, and I may want to hide myself away from judging others. But when other people are putting me down, I am managing an overly social kind of shame.

Put another way, there is a difference between the “inside-out” versus the “outside-in” psychological experience. These may look the same on the surface, but what is important is the fact that how we think of ourselves comes from how other people view us. And if enough people whose opinions we care about are seeing us as lesser, this can cause a debilitating psychological experience. Yet, it is not the same experience as having those feelings come from the inside – from criticizing ourselves because we have fallen short of our own moral standard.

Tanenbaum: Why is this distinction important?

Leach: Our emotional life is a balance between what we think of ourselves and what other people think of us. In the example of slut-shaming, the stigma is being perpetrated by other people. It is community-driven, and it is a very social process. It hurts because other people matter to us, especially people in our family and in our groups. And that psychological experience is different from feeling devalued because we are beating ourselves up internally. It’s the difference between other people beating you up and you beating yourself up. Those are different actions. Even if you ultimately beat yourself up as a result of other people beating you up, we need to understand the ultimate cause of the emotional pain.

Tanenbaum: Often, when a girl or woman is slut-shamed by other people, then she justifies and rationalizes their behavior and comes to believe that she did something to provoke the slut-shaming. So the “outside-in” and the “inside-out” become tangled with each other.

Leach: Yes, and we see that in cases of trauma, particularly sexual trauma, when the target of sexual assault feels that somehow they bear some responsibility, and that they brought this upon themselves. They may not really believe that to be true, but they also feel the need to answer the questions, “Why me?” and “Why is this happening to me?” So the outside and the inside can become kind of indistinguishable. And it makes some sort of sense psychologically. Even if people aren't really blaming themselves, in the end, it has happened to them and they wonder what it is about them that could have played a role in what was done to them. Obviously, this can be devastating emotionally if it leads to serious self-blame in lieu of blaming the actual perpetrator(s).

Tanenbaum: With social media and digital culture, shaming is often enacted by complete strangers. But it hurts anyway. Is that because there’s a fear that if all these anonymous people are judging me in this public forum, then inevitably people I care about will judge me too?

Leach: Yes. And even if what they are saying about you is not real, even if it is false and constructed, it is still at the same time real because that is what people believe about you. It becomes a real thing that you have to deal with.

Tanenbaum: You also research reactions to police brutality against Black communities and Black protests against this violence. How does that work connect with your work on shame?

Leach: The two topics are actually very connected because they are about stigma and social control. In psychology, we talk about the way that description enables prescription. When you describe a particular group as morally questionable, then it becomes easier to prescribe control, regulation, policing, and punishment of the group. This is the logic of social regulation and subordination.

So in the case of slut-shaming, the thinking is that if women can’t control their sexuality, and therefore are violating social rules, then we are entitled to take actions to control them—for example, by limiting their freedom of movement, how they dress, with whom they can socialize, or even by criminalizing or demonizing their behavior.

And you can make a parallel argument with the regulation of Black people’s free movement. If Black folks are dangerous, then there is a need for police and other state authorities to regulate their actions to protect the body politic.

And then we can think in richer ways about intersections. So, for example, with women of color, these logics of regulation and subordination get even more specific because of beliefs about this particular type of women. So if a poor woman of color disappears and may have been killed, society is less attentive to that news than if a White woman disappears because women of color are described as expendable or as invisible and white women as described as precious and in need of care and protection.

The amazing thing about systems of oppression is that they are flexible and adaptable. They do the work of making sense of where people are situated within the society. And then we tend to assume that they are in the place that they should be in. I’m fascinated by the ways we can manipulate a sense of danger—for example, that a woman who is sexual poses a threat—to justify regulation and control of her.

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Protect Women, Whether Drunk Or Sober

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 18:22:54 GMT

Women, beware of having a drink. If you are assaulted, the law will not protect you.

In 2019, the Manhattan district attorney’s office rejected 49% of sexual assault cases , and a frequent reason was that victims who had been drinking and knew their attackers were dismissed as not credible. In New York, as in many other states , a person who voluntarily drinks alcohol and then becomes severely impaired is regarded as capable of granting sexual consent unless she can prove she was fully unconscious.

Continue reading this op-ed, which appeared in the New York Daily News on December 9, 2021.

Chanel Miller speaks onstage at the 2019 Glamour Women Of The Year Awards at Alice Tully Hall on November 11, 2019 in New York City. (Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Glamour

Sexual Consent Training: Too Little, Too Late?

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 13:38:58 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

Boys will be boys…and girls will be sluts.

November 16, 2021

Sexualization Without Consent: Q&A with Cydney Wilson

Colleges across the US mandate sexual consent training for students. Yet there is no evidence that this training reduces the prevalence of coerced and unwanted sex.

We need to rethink what “consent” means and how to talk about it—on campuses and beyond. Let us consider healthy relationships and sexuality more broadly and holistically. And, as always, I must point out that we can’t fully understand these issues unless we account for the role of the sexual double standard and slut-shaming.

I spoke with Cydney Wilson, a junior at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, who is passionate about keeping students, and everyone, safe from sexual violence and unwanted sexualization. I wanted to know what Cydney, who has offered students peer-to-peer sexual consent resources, thinks about colleges’ approach to consent.

Cydney—who is double-majoring in political science and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and is minoring in Africana Studies—is editor-in-chief of The Muhlenberg Weekly , president of Muhlenberg College Democrats , and vice president of BergVotes . She also is a former student intern and current member of Voices of Strength , which hosts events to educate students on safe, healthy relationships and positive sexual interactions and provides students with a peer, a fellow student, they can turn to if they are looking for information.

Leora Tanenbaum: What led you to become concerned about sexualization without consent?

Cydney Wilson: When I was in the fourth grade, in Irvington, New York, the principal stood outside the school and told girls wearing shorts or skirts, “Arms down by your sides” so that she could decide if our shorts or skirt were too short. So I saw that the sexualization of girls starts at a very young age.

When my sister was in the eighth grade in Irvington Middle School, she was dress-coded for wearing an off-the-shoulder sweater. She was in science class, and her teacher told her to go to the vice principal’s office, and the vice principal told her she had to cover up, so she wore a coat for the rest of the day and was miserable.

I was disgusted. The school essentially sexualized a thirteen-year-old. My sister was devastated. She lost her confidence. She became very aware of the way her body looked to other people and was terrified that whatever she wore, it would make her get called back to the vice principal’s office.

I decided to make it a public issue. I was successful in getting this story covered by the news. It was in the New York Post, Yahoo , and other news outlets.

I emailed my sister's guidance counselor, who had also been my guidance counselor, and said how disappointed I was that they allowed this to happen. And the guidance counselor said, “Well, those are the rules.”

Tanenbaum: What makes dress-coding so harmful?

Wilson: When you are a young woman or someone with minority-gender identity, and you have been sexualized by people who are supposed to be looking out for you, people who are supposed to be educating you, it can lead to you tearing yourself down. It can lead to you seeing yourself as undeserving of respect and equality and being treated like a human being.

And when you feel you have so little value, you are more likely to participate in something you don’t really want to participate in. It can lead you to accept behavior, and not protest it, even if you don’t consent to it.

And if you’re a person of color, you’re dealing with lots of other microaggressions, too.

Tanenbaum: Students of all genders arrive at college having watched their teachers and principals examine girls’ shoulders and the length of their shorts, absorbing the message that this slut-shaming behavior is normal, while girls have not been taught any refusal skills. On the contrary, they have been told, explicitly, that they need to accept the situation. “Those are the rules,” as your guidance counselor said. To my mind, this is a combustible environment that practically invites unwanted or coerced sex.

What is some of the work you have done to try to disrupt this environment?

Wilson: There is mandatory consent training on my campus. I'm also an orientation leader, and I witnessed that when the first-year students attended a mandatory session on healthy relationships and consent, some people never showed up. Some fell asleep. Others were on their phones. And others made rude and nasty comments. While the Department of Prevention Education’s training is comprehensive, it is nearly impossible to cover every important issue in one session, and it is just as difficult to enforce students’ attendance at future events beyond orientation weekend. Additionally, this training shouldn’t be limited to the realm of prevention education; it should be discussed by athletic organizations, Greek organizations, and in academic contexts.

The student group Voices of Strength attempts to go deeper than the college training. Last semester, we hosted events on destigmatizing sexually transmitted infections, pornography, and self-pleasure. We tried to work with Greek-life organizations and the athletic organizations because we have seen that in those environments, issues of sexual assault and lack of consent are particularly prevalent.

Tanenbaum: Slut-shaming is at the center of this environment.

Wilson. Yes. For example, students will catcall female-presenting students or say somebody female-presenting is dressed in a way that shows “just a little too much skin” or that they should “leave a little bit more to the imagination.”

But these conversations need to start many years before a student gets to college. We should talk about consent with children in elementary school. After all, consent is not just about sex. I firmly believe that even young children should have the right to say no—even to family members—to being hugged, if that makes them uncomfortable.

College can be an important turning point for many people and an opportunity for them to learn how to have healthy relationships. But I also want you to remember that many people don't have the privilege to attend college.

Key takeaway: Sexual consent training must start when students are young. Not only are schools failing to provide this training; they are contributing to the problem.

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When Black Women Challenge Slut-Shaming

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 07:27:04 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

Boys will be boys…and girls will be sluts.

October 19, 2021

From Object to Subject: Q&A with Dr. Melissa Brown, PhD

All girls and women are at risk of being slut-shamed, regardless of their actual sexual behavior, which may be nonexistent. But Black girls and women are at extraordinary risk. More than anyone else, they are presumed to be hypersexual. Because of misogynoir , the term coined by Moya Bailey for the intersection of racism and misogyny, Black girls and women must be on guard at all times so as not to reinforce false and harmful narratives.

I reached out to Dr. Melissa Brown, a scholar of Black feminist thought at Santa Clara University, who produces the fascinating, important, and addictive website Blackfeminisms.com , to share her insights on the marginalization of Black women through slut-shaming.

Leora Tanenbaum: What is the focus of your research?

Dr. Melissa Brown, PhD: My research centers on how Black women and LGBTQ people across the African diaspora use digital technology and innovate digital practices, particularly in the realms of activism and sex work.

Tanenbaum: We know that Black women often are treated as if they are always sexually available. For Black women who labor as exotic dancers and in the sex work industry, how does this presumption that they are inherently hoes/sluts influence their working experiences? For example, are they more likely to engage in risky behaviors? How does this presumption impact their mental health?

Brown : Yes, Black women are subject to what sociologist Patricia Hill Collins calls controlling images. Of these controlling images, the Jezebel, which emerged during the colonial era, justified the sexual exploitation of Black women on the belief that women of African descent were hypersexual and impure relative to white European women.

In contemporary society, the Jezebel reemerges in the trope of the “hip hop hoe,” which associates the sexuality of Black women with imagery in rap music media that profits off the labor of Black women sex workers in particular. These characterizations are intimately related to other contemporary characterizations of Black women such as the gold digger, which devalues the erotic labor of Black women as sociologist Siobhan Brooks found in her study of race and racism in the early twenty-first-century strip club industry. Likewise, historian Mireille Miller-Young found these controlling images adversely affected Black women in the pornography industry. Ultimately, Black women sex workers are presumed to be less desirable and therefore are often given less value for their erotic labor, particularly if they do not fit certain eurocentric standards of beauty.

While there isn’t currently evidence that Black women sex workers are actually more likely to engage in risky behaviors, prior research does indicate that clients expect Black women to engage in more risky behaviors, which endangers them. As a result, sociologist Stephanie Tatum argues that the ways Black women are devalued and mistreated as sex workers, particularly in prostitution, does have an adverse effect on their health.

Singer Cardi B and dance crew at a private performance during the Super Bowl on February 1, 2020. Photo credit: YES Market Media / Shutterstock.com.

Tanenbaum: Is it possible for Black women exotic dancers and sex workers to create a financially and emotionally sustainable career, or is the hypersexualization of Black women an insurmountable obstacle to fair pay and safe and healthy working conditions?

Brown: Overall, the obstacles to fair pay and safe and healthy working conditions they experience are due to the ways sexual commerce is dominated by White men and, to a lesser extent, men of color, as business owners who gate-keep those who can perform and profit in their venues.

While the hypersexualization of Black women hinders their success as sex workers to a significant extent, research shows that Black women sex workers are aware of how clients and business owners in the sex industry perceive them and, at times, use this to their advantage. For example, Black women exotic dancers are expected to conform to an aesthetic most often visible within rap music productions such as music videos. They are expected to have a curvaceous figure and perform certain types of movements, particularly twerking.

In my research, I identified that several Black women exotic dancers, particularly based in the urban South, have used these aesthetic expectations to initiate their own entrepreneurial ventures related to cosmetics and fashion. In a sense, the expectation that they look a certain way makes them the expert in this self-presentation. They can then capitalize off their expertise by creating and selling things like hair extensions, eyelash extensions, or outfits similar to those worn by exotic dancers.

Tanenbaum : What conclusions do you draw from your research that can be applied to Black women in general?

Brown: A key aspect of my research is identifying how the self-presentation of Black women exotic dancers contrasts with their presentation in popular media or in the strip club industry. I observed that Black women exotic dancers use Instagram in particular to present a holistic version of themselves. For example, while the strip club requires women to have a hypersexual self-presentation, on Instagram, many of these women present themselves in a flirty, sensual way by using their own homes essentially as photography studios. In the domestic space, they then present more like a “girl next door” rather than a “video vixen.”

I think the ability to present a more nuanced sense of self through social media facilitates for all Black women two key aspects of Black feminism—self-definition and self-valuation. Through self-definition, Black women use their lived experiences to name the meaning of Black womanhood for themselves, creating a diversity of perspectives rather than the restrictive and dysfunctional characterizations of Black womanhood normalized in mainstream discourses about Black women. Through self-valuation, Black women determine for themselves their sense of worth, once again rooting that sense of worthiness in their community’s own values rather than those of broader society. However, this does not mean that all Black women agree or that all Black women are feminists.

Tanenbaum: Regarding women who are not exotic dancers or sex workers, when White women position themselves on social media as "owning" their sexuality—for example, by posting photos of themselves in bikinis—there is always a risk of being slut-shamed, but at the same time, there is also always a chance they may be rewarded with "likes" or even corporate endorsements. (Sometimes, both results occur.) What tends to occur, though, when women of color, particularly Black women, do the same thing?

Brown: Black women who use social media to publicly display their sexuality also face slut-shaming. However, controlling images of Black femininity mean that there are specific discourses about sexuality that Black women face due to misogynoir, a term coined by Moya Bailey to describe the ways racism and sexism function together to marginalize Black women in unique ways.

For example, scholar Kyra Gaunt finds that twerking is rooted in west African cultural practices around dance, movement, and embodiment. Often, however, when Black women and girls use YouTube or other social media to display these cultural practices, other social media users, particularly through the comments function of many social media sites, respond to these videos by implying that these Black women and girls are “hoes” and “fast” and shame them. However, Gaunt and other Black feminist scholars find that twerking is perceived differently when White women like Miley Cyrus do it. Then, the practice gets normalized and treated as a type of fitness or self-expression, completely divorced from its context as both an African and Black women’s cultural practice. White women can then capitalize off these practices in a way that Black women cannot.

I observed in my research that on Instagram, posts made under the hashtag “twerk” or “twerking” tend to only show videos that portray White women. When Black women engage in twerking, they don’t receive as many likes or views, and sometimes have their videos removed for “inappropriate” content.

Tanenbaum: Has anything in your research surprised you?

Brown: So far, the surprising aspect of my research was in the gender and racial differences in how other Instagram users interact with Black women exotic dancers online. Users who commented on or liked the posts of these dancers were mostly other Black Americans. Black women tended to compliment the dancer in terms of her beauty, while Black men tended to react to the dancer in terms of her sexiness.

I actually think the gendered beautiful-sexy dichotomy tends to emerge in various ways throughout society. While women, in general, are encouraged to embrace their beauty, they are simultaneously encouraged to downplay their sexiness. But what my research shows is this perception is in the eyes of the beholder. Our society conditions men and women to perceive and therefore objectify women differently. Furthermore, these perceptions assume heterosexuality and binary gender.

Tanenbaum: What is the relationship between popular culture and representations of Black women’s sexuality? How does this relate to the ways they are slut-shamed? How do Black women respond to these popular culture tropes?

Brown: For the better part of the twenty-first century, most representations of Black women as sexual beings have been in music videos or song lyrics of Black men rappers based in the United States. Research by Margaret Hunter and Kathleen Soto found that these songs have two opposing yet interrelated tropes about women that reflect a madonna-whore dichotomy. On the one hand, women are “video hoes” whom men can exploit for sex and status, but treat as disposable and shame them for the sex acts they participate in. On the other hand, women are “loyal girlfriends,” who stand beside their men despite their shortcomings, which include dalliances with “video hoes,” and never stray sexually, acting almost like virginal wives.

While these discourses are the ones most embraced by consumers, as Billboard and YouTube numbers reflect, they do not occur in a vacuum. Since the dawn of rap music, Black women have created their own sound and used rap music to express their sexuality on their own terms. While some might say today’s artists like the City Girl, Cardi B, and Megan Thee Stallion, reinforce these tropes, I would argue that their music does the work of shifting Black women from a sexual object to a sexual subject. By centering themselves and other Black women in their songs and music videos, Black women rappers open up avenues to push back against slut-shaming and instead emphasize pleasure, joy, and mutual respect.

Key takeaway: Research on the objectification faced by Black women sex workers sheds light on the fact that all Black women live in a culture of racialized slut-shaming and misogynoir. Social media and pop culture provide opportunities for Black women to define and value themselves and to push audiences to regard them as sexual subjects, not sexual objects.

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Can We Reclaim "Slut"? Should We?

Mon, 13 Sep 2021 07:38:52 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

Boys will be boys…and girls will be sluts.

September 13, 2021

“Slut” Among Friends: Q&A with Nicole Drakopoulos

This summer, rapper Megan Thee Stallion released a single, “Thot S***,” turning the language of slut-shaming on its head. (“Thot” is an acronym for “that hoe over there.”)

So is it okay to call a friend—or yourself—a “slut,” “hoe,” or “thot”? What if you make it clear that you’re just showing ownership over your sexuality and the right to call yourselves whatever you want? After all, “queer” has been reclaimed as a badge of honor, and in some contexts, so has “bitch.” So can “slut” and its synonyms be transformed positively in the same way?

I’m asked about reclamation of “slut” repeatedly, and I have shared my concern that this strategy can backfire. Besides, “slut,” “hoe,” and “thot” are not truly about sexuality anyway; these terms are used against girls and women even when sex has nothing to do with it.

But I’m always open to reconsider my conclusions, and I’m particularly curious to learn what people younger than I believe, since they are most ensnared by these labels.

I recently met a whip-smart graduate student, Nicole Drakopoulos, who shared with me that while she had called friends “sluts” when she was in middle and high school, she now has reversed course. Nicole is a 29-year-old master’s degree student in the liberal studies program at the CUNY Graduate Center, concentrating in gender, women, and sexuality. Born in Chicago and raised in Greece, she is also a writer and former literary magazine editor.

I spoke with her to learn what changed her thinking.

Nicole Drakopoulos

Leora Tanenbaum: Can words that have negative associations be reclaimed in a positive way?

Nicole Drakopoulos: I’ve been thinking a lot about reclamation of the word “c*nt.” And even now saying it here, I hesitated. It's like, we've been trained to think it's a dirty word.

Tanenbaum: Even taking notes now, while I listen to you, I'm like, should I actually write out the word “c*nt” on my notepad?

Draokopoulos: I started to wonder why this word holds so much discomfort, and what that discomfort says about my body and sexuality, so I started to think that I wanted to reclaim this word as a way to celebrate women’s bodies and sexuality.

But then, after I read your book, I started thinking about reclamation of the word “slut” and wondering if either word—“c*nt” or “slut” —were words we could ever really successfully reclaim. And the answer is: For “slut,” I no longer think so.

There's something powerful about taking language and using it as your own. But it’s also incredible how quickly and how powerfully language can be weaponized, how it can lead to microaggressions and really cause harm. This is especially apparent with the internet, where information not only travels incredibly fast but also becomes recorded in a very public and permanent way.

Tanenbaum: Tell me about the way you and your friends used “slut” when you were growing up.

Draokopoulos: I grew up in Athens. I went to an English-speaking high school and oh my god, we used to use the word “slut” among us so much. I think we wanted to be subversive and edgy. I have memories of using this language probably beginning at age 11. I recently came across a yearbook from when I was 13, and there was a comment written by a boy that said, “Nicole, you have really big boobs, and you’re a super slut.” And I’m pretty sure that at that time, my thought was: Haha, that's funny.

But now, the meaning has completely changed for me. Looking back, I think that maybe I didn't realize how hurtful that was at the time. That kind of interaction had been ingrained as normal and as okay.

And I was an early developer. I remember the day I got my period for the first time. I was 11 and sitting in history class. I bled through my skirt. I was mortified but also confused about what was happening to my body. Immediately, I was seen as different from the rest of the girls in the group. Boys began to snap my bra, really to draw attention to the fact that I had to wear one. The way I thought about my existence in the world suddenly changed.

Tanenbaum: Your body became public. Your classmates began to look at your body and comment on it. And when we label someone a “slut,” we are essentially doing the same thing with language.

Draokopoulos: Years later, I had an incident when I was breaking up with a guy. He didn’t want to break up, and he used very harsh language against me. In the Greek language there is the word “poutana,” which is a very ugly word meaning “whore.” There is also “kariola,” which is being a slut and a c*nt. Men use these words against women very frequently.

Tanenbaum: What would you say if today someone called you a slut?

Draokopoulos: Around seven years ago, I overheard my brother on the phone talking to one of his friends, and he made a comment about “Tinder sluts.” And I said to him later, “I was wondering how you would feel if one of your friends called me a ‘Tinder slut?’ Because to me, it's hurtful language.”

And we got into a big fight. He was like, “It’s just locker-room talk!” And I said, “What you say in the locker room matters. What you say to your friends behind closed doors matters.” And he said, “I was just kidding around. Why do you need to get so aggressive with me?”

And then I was with my brother a few weeks ago. And one of his friends said something dismissively about “sluts,” and he was like, “You know what, I just don't think we should be using that language. I just don't think we should be talking about women that way.”

Tanenbaum: Nicole, that’s so great – you got him to recognize the power of words! You changed his thinking.

Draokopoulos: Apparently, I did get through!

Key takeaway: Be cautious when considering using “slut” or its synonyms in a positive or friendly manner. These words can become weapons.

Share Your Story

Have you ever been called a “slut,” “hoe,” or “thot” by someone with positive intentions? How did this language make you feel? Email me at leora@leoratanenbaum.com and let me know if I may quote you—anonymously—in a future issue of this newsletter.

What Else Is Happening

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The Desexualization of OnlyFans is Not Only Sex Workers’ Problem | The Globe and Mail | Meredith Ralston

This Book Is Feminist | Book | Jamia Wilson

Feminist Giant | Newsletter | Mona Eltahawy

Learn More

For information on slut-shaming, read I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet , and check out this list of examples in the news.

For information on dress-coding, visit @BeingDressCoded on Instagram .

Author photo: Jahsie Ault

Intoxicated Woman Assaulted: Who's Held Accountable?

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 14:47:46 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

Boys will be boys…and girls will be sluts.

September 13, 2021

Disapproval of Drinking Women: Q&A with Abigail Riemer

In 2019, the Manhattan district attorney’s office rejected 49 percent of sexual assault cases . Why were half the women dismissed as not credible? Because they had been drinking alcohol, and the attacker was not a stranger.

To try to make sense of drinking women’s perceived lack of credibility, I reached out to Abigail Riemer, PhD , a social psychologist at Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Dr. Riemer is the lead author of an important and fascinating 2018 article, “She Looks Like She’d Be an Animal in Bed: Dehumanization of Drinking Women in Social Contexts,” which demonstrates that people express more disapproval of intoxicated women than intoxicated men, and that women who drink are perceived to be less than human.

Abigail Riemer, PhD

Leora Tanenbaum: What is the focus of your work?

Abigail Riemer, PhD: I am a social psychologist, which means that I research how other people influence our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In my work, I examine the causes and consequences of sexual objectification. I’m interested in how women’s everyday subtle instances of objectification—things like catcalling, comments about one’s appearance, gazes at their sexualized body parts—change the ways they think about themselves and the ways they interact with others.

Tanenbaum: How does sexual objectification connect with sexual violence and slut-shaming?

Riemer: Sexual objectification can manifest in behaviors from the subtle to the extreme—ranging from thinking that a woman’s appearance can speak to her abilities and interests, to staring at a woman’s breasts while they’re talking, to unwanted sexual touching, to rape. Although these instances involve different behaviors, they all share the belief that women are not human, but rather are objects that exist for others’ consumption.

These thoughts lay the foundation for violence; objectified women, like objects, are perceived as capable of being owned and used as tools for others’ sexual goals. Of course, not all men (or women) sexually aggress against women, but these beliefs promote the idea that women exist for men’s sexual use.

Moreover, perceiving women as objects that exist for someone else’s consumption means that we think that women’s sexuality is owned by others—therefore, when women sexually express themselves, slut-shaming is one way in which people can remind women that their value is determined by how they appeal to men.

Tanenbaum: You show that women who drink—but not men—are perceived to violate gender norms. We have seen that this circumstance often leads to victims of sexual violence who had been drinking having their claims dismissed. And your work shows that this circumstance can increase their risk of sexual victimization in the first place. Could you tell us more about this connection?

Riemer: If we were to ask someone to picture someone drinking alcohol, they’d most likely imagine a man, so when a woman drinks, that goes against what we would expect. A woman who drinks is perceived as more willing to have casual sex, more willing to have a one-night stand, and more willing to engage in risky sex.

In my work, we found that because we perceive drinking women as less sexually inhibited, we perceive drinking women—but not drinking men—as more like animals and objects. We see these women as less human—less refined, lacking in self-restraint, and emotionally unresponsive.

Together, perceiving women as more interested in sex and less human sets the foundation for sexual aggression. After all, it is easier to aggress against an animal or an object than an actual human being.

Tanenbaum: Could your findings help disrupt acts of sexual aggression?

Riemer: In past work, we brought men into the lab to explore the connection between alcohol consumption and objectification perpetration. Men were randomly assigned to drink either an alcoholic beverage or a beverage that was prepared to mimic an alcoholic drink, and then we used a device to track their eyes as they viewed images of women in “going-out” attire. We asked the men, while viewing these images, to focus either on the women’s appearance or their personality.

Not surprisingly, when we asked men to focus on women’s appearance, they paid a lot of attention to the women’s bodies and less time to their faces. But, when we asked men who had been drinking to focus on the women’s personality, they spent less time looking at the women’s faces compared to men who were sober—suggesting that they were thinking less about their humanity and more about them as sexual objects.

We also manipulated attributes of the pictured women in terms of how attractive, warm, and competent they appeared. While the bodies of highly attractive women were looked at more than the faces of highly attractive women among all men, intoxicated men spent more time looking at the bodies and less time looking at the faces of women who were low in human attributes—warmth and competence. Because women’s attributes only related to objectification among drunk men, this provides support for the fact that perpetrators, and not targets of unwanted sexual attention, are solely responsible when an assault occurs.

Tanenbaum: Has anything in your research surprised you?

Riemer: Women objectify and dehumanize drinking women too. Perhaps this is because our culture deeply ingrains in us that women are objects meant to be observed and policed. So drinking women are perceived by everyone to lack credibility, which bolsters the myth that they were “asking for it.”

Key takeaway: Cultural attitudes about women, sex, and alcohol predispose us—regardless of our gender—to objectify, dehumanize, and slut-shame drinking women. If they are assaulted, we are primed to blame them and assume they were “asking for it.” We must interrupt this bias and not allow it to obstruct justice for assault victims.

Have you ever been judged harshly for drinking because of your gender? Have you ever judged anyone else for drinking because of their gender? Email me at leora@leoratanenbaum.com and let me know if I may quote you—anonymously—in a future issue of this newsletter.

This Bartram Trail High School yearbook photo of student Riley O’Keefe was doctored without her consent.

Share Your Story

Have you been slut-shamed? Dress-coded? If you want to sort out what happened, or you want to consider publicizing your story to raise awareness, please email me at leora@leoratanenbaum.com . I will reach out to you for further discussion. I will not share your story with anyone without your consent.

What Else Is Happening

Five Dos and Don’ts When Revising School Dress Codes | Ms. | Leora Tanenbaum

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue’s Models are Diverse. Their Poses are Not. | The Washington Post | Kate Cohen

How to Counter Penis Politics: What It’s Like to Work for Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio | Daily News | Karen Hinton

Smarter in Seconds | Blair Imani

Learn More

For information on slut-shaming, read I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet , and check out this list of examples in the news.

For information on dress-coding, visit @BeingDressCoded on Instagram .

Author photo: Jahsie Ault

Five Dos and Don’ts When Revising School Dress Codes

Sat, 14 Aug 2021 08:17:04 GMT

Remember the Florida high school that doctored girls’ yearbook photos by covering their chests without their consent? Here’s an update.

Student Riley O’Keefe has been a brave, vocal opponent of her school’s dress code and yearbook fiasco.

Ms., August 11, 2021

The Florida school district that d octored yearbook photos of girls without consent last spring by covering their cleavage has pledged to do better. The St. Johns County School Board announced last week that they have revised their dress code . Now, students of any gender are permitted to bare their shoulders, and their shorts, skirts and dresses can hit mid-thigh.

While Bartram Trail High School was widely ridiculed for altering the yearbook photos of girls but not boys, controversy had been brewing for some time because of the district’s gendered dress code. At the mandatory monthly Dress for Success Day , in which students are graded, girls have to follow far more guidelines than boys. The U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation into a complaint that the code and its enforcement discriminate against girls.

Other school districts should pay attention to the process underway at the St. Johns County School Board and learn from their successes and failures. In particular, districts should keep in mind these five suggestions.

Continue reading at Ms .

When Is a Compliment Actually Sexual Harassment?

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 14:49:49 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

Boys will be boys…and girls will be sluts.

July 21, 2021

When a Compliment Makes You Feel Unsafe

The words “You’re so pretty” can be a compliment—an expression of appreciation or praise. And sometimes, they are. But depending on the context, they alternately can be experienced as an act of harassment—an expression of power, intimidation, and violation—that presumes women are nothing more than sexual objects.

Deja Williams is a student at California State University, Long Beach. She is currently majoring in human development, with a minor in child development, with the hope of one day becoming a child therapist. Her biggest passion in life is knowledge, she tells me. “Knowledge is one of the most important aspects of life; there is always a learning moment to expand your understanding of the ever-changing world around us.”

I asked Deja to share her story of discovering that what may sound like a compliment can cloak its true nature: objectification and slut-shaming.

Leora Tanenbaum: How can a compliment be an act of sexual harassment?

Deja Williams: I fit the profile for the person typically harassed, meaning I am familiar with this type of harassment. I am a woman who is nineteen years old with an ethnic background in the Black and Latin communities. I have also always been really shy and anxious. When experiencing compliments from men in public, my impulse has always been to be polite and say, “Thank you.” I did not realize until recently that I have been placing myself in a position of being uncomfortable for the sake of not hurting a stranger's feelings.

For example, when I was younger—beginning even before I was in middle school—men who were twice my age, old enough to be my dad, would tell me I was beautiful. I would tell myself, “Even though this makes me uncomfortable, it’s just a compliment.” But I know now that it is not normal for grown men to compliment girls in this way.

The compliments never felt friendly. I experienced these “compliments” as if I were a grown woman they were trying to pursue. I did not feel safe around these men.

Deja Williams

Tanenbaum: How do you experience so-called compliments now?

Williams: I work in a store that is frequented by customers shopping for home essentials. I have noticed that male customers tend to “compliment” me when I am in isolated parts of the store. When I utter my rehearsed “thank you,” there have been many incidents where these male customers have proceeded to stand closer and ask personal questions, begin to make inappropriate jokes, or compliment me past the line of acceptable flattery. These are daily harassments I face going to work.

Tanenbaum: You have been describing in-person interactions. Is your experience any different when you’re online?

Williams: These experiences follow me online when I sign into my social media accounts. A comment or direct message of “You are pretty” can escalate to uncomfortable attention. I have experienced online aggression when I decide I do not want to continue a conversation, often leading to angry messages from men calling me a “slut” or “bitch” for not responding to their messages.

Tanenbaum: What do you say to people who protest that they are “just trying to give a compliment”?

Williams: They may claim they’re only trying to be nice, but their creepy actions say otherwise. A so-called compliment should not make the other person uncomfortable or feel unsafe.

Tanenbaum: What do you say to people who experience these acts of harassment?

Williams: Many women have experienced what I have. We should not feel obligated to be polite. We should not feel that we are the problem. We need to call out the people who harass us, because in fact they are the problem.

Tanenbaum: If someone wants to give a girl or woman a compliment, how should they do it?

Williams : First and foremost, I would recommend always respecting a person's space. It can be intimidating when a stranger stands very close. A simple and friendly compliment is always the best choice, but if the other person’s body language indicates they seem uncomfortable, then it is best to not try to continue that conversation. It is also important to realize that catcalling is never a compliment, as this can cause immediate feelings of being unsafe.

Key takeaway: Think before you speak—and if there is any chance that your words may cause discomfort, don’t say them.

Best Books on Being a Young Woman in the US

USA Today asked me about the gendered double standard held by fans who criticize women celebrities such as Christina Haack, Jennifer Lopez, Megan Fox, and Miley Cyrus who date again after a breakup—while applauding their ex-boyfriends who do the same. I said, “Many people believe that women who are ‘too sexual’ are deviating from their stereotypical gender role, and we have to remember that this is incorrect and binary thinking.”

I also noted that judgmental behavior can fuel hateful actions, adding, “If it’s socially acceptable to police, judge, and malign a woman for being ‘too sexual’ or moving on ‘too fast,’ then that can become a justification for mistreating women, whether it be in the form of sexual harassment or assault.”

In last month’s Leora Letter, I addressed the fact that you’re never too young, or too old, to be slut-shamed.

Share Your Story. Learn More.

For more information on slut-shaming, read I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet, and check out the list of examples in the news.

For more information on dress-coding, visit @BeingDressCoded on Instagram.

Author photo: Jahsie Ault

Best Books on Being a Young Woman in the USA

Sun, 04 Jul 2021 18:25:40 GMT

I was asked by Shepherd.com to select five of my favorite books on being a young woman in the US. The works I recommend are aching, powerful, and unforgettable.

Looking for a book, fiction or memoir, that captures the experiences of self-identified girls and young women in the US? I was asked by Sh epherd. com to select five of my favorites. The works I recommend here are aching, powerful, and unforgettable.

I share the five books I selected, and why, on Shepherd.com.

Hint: This book is one of my suggestions.

Slut-Shamed at Any Age

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 15:10:49 GMT

THE LEORA LETTER

Newsletter on Slut-Shaming

Boys will be boys…and girls will be sluts.

June 23, 2021

Photo: Jahsie Ault

Dress-Coding: A Common Form of Slut-Shaming

Dress-coding is the act of censuring a girl or woman for being dressed in clothing deemed a “distraction” to other people, especially boys and men. Schools are a hotbed of dress-coding, and Black girls are dress-coded in schools more often than White girls. You can find examples of dress-coding—in and out of schools—in my Instagram project, BeingDressCoded .

Something is seriously wrong when it’s become commonplace to hear about a five-year-old in Minnesota , wearing a sundress, being told by the school nurse to “cover her body,” and a 16-year-old in Nevada who wore a shirt exposing her shoulders, and whose teacher called two police officers to escort her to the school office, where she was forced to sit and miss class.

In Ms. earlier this month, I gave gendered school dress codes an F.

Dress-coding does not disappear as we get older. Last month, USA Today asked me about Jill Biden, 69, and Diane Keaton, 75, being criticized for dressing “inappropriately” for their ages. (Biden had worn patterned tights, and Keaton had worn thigh-high boots. Believe it or not, these choices were criticized around the world.)

Slut-shaming and dress-coding just morph into a different form and intersect with ageism. "When you're younger,” I told reporter Sara Moniuszko, “the pressure is to look sexy, to look hot... As you get older, and you age out of those pressures and expectations, you're still supposed to conform to a very narrow set of rules and guidelines that are never really spelled out.”

“Jill Biden and Diane Keaton should rock their looks, and they should just own it: This is who I am. This is what I decided to put on this morning. This is what I look like. Deal with it.”

Key takeaway: You’re never too young, or too old, to be slut-shamed.

ICYMI

The New Yorker recently gave me a shout-out. I am honored to be cited along with legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw.

The “cheugy” label—describing someone who is off-trend or trying too hard—often is playful, but as I said to USA Today , it “can sting most severely for a woman because first we are judged on the basis of our appearance.”

Head Over Heels

During lockdown, I wore Birkenstocks every day. They are so comfortable! But now that I’m commuting to my office several times a week, I’ve started to wear “real” shoes again. If you’re in the same situation, remember to take care of your feet. It’s fine to wear heels on occasion, but make sure they fit properly, and switch to supportive shoes when you need to walk more than a few blocks.

As I wrote in Bad Shoes & The Women Who Love Them , “Choose your shoes wisely; don’t let ill-fitting shoes cut off the circulation of blood to your brain.”

For more information on slut-shaming, read I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet.

Gendered School Dress Codes Get an F. Here’s What Schools Should Do Instead

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 18:31:26 GMT

Strict, gendered dress codes do not reduce sexual harassment and assault against girls and young women. Instead, let students have autonomy over their appearance.

A school official digitally raised dozens of girls’ necklines after deeming the students’ tops—which consisted mostly of v-neck T-shirts—immodest. ( News4JAX — YouTube )

Ms., June 15, 2021

With so many schools disciplining girls for their clothing —and now a Florida high school editing out images of cleavage in its yearbook —it’s clear that administrators are stuck in an unhelpful and even harmful mindset and need a fresh perspective.

I’ve been tracking slut-shaming in schools for 25 years. I’m not against school dress codes, and I don’t believe that students should be permitted to wear anything they want. But something is seriously wrong when it’s become commonplace to hear about a 5-year-old in Minnesota , wearing a sundress, being told by the school nurse to “cover her body,” and a 16-year-old in Nevada who wore a shirt exposing her shoulders, and whose teacher called two police officers to escort her to the school office, where she was forced to sit and miss class.

And last month, the news broke that Bartram Trail High School in St. Johns County, Florida, doctored at least 80 photos of girls in the school yearbook; none of the photos of boys were altered, including one with boys on the swim team wearing Speedo bathing suits.

Continue reading at M s .

Read these examples of slut-shaming.

Wed, 12 May 2021 15:22:36 GMT

These events really happened.

3/27/26: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disparages Lloyd J. Austin, defense secretary in the Biden administration, who is a former four-star Army general and the first African American to serve as defense secretary. Referencing women and people of color, Hegseth said in his 2024 book that many of the senior officers who rose up during Austin’s tenure were “whores to wokesters.”

2/8/26: Soon-Yi Previn, wife of Woody Allen and adopted daughter of Allen’s former girlfriend Mia Farrow, emailed Jeffrey Epstein in 2016. She shared an article about former US Representative Anthony Weiner, who had sent sexual material to a minor. Previn wrote that it was "disgusting what the 15-year-old” with whom Weiner sent sexually explicit photos of himself “did to him." "I hate women who take advantage of guys and she is definitely one of them. She knew exactly what she was doing and how vulnerable Wiener was and she reeled him in like fish to bait," she told Epstein of the 15-year-old.

1/27/26: Former real estate kingpins Oren and Tal Alexander, along with their brother, Alon Alexander, have been charged with sexually assaulting dozens of women , in some cases after drugging them, including at least two who were under-age, and sex-trafficking. The brothers, claiming their accusers consented to sex and are seeking revenge after being rejected, created a website intended to shame and discredit the women . The website revealed the women’s names and photos.

12/18/25: Kristin Cabot was caught on camera with her boss at a concert, and the video went viral. Both were married but separated. She was doxxed and received 500 or 600 calls a day, including death threats. The New York Times reports that she’s been called “a slut, a homewrecker, a gold digger, a side piece … Her appearance has been scrutinized, specific body parts evaluated and found insufficiently pretty.” And her boss? Cornell professor Brooke Duffy notes that while Andy Byron was also “pursued by paparazzi and dragged through the comments … where did the criticism fall? It fell on her.”

12/4/25: At an outdoor concert venue in Mississippi, evangelical Christians use bullhorns to publicly call concert fans “whores” and “Jezebels” and carry banners with anti-abortion images. A city ordinance restricted these street preachers so that they may not stand close to the venue. The Supreme Court is considering finding a path to block enforcement of this law after one street preacher sued, saying his religious rights are infringed.

11/15/25: A US Army gynecologist, Blaine McGraw. took secret videos of dozens of patients during intimate exams, and he was allowed to continue practicing medicine even though the Army had received numerous sexual misconduct complaints. One plaintiff testified that during a routine breast exam, he told her, “Your surgeon did a great job — your breasts look great!” Complaints about him touching and commenting on patient's bodies were laughed off by Army leadership.

9/15/25: Employees at an Oklahoma treatment center systematically abused the patients, adults with developmental disabilities; many victims had the mental capacities of young children and were utterly powerless, according to an exposé in The New York Times . When one employee, Apera Tobiason, reported the abuse to a local detective, colleagues smeared her by putting up fliers around town with her photo and phone number, advertising her for sex work. When she told her supervisor, he blamed her for provoking the harassment.

8/10/25: Congressman Cory Mills (FL, Republican) is accused of threatening to release sexually explicit videos of his ex-girlfriend. This action, known as “revenge porn,” is a form of abuse. Because of our culture of slut-shaming, women whose nude or explicit images are shared without their consent are targets of physical violence as well as emotional harm.

7/20/25: A pregnant woman in Tennessee was denied prenatal health care because her physician objected to the fact that she wasn't married. The 2025 Medical Ethics Defense Act allows physicians to deny care to patients whose "lifestyles" they disagree with.

7/18/25: A Chinese university expelled a woman for "improper conduct" with a foreigner and published her name, saying she had "damaged national dignity" after a Ukrainian man shared video footage that suggested they had been intimate together.

7/4/25: Leigh Corfman is one of the multiple women who have accused Roy Moore, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, of sexual misconduct when they were minors. She was 14 and he was 33 when he pursued her sexually. In court, Moore's lawyer described her as a "whore" and "liar" and argued that putting your hand in an underage-girl's bra was not a big deal. Donald Trump endorsed Moore when he was the Republican Party nominee for US Senate in 2017, even though the allegations of sexual misconduct against Moore were known at that time.

5/16/25: In the sex trafficking case against Sean “Diddy” Combs, his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura has testified that Combs threatened multiple times to post online videos he had made of their sexual encounters and “freak-offs,” or days-long sexual performances involving sex workers and drugs, that he had recorded. He made it clear, she testified, that his intention would be to damage her reputation as punishment if she didn’t comply with his wishes. As a result, she felt “trapped,” she told the court.

4/3/25: A random 19-year-old student at Ole Miss, or University of Mississippi, has been the victim of a bizarre, false, and cruel rumor that spread so far and wide it actually was repeated on ESPN and Twitter (X). She has been viciously harassed with her phone number published and thousands texting her that she is a whore and a slut and should kill herself. She’s had to drop out of in-person classes and move into emergency housing.

1/29/25: Pharmacy student Kimberly Diei was expelled from the University of Tennessee because, she was told, her social media posts, which included photos of her wearing tight, cleavage-baring dresses and sexualized rap lyrics, were “vulgar” and “crude.” Diei settled with the university after suing for violation of her right to freedom of speech.

1/22/25: Political commentator Megyn Kelly called Jeff Bezos's partner Lauren Sánchez a "hooker" because of the revealing outfit Sánchez wore to the Trump presidential inauguration.

11/12/24: Trump advisor Mike Davis addressed New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a lawsuit against the Trump Organization for fraud. Davis said , “Listen here, sweetheart. We will put your fat ass in prison for conspiracy against rights, I promise you that.” Had the attorney general been a man, Davis never would have spoken about her and her body in this manner.

10/28/24: T-shirts calling Vice President Kamala Harris a "hoe" are best-sellers at Trump rallies. The Washington Post reports that parents are even buying "Say No to the Hoe" shirts for their teenage children. "They love it," one vendor said about Trump's supporters. "I can't keep up with the count."

9/25/24: North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, once described abortion as "killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down." It's worth noting that his wife has had an abortion ,

9/24/25: Hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was charged in a federal court with running a “criminal enterprise” that included sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy . Among other acts of horrific abuse, Combs is accused of coercing victims to appear in sexually explicit videos, which he then used as leverage to keep his victims from coming forward. In a culture of slut-shaming, these victims knew that their accusations against Combs would not be considered credible if they were identified in sexually explicit videos.

9/16/24: North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, criticized young women's access to birth control. He waved his hand near his groin, saying that young women need to "get this under control."

8/28/24: Donald Trump reposted on social media a crude remark about Vice President Kamala Harris suggesting she traded sexual favors to help her political career.

8/26/24: Singer Chappell Roan asked her fans to “Please stop touching me.” On Instagram , she added, “Just to let you know, every woman is feeling or has felt similar to what I’m experiencing.” Some fans reacted by posting videos with comments like “We made you” and “It’s the cost of being famous.” To be clear, celebrities—like everyone—deserve to not be touched or sexualized against their will.

7/20/24: Republican Minnesota State Sen. Calvin Bahr (R-East Bethel) blamed women for being pregnant against their will. He said at a March fundraiser , "If you're going to party, you got to pay the consequences."

7/18/24: A Florida mom was chastised for posting a photo of her one-year-old daughter wearing a Minnie Mouse dress that exposed the child's back. People told her to cover up her baby girl and to dress her "properly."

6/21/24: Trump prosecutor Fani Willis indicted the former president and 18 of his allies for illegally attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. In response, Trump has mocked Willis' name—properly pronounced FAHN-ee—by intentionally mispronouncing it "fanny, like your ass." Co-defendant and former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani called Willis a "hoe" and, like Trump, boasted about intentionally mispronouncing her name.

5/10/24: In the documentary about Stormy Daniels, she shares some of the messages she has received from random people: "Stormy, you're a lying slag." "Whore you will die and be forgotten." "You're nothing but a fat hillbilly. Trump would never touch you. Stop lying before I'm forced to shut you up myself." "You're going to die, bitch."

4/5/24: When Brenda Andrew was on trial for murdering her husband, a prosecutor showed the jury the thong underwear she packed for a trip a few days after her husband was killed. As one judge said, the display of her underwear had “no purpose other than to hammer home that Brenda Andrew is a bad wife, a bad mother, and a bad woman.” Wrote another judge, "The state focused from start to finish on Ms. Andrew’s sex life, [portraying her] as a scarlet woman, a modern Jezebel, sparking distrust based on her loose morals. The drumbeat on Ms. Andrew’s sex life continued in closing argument, plucking away any realistic chance that the jury would seriously consider her version of events.”

2/5/24: Fake sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift created by artificial intelligence (“deepfakes”) were circulated on social media without her consent. Some of the images on Twitter alone were viewed by 27 million people . Distributing sexually explicit content without consent is a form of sexual abuse. That the content in this case was fabricated shows that every single woman is at risk of being slut-shamed.

10/5/23: A Barstool Sports podcast host said on his show that he needed to see a sexually explicit tape of singer Taylor Swift with Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce, an offensive and harmful comment in light of the fact that many women celebrities have had their private images stolen and distributed without their consent.

10/3/23: Donald Trump mocked the law clerk of the New York judge presiding over his real estate fraud trial, falsely claiming on his social media platform that she was Senator Chuck Schumer's "girlfriend" and that the case against him should be dismissed. In other words, he suggested that the law clerk working on the case against him is a slut, and therefore her work is not valid.

9/18/23: A Delaware high school girl of color's breast was accidentally exposed when a teacher broke up a fight. The bare breast was seen on the school's security footage. The principal distributed this video clip, and a faculty member turned it into a meme and shared it widely . People, this is a horrifying example of the way girls, especially girls of color, often are seen as objects and reduced to their body parts rather than seen as human beings.

8/17/23: The New Jersey Supreme Court sided with a Catholic school that fired an unmarried pregnant teacher. The school justified the firing because the teacher had violated the school's code of ethics by having nonmarital sex. The school's code is implemented only against women.

8/8/23: Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, resigned in 2021 after a dozen women accused him of sexual harassment. Supporters of the governor publicly trashed the accusers, with Andrew's sister Madeline Cuomo saying about Charlotte Bennett’s Instagram photos: “No respectable woman would EVER pose like that.” One supporter of the governor defended Bennett: “ Even a slut has right to not be sexually harassed.”

8/2/23: Noelle Dunphy says in a sexual harassment lawsuit that her former boss, Rudy Giuliani, raped and abused her. In transcripts of audio recordings, the former mayor of New York City and co-conspirator to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election said to Dunphy, “I want to claim my tits…. my bitch … my whore … my fucking slut.” Giuliani has responded to the allegations by accusing her of being “an escort that fleeces wealthy men.”

7/16/23: Five women were murdered, and it took 16 years for the police to identify the serial killer. Why did it take so long ? Because the victims had been sex workers, and therefore the police did not take the case seriously.

7/7/23: Actor Keke Palmer was publicly called out by her boyfriend. Was it because she wore a bodysuit beneath a sheer dress? Not exactly. It was because she wore a bodysuit beneath a sheer dress as a mom.

5/12/23: "What kind of a woman meets somebody and brings them up and within minutes, you're playing hanky panky in a dressing room?" asked Donald Trump of E. Jean Carroll after a federal jury found that he had sexually abused her in the 1990s and then harmed her reputation. Even after being ordered to pay $5 million in damages, Trump continues to discredit Carroll and suggest that she is a slut.

5/1/23: An attorney for Donald Trump asked E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of raping her, why she didn't scream. The subtext of his question was that because she did not scream, she had consented--she was a loose woman, a slut, not a victim of violent rape.

4/11/23: A 14-year-old was missing from her home in Sydney. People said that she wore too much makeup . This is textbook slut-shaming—saying she deserves what happened to her because she did something wrong.

4/2/23: Why is Stormy Daniels, the women who says she had a sexual relationship with Donald Trump soon after he married his third wife, identified in news outlets as a "porn star"? Her profession is not relevant to her claim nor to the charge against Trump that he bought her silence just before the 2016 presidential election. Calling her a "porn star" suggests that she is not a credible person. Even The New York Times refers to her in this manner.

2/19/23: Former Canada news anchor Lisa LaFlamme, dismissed from her job after she let her hair go gray during the pandemic, recalls a typical incident when she worked as a reporter. "How is anybody going to take you seriously in that?" a male colleague said to her. LaFlamme was wearing "just a classic navy blue suit, the skirt went below the knee, nothing, nothing, nothing sexy whatsoever."

2/3/23: Florida athletes may soon be required to submit their menstrual history to schools. The motivation of this regulation is to stigmatize trans athletes. If enacted, this invasive requirement would also call out sexually active students.

1/30/23: The religious leader of the Satmar Hasidic Jewish sect visited a convicted sexual abuser in prison. Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, known as the “Grand Rebbe,” called the 12-year-old victim, who says she was raped repeatedly, a “zonah” or whore.

12/2/22: Harvey Weinstein's attorneys described Jennifer Siebel Newsom (wife of California governor Gavin Newsom), who has accused the Hollywood mogul of raping her, as “just another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood” and tried to make her fake an orgasm during her testimony.

11/25/22: A seven-year-old was denied lunch because she violated her Tennessee school’s dress code by wearing a shirt with spaghetti straps.

9/16/22: Eric Adams, now mayor of New York City, discredited a woman police officer whistleblower by circulating a photo of her in a bikini back in 1991. Adams has since apologized.

8/20/22: Seven famous women were shamed for their nudes —even when they were taken privately and shared without their consent—while six famous men “were treated like kings,” as noted by BuzzFeed.

8/7/22: Decades after her relationship with Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky continues to be slut-shamed with relentless sexist jokes.

7/21/22: Cassidy Hutchinson and Alyssa Farrah Griffin, who testified about Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, were called “thots and hoes” by their former Trump White House colleague Garrett Ziegler.

7/10/22: A 13-year-old London girl was pressured into sending nude selfies with older boys, who then shared them with students at her school. The girl was punished —she had to write an essay about what she had done wrong—while the boys were not. The girl later attempted suicide.

4/26/22: The British tabloid The Mail reported a claim by an anonymous Conservative lawmaker that Labour Party leader Angela Rayner tried to distract Prime Minister Boris Johnson by crossing and uncrossing her legs, and that she had been working class and a young single mother— suggesting the British lawmaker, a formidable debater, is sexually promiscuous. Only 35 percent of lawmakers elected to the House of Commons and 28 percent of the House of Lords are women.

4/10/22: A West Virginia middle school principal told the girls that if they are sexually assaulted while breaking the school dress code, they are to blame and shouldn’t even bother reporting the assault.

1/14/22: An Illinois judge overturned his own conviction of an 18-year-old rapist, saying that the assault was not the fault of the perpetrator but that of the victim , who had been intoxicated.

1/13/22: Facebook rejects ads for products that increase women’s sexual pleasure but permits ads for products that increase men’s sexual pleasure.

12/30/21: BBC News invited Alan Dershowitz—accused of having raped Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell victim Virginia Giuffre, whom he has called a “prostitute” —to comment on Maxwell’s conviction of sex trafficking . He proceeded to trash Giuffre’s credibility,

11/26/21: Corporal Anne Vassas of the US Marines, age 20, was disciplined after another Marine sexually assaulted her in 2018. A military investigator believed she was lying about the incident “to get out of trouble for being in the wrong barracks.” Corporal Vassas became depressed and anxious; several months later, she committed suicide.

11/22/21: The New York Times documentary on Justin Timberlake’s exposure of Janet Jackson’s breast at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show demonstrates that Timberlake's career soared after the incident, while Jackson was deserted by every mainstream company she had been working with. Jackson, who is Black, was portrayed as a manipulative woman who used sexuality for her own economic gain.

11/12/21: In response to the allegation by model Emily Ratajkowski that he sexually assaulted her and published images of her without her consent, photographer Jonathan Leder said, “This is the girl that was naked in Treats magazine and bounced around naked in the Robin Thicke video at that time. You really want someone to believe she’s a victim? ”

11/10/21: Half the sexual assault cases brought to the Manhattan district attorney in 2019 were dismissed as not credible because the women had been drinking alcohol. Social psychologist Abigail Riemer has demonstrated that intoxicated women are dehumanized, objectified, and presumed to be slutty .

10/24/21: A 17-year-old Alabama high school student, Grace Brumfield, wore a short black dress to her school’s homecoming dance, where she “made so many great memories, and the environment was just out-of-this-world amazing.” But after her boyfriend’s mother posted photos of her son and Grace on a Facebook group, people wrote comments such as, “ Girls wonder why they get raped . Don’t dress like you are asking for it.”

8/17/21: An attorney for Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer aggressively cross-examined the woman he assaulted and choked to unconsciousness , minimizing the brutality of the attack and suggesting that she consented to being physically harmed. The attorney also asked her about previous sexual relationships , which are completely irrelevant.

8/10/21: Tiger Woods is known as one of the greatest golfers of all time and among the most famous athletes in history—who also had a number of extramarital affairs. Meanwhile, Rachel Uchitel, one of the women with whom he had a relationship, is called a “tramp” and a “hooker ,” on no less than “The View” by Joy Behar.

7/19/21: Women celebrities, such as Megan Fox, Jennifer Lopez, and Miley Cyrus, are often criticized for moving on "too quickly" after a break-up, while the men they had partnered with are praised for dating again.

6/30/21: A Catholic school art teacher was fired because she was pregnant and unmarried —in violation of the school’s morals code—even though the school did not fire any men on staff who had sex outside of marriage.

5/14/21: Slut-shaming and dress-coding don't disappear as we get older. As I told USA Today , they just morph into a different form and intersect with ageism.

3/1/21: Sparked by the documentary Framing Britney, many are now questioning the way that 20 years ago, teenage girl and young women celebrities—Lindsey Lohan, Jessica Simpson, Spears, and others—had been sexualized in ways that we now recognize are unacceptable and, frankly, disgusting.

2/5/21: The University of Tennessee expelled PhD student Kimberly Diei for posting photos of herself on social media that the university judged as "vulgar" and "crude." Diei, who is Black, wore low-cut tops and consciously expressed a message of empowerment for Black women.

8/16/20: Eric Trump, son of Donald Trump, liked a tweet that called Kamala Harris a "whorendous pick."

7/17/20: Over a dozen women who worked for the Washington Redskins say they were told by their managers to wear tight dresses with clients, had their bodies grabbed, and were sexually propositioned on the job on a routine basis.

2/21/20: The lead lawyer defending Harvey Weinstein, the film producer on trial for rape, blames sexual assault victims for having been targeted. When asked if she had ever been sexually assaulted herself, Donna Rotunno replied, "I have not. Because I would never put myself in that position ."

1/16/20: Michigan state legislator Peter J. Lucido told reporter Allison Donahue that she should "hang around" with teenage boys visiting the Michigan Senate because they could "have a lot of fun with you."

12/15/19: Liu Jingyao, a student at the University of Minnesota, accused Chinese tech billionaire Liu Qiangdong--founder of one of China's largest companies--of raping her. He claims that the sex was consensual, and she has now become known throughout the Chinese internet --with 800 million users--as a slut, whore, liar, and gold-digger.

12/6/19: The Miss World and Miss World America beauty competitions require contestants to be unmarried and childless.

12/4/19: The rapper T.I. claims that he has a gynecologist check his daughter's hymen annually, an appalling and invasive act with no medical justification known colloquially as a "virginity test." Many people mistakenly believe that the presence of the hymen indicates a girl or woman has never had vaginal sexual intercourse and therefore is a virgin and sexually innocent.

11/4/19: After a conservative website published private nude photos of Rep. Katie Hill (D-California), leading her to resign, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi implicitly blamed Hill for being targeted . "It goes to show you," Pelosi said, "we should say to young candidates, and to kids in kindergarten really, be careful when transmitting photos." Pelosi did not refer to Hill's deeply problematic affair with a staff person but rather to the fact that she had taken nude photos of herself. Shouldn't we say instead, "Don't forward or publicize others' private photos"?

8/27/19: A 16-year-old student at Fayette County High School in Georgia told the school she was sexually assaulted by a male classmate, who forced her to perform oral sex. The school expelled her for " sexual impropriety ."

7/3/19: A New Jersey family court judge said that when a 16-year-old boy sexually assaulted an intoxicated 16-year-old girl, filming the act and sharing it with his friends, it was not an act of rape because the boy came from a "good family," attended an "excellent school," and had "good grades." Another New Jersey judge in a separate rape case asked whether rape of a 12-year-old girl constituted serious harm.

5/29/19: Women at Louisiana College are turning themselves into a "crack house" for having multiple sex partners, declared a dean during a public sermon at a required chapel service for students. Dean Joshua Dara of the Baptist college also encouraged women to "mow your lawn" in a reference to their pubic hair.

5/15/19: The Harvard Lampoon published a sexualized image of Anne Frank, superimposing her face on the body of a woman in a bikini.

5/14/19: A new study in the journal Sex Roles shows that both women and men believe that a woman drinking alcohol in a social setting is more "sexually available"and "less human" than a man drinking alcohol.

4/4/19: A New Jersey Superior Court judge asked a sexual assault victim if she had tried closing her legs to prevent being raped.

4/3/19: A Long Island math teacher was fired over a topless selfie she had sent only to a colleague she had dated but that a student obtained.

3/10/19: Girls at a North Carolina school district were not allowed to wear pants to their high school graduation; they had to wear a dress. Now, thanks to senior Lacey Henry in Fayetteville, who launched a Change.org petition, the district will allow all students the option to wear pants. The old dress code was problematic because it implicitly sexualized girls' bodies.

2/20/19: Hasana Alidu, 16, wore a shirt that showed her shoulders—a violation of the dress code at her Nevada school. A teacher called over 2 school police officers, who escorted her to the office. Hasana was forced to miss Spanish class & sit in the office for an in-school suspension.

2/14/19: While boarding a flight with Jetstar Australia, a flight attendant told Shoshana Strykert that her outfit—a cropped top and loose-fitting pants—was "inappropriate" and that she needed to cover her body. In a public letter to Jetstar, Strykert wrote she was "embarrassed and shocked" for being "slut-shamed," and that "everybody on the plane was looking at me."

2/8/19: Civics teacher Dina Persico was told by administrators at her Virginia school that her appearance was too masculine and that if she would "just throw on a skirt once in a while, we wouldn't have any of these problems." Persico's story shows that it makes no difference if a woman's outfit is considered too revealing or not revealing enough. Her body is monitored no matter what she wears.

2/3/19: Samantha Wilson, 13, was dress-coded and reprimanded by her assistant principal for wearing a sweater that slid down her shoulder, exposing her bra strap. The assistant principal told Samantha her outfit was "inappropriate" and that it was "a distraction to the boys."

1/14/19: An image that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) supposedly took of herself nude was circulated on social media and published on the right-wing site The Daily Caller. Turns out the photo was not of Ocasio-Cortez, but even if it had been, circulation of the image was intended to discredit her. The implication was that Ocasio-Cortez is not competent or serious if she is sexual.

12/4/18: It's possible to recognize an accomplished woman without sexualizing her. Yet Norwegian soccer player Ada Hegerberg, winning a prestigious honor, was asked if she knew how to twerk. In essence, she was reduced to her sexuality.

12/3/18: Egyptian actress Rania Youssef is facing charges of "inciting debauchery" because she wore a dress that revealed her legs through semitransparent fabric at the Cairo International Film Festival. She has apologized—she faces a five-year prison sentence if convicted—for doing something requiring no apology.

11/15/18: In the trial of a 27-year-old Irish man accused of raping a 17-year-old woman he met at a club, his attorney told jurors to consider that the woman may be lying because she had worn “a thong with a lace front,” indicating that she may have been “attracted to the defendant.” The jury found the man not guilty. Supporters of the woman have shared photos of their underwear on social media with the hashtag #ThisIsNotConsent.

10/8/18: Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation demonstrates the triumph of sexism, male sexual entitlement, and the sexual double standard. Three women who came forward at great personal risk to educate the Senate and public about young Kavanaugh’s sexual assaults on girls and women have been publicly mocked and dismissed as sexual aggressors. The woman who was the subject of sexual jokes by Kavanaugh and his friends in their high school yearbook has had her sexual history scrutinized. This is what a culture of slut-shaming and rape looks like.

10/3/18: Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, released a video stating that Western women who have been sexually assaulted are to blame for their victimization because they don’t cover their hair with hijab.

9/14/18: An Australian member of Parliament, Emma Husar, was publicly accused by a former staff member of exposing her genitals to another colleague while his young child was present. Unable to stop rumors about her sexual behavior, Husar dropped out of her re-election campaign. An investigation found the allegation completely unfounded. Another Australian politician, Sarah Hanson-Young, similarly has seen her professional reputation devastated after being reduced to her sexuality. During a debate on how to stop violence against women, a male colleague called out, “Stop shagging men, Sarah.” She is suing him for defamation, but even if she prevails, she will always be associated with the sexual accusation.

8/28/18: An anonymous website, “Rachel Hundley Exposed,” attacked city council member Rachel Hundley from Sonoma, California, who is running for re-election. The site included photographs of her in a bra and underwear (taken from her social media accounts). Women who run for public office are routinely undermined through sexualization; men who run for public office are not.

8/26/18: Stormy Daniels, maligned as a “slut,” has been the one person powerful enough to shine a spotlight on the president’s corruption.

8/24/18: Rudy Giuliani, one of the president’s lawyers, said, "I don’t respect a porn star the way I respect a career woman, or a woman of substance, or a woman who has great respect for herself as a woman, and as a person."

7/22/18: Emelia Holden, 21, was groped by a customer at the pizzeria where she is a server in Savannah, Ga., and responded by yanking him by his shirt and slamming him to the ground. The customer was arrested and charged with sexual battery. After The New York Times covered the incident, captured by a surveillance camera and viewed more than four million times, several commenters suggested that Holden had invited the assault because of the way she was dressed.

6/10/18: New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd slut-shamed Monica Lewinsky, describing her as a sexual aggressor while depicting Bill Clinton as a merely passive participant in their affair: “When Monica Lewinsky came into the Oval Office and flashed her thong, Bill Clinton should have said, “Young lady, go back to your office. I am the president of the United States.”

6/1/18: The NFL hires "cheerleader ambassadors" whose sole job is to wear sexually provocative outfits and mingle with male fans, not perform the tasks of real cheerleaders. Six former "ambassadors" told The New York Times that the job involves routinely being grabbed without consent by drunk men.

5/31/18: On her television show, entertainer Samantha Bee called Ivanka Trump a "c**nt" and advised her to "put on something tight and low-cut" to talk to her father about his mistreatment of migrant children. Ivanka Trump's sexuality has nothing to do with her father's harmful treatment of immigrants.

5/3/18: Cheerleaders for the Washington Redskins were brought to Costa Rica in 2013 for a calendar photo shoot. The N.F.L. team's officials required some women to be photographed topless and others nude, granted up-close access to male sponsors, and mandated that some women work as personal escorts for the male sponsors. The women say their employer essentially was "pimping us out."

4/25/18: School dress codes disproportionately harm black girls, the National Women's Law Center shows in a new report on D.C. schools. Dress codes are established on gender and race-based stereotypes of how girls "should" look. "When you are made to feel uncomfortable in your clothes and with your body," one 17-year-old says, "it's hard to focus on learning and expanding your mind. Or even just getting good grades."

4/20/18: A high school junior in Florida had a bad sunburn, so she went to school wearing an oversized, long-sleeved, dark shirt--but no bra, which she found painful. The principal and dean forced her to put on an undershirt, stand up and move around, and then apply adhesive bandages on her nipples. “They had me ‘X’ out my nipples,” she said.

4/8/18: A judge asked a rape victim if she knew that she could have prevented the assault if only she had closed her legs.

3/27/18: Stephanie Clifford ("Stormy Daniels") overturns the stereotype of a slut : She is intelligent, credible, purposeful, controlled, maternal, and professional in appearance. She demonstrates the emptiness of the "slut" insult.

3/9/18: Trump administration attempts to roll back a program providing contraceptives to low-income women—enabling them to plan their pregnancies so they can attend college and find economic stability—are based on the argument that the government shouldn't "subsidize women's sex lives."

3/8/18: In a court trial of a Yale student accused of raping a fellow student on Halloween night 2015, lawyers asked the woman why she wore a black cat outfit and not a more modest costume, such as "Cinderella in a long flowing gown."

2/12/18: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told soldiers to shoot female rebels in their vaginas, explaining that a woman without a vagina is useless. Donald Trump has praised Duterte for his violent fight against illegal drugs in which thousands of Filipinos have been murdered.

1/29/18: Michael Wolff, author of Fire and Fury, spread an unfounded rumor that United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley has had an affair with Donald Trump. Wolff 's rumor is an act of slut-shaming because he reduced an accomplished woman to her sexuality. Many cases of slut-shaming are based on presumed or fabricated behavior and are motivated by dislike of a particular woman.

1/12/18: In Dave Chapelle's new comedy special, "The Bird Revelation, " he jokes that if Harvey Weinstein looked like Brad Pitt, he would not have been accused of assault and rape.

12/22/17: The CEO of the Miss America Organization and other leaders of the pageant internally mocked the sexuality, intellect, and appearance of winners and called them “c*nts."

12/21/17: A rabbi at the women's college of the Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva University told members of the Feminist Club that gay people are “disgusting,” used “offensive and derogatory terms” to support white supremacy, and called a student a “whore.”

12/13/17: After Senator Kirsten Gillibrand called on Donald Trump to resign in light of the accusations that he had sexually harassed and assaulted multiple women, Trump tweeted that the senator had gone to his New York business office “begging” for a political contribution and “would do anything” to get it. Gillibrand says that his tweet was “a sexual smear intended to silence me.”

11/28/17: Laura Prioul, a 21-year-old Frenchwoman, says she was beaten and raped in a Paris hotel—a member of the hotel staff found her partly naked and bruised in a hallway—by the Moroccan pop star Saad Lamjarred, who is so popular that the king of Morocco is helping him with his legal defense. His fans have threatened Prioul's life,
forcing her to go into hiding.

11/25/17: Lawyers for two New York City Police Department officers accused of raping an 18-year-old woman—and then having fellow officers intimidate her at the hospital where she underwent a sexual assault forensic exam— attacked her credibility by saying that since the alleged attack she posted on social media a “provocative ‘selfie’” and videos of her rapping. This behavior, the lawyers claimed, was "unprecedented for a depressed victim of a vicious rape."

11/13/17: Roy Moore, the Alabama Republican U.S. Senate nominee, says that the women accusing him of molesting them when they were teenagers and he was in his thirties are all liars. The Washington Post quotes four women by name and has two dozen other sources.

10/29/17: According to Donald Trump, all 16 women who say he has sexually harassed them are liars.

10/27/17: After Italian actress Asia Argento said that Harvey Weinstein had raped her, a number of Italians, mostly women, reacted with hostility on social media. They dismissed Argento’s accusation as not credible because they did not find her likeable, she had “asked for it,” and “I’ve simply never liked her.”

10/8/17: Textbook case of slut-shaming: Harvey Weinstein’s then-legal advisor Lisa Bloom reportedly suggested discrediting the women accusing him of sexual harassment by getting photos of them “in very friendly poses with Harvey.” Clothing designer Donna Karan said the victims were "asking for it" because of their clothing.

9/27/17: A federal court struck down a Kentucky law requiring women seeking an abortion to first undergo an ultrasound, view the images, and listen to a government-mandated script. This law, which serves no medical purpose, is intended to make women getting an abortion feel ashamed and reverse their decision. Some 26 states have a similar law, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

8/18/17: According to the research of Alice H. Wu, economists chatting among themselves on an anonymous online message board regard women almost entirely in sexually demeaning ways. The 30 words most uniquely associated with women, Wu found, included: hotter, lesbian, tits, slut, hot, vagina, sexy and prostitute.

8/16/17: The lawyer for David Mueller, who groped Taylor Swift against her will, denied Swift’s claim that Mueller had reached under her skirt and grabbed her backside while posing for a photo but also said that Swift could have stopped the assault . Women who have been assaulted know this contradiction all too well: They are commonly disbelieved yet accused of being responsible for having been assaulted.

8/16/17: The Daily Stormer, an American neo-Nazi and white supremacist website, called Heather Heyer, the woman murdered in a terrorist act by a white supremacist in Charlottesville on August 12, a "fat, childless, 32-year-old slut" who had "no value."

7/18/17: A woman in Saudi Arabia who wore a miniskirt and cropped top in a video posted online was arrested for violating the country’s strict dress code for women. Her punishment may include flogging, jail time, or execution.

6/27/17: Black girls as young as five years old are regarded by adults as more sexual and less innocent than their white peers, according to Georgetown Law's Center on Poverty and Inequality.

6/20/17: Tori DiPaolo’s high school yearbook quote is “I’m sorry, did my shoulders distract you from reading this quote?" The graduate of West Milford High School in New Jersey “found it ironic that the classic robes we take pictures in [for the yearbook portrait] technically violated dress code.” She adds that boys are not punished for violating the code—only girls are. “I just think dress codes need to be enforced on both genders if you’re going to choose to have one,” she said.

6/9/17: School dress codes often are sexist because they suggest that girls’ bodies (and not boys’) must be covered up and their sexuality policed. But a charedi (ultra-religious) Orthodox Jewish school in Brooklyn, NY has hit a new low by issuing a dress code for the mothers of students. Women who send their children to Bnos Menachem School may not wear bright nail polish, tight clothing, skirts shorter than mid-calf, or long wigs; and elbows, feet, and necklines must be completely covered. "Please write [a dress code] for the standard for the fathers," commented one community member.

5/23/17: A student in Harrisburg, N.C., was threatened with arrest, suspended for 10 days, and banned from all senior activities, including her own high school graduation, because she wore a shirt that violated her school’s dress code. The shirt itself should not matter, but if you’re curious you can see it here . Her grades also shouldn't matter, but as it happens she is an honors student with an A+ average. She had put on a jacket as soon as she was reprimanded—yet was policed and punished anyway.

5/21/17: A student in rural Maryland has been removed from her student council position and barred from her high school graduation ceremony by her Christian school because she is pregnant. According to the National Association of Evangelicals, 80 percent of young evangelicals engage in premarital sex. Sara Moslener, who teaches and writes about evangelicals and sexuality, says this student’s situation sounds “very ‘Scarlet Letter.’”

5/3/17: The television series 13 Reasons Why is a pitch-perfect representation of slut-shaming and its consequences. I urge you to watch all 13 episodes if you want to understand how slut-shaming operates and what it can do to a young woman—and to everyone around her.

4/21/17: “If women are going to wear low cut dresses that show cleavage don’t be harassed when men look,” tweeted Michael Reagan, son of President Ronald Reagan, in response to the news that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly had sexually harassed multiple colleagues. Regarding the accusation that O’Reilly called a colleague, a woman of color, “hot chocolate,” Reagan said on Twitter that “Hot [chocolate] used to be a compliment on your looks today it is called sexual harassment.”

3/29/17: When the British prime minister and Scotland’s first minister met in London to discuss Britain’s departure from the European Union, the Daily Mail covered the event by asking readers which leader had shapelier legs. “Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!” the cover headline said. The article went on to compare the leaders’ bodies, posture, and shoes.

3/29/17: In Mexico, a man who raped a teenage girl, confessed to the crime, and even expressed remorse was declared innocent. The judge said that the rapist had acted without “carnal intent” and that the victim, who had been forced into a car where the assault took place, was never “helpless.”

3/26/17: United Airlines turned away a family boarding a domestic flight on a free pass for employees and their families because their teenage daughters were wearing leggings, which does not adhere to the airline’s dress code. The father was wearing shorts, which was considered acceptable by the airline.

3/15/17: A group of men in the U.S. Marines has been circulating nude photos and videos of women in the Marines, along with their identities, through an invitation-only Facebook group, and then sending the women unwanted sexual and obscene comments. When the group was shut down after its actions were revealed, a new secret group of photo sharers was created. When that group was shut down, they created another.

3/13/17: Kellyanne Conway, advisor to the president, was described by Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) as looking “kind of familiar in that position there” after she kneeled on the Oval Office sofa to take a photograph of leaders of historically black colleges and universities. Criticism of Conway should focus on her lies, smears , and unethical statements , not jokes about her sexuality.

3/10/17: A Canadian federal judge, Robin Camp, asked a rape victim in court in 2014 why she couldn't "just keep your knees together." Justice Camp finally resigned after a judicial panel called for him in "a scathing report" to be removed from office. Camp had also told the rape victim that "some sex and pain sometimes go together" and "that's not necessarily a bad thing."

2/15/17: Melania Trump is hypocritical to tolerate her husband's sexual objectification of women, but that doesn't mean she deserves to be called a "hooker."

1/20/17: The president of the U.S. is slut-shamer in chief — a man with a sexual past of his own who belittles women as sex objects and makes up sex tape allegations when he wants to discredit us. With slut-shaming coming from the very top, we can expect it to become even more socially acceptable than it already is. So more than ever before, we need to call out slut-shaming whenever and wherever we see it.

1/6/17: Unmarried girls and women in Afghanistan suspected of sexual activity are forced to undergo “virginity tests” —even when they have been raped—despite President Ashraf Ghani’s promise to abolish the procedure. A husband who suspects his wife was not a virgin can bring her in for the “virginity test.” Girls and women may be imprisoned or murdered when they are suspected of previously having had sex.

12/15/16: A longstanding dress code in the Israeli Knesset, or Parliament, is now being enforced, with Knesset guards measuring skirt lengths in a move similar to that of “modesty patrols” in ultra-religious communities. Dress codes reinforce a culture of slut-shaming when they are applied unevenly to women alone and lead to unwelcome attention on their bodies.

12/7/16: In 2011, then-CIA director David Petraeus shared classified information with Paula Broadwell, his biographer, with whom he had an affair. Broadwell was an Army reserve major and intelligence officer; the Army demoted her and took away her security clearance. Petraeus pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge, paid a fine, and received two years of probation. Today, he is being considered for a position in the Trump cabinet—while the military is still considering further consequences for Broadwell. They both were guilty of mishandling classified information, but only her career is jeopardized and only her character is maligned.

11/1/16: Omar Mateen punched, choked, and threatened to kill his wife, Noor Salman. When she did something in public he didn't like, he called her "shar"--short for sharmuta , meaning "slut" or "whore" in Arabic. On June 11, 2016, Mateen committed a terrorist attack and hate crime when he murdered 49 people and wounded 53 others at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

10/10/16: A man attended a Trump rally in Pennsylvania with his wife and three children wearing a t-shirt that said, "She's a c*nt. Vote for Trump."

10/7/16: Donald Trump said in a 2005 conversation with TV host Billy Bush, "I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything... Grab ’em by the [genitals]. You can do anything."

9/30/16: Hillary Clinton reminded Americans that Donald Trump had called former Miss Universe Alicia Machado "Miss Piggy" after she'd gained 12 pounds--and he retaliated by alleging that Machado had a "sex tape" in her past and therefore lacked character.

9/30/16: Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, joked about the rape and murder of an Australian missionary by prisoners during a prison riot in Davao in 1989. He was mayor at the time. He said, “I was angry because she was raped. That’s one thing. But she was so beautiful. The mayor should have been first.”

9/14/16: Fourth-grade teacher Patrice Brown, dubbed #TeacherBae, is reprimanded by her school and on Twitter for wearing form-fitting dresses to work that are deemed “too sexy” and “inappropriate.” Brown is a Black woman with a curvy body, and she teaches nine-year-old children. Once again a woman of color is judged and policed because of her physique and clothing.

9/12/16: In its coverage of NBA star Derrick Rose's rape case, celebrity gossip site TMZ headlined an article "Derrick Rose to Rape Accuser: You're No Prude You Hooked Up With Nick Young." The article suggests that the woman accusing Rose and two of his friends of having raped her while she was unconscious is lying because of past consensual sexual experiences.

8/12/16: A Baltimore prosecutor called a woman who reported a sexual assault "a conniving little whore." Comments like this are frequent among Baltimore police officers, according to a Justice Department report. The New York Times writes that Baltimore officers routinely humiliate women who try to report sexual assault. The majority of women in Baltimore are Black, and many are low-income.

8/4/16: Here's what a recent Sprite ad in Ireland said: “She’s seen more ceilings…than Michelangelo”; “A 2 at 10 is a 10 at 2!” and “You’re not popular…you’re easy.” Coca Cola, which makes Sprite, issued this “apology”: The company is “sorry for any offense caused by the #BrutallyRefreshing Sprite campaign in Ireland, which was intended to provide an edgy but humorous take on a range of situations.”

8/3/16: A New York Times video posted uncensored clips of Trump supporters at his political rallies. Supporters yelled out, "Hillary is a whore!"; "Tramp!"; and "Hang the bitch!"

7/31/16: Malia Obama is criticized for twerking at Lollapalooza, and Melania Trump is criticized for having posed nude 20 years ago.

7/29/16: The film Indignation, based on the Philip Roth novel, features two college students who don't fit in with early 1950s American culture. Guess which one doesn't fit in because of sexuality? Marcus is Jewish, intellectual, atheist, and fights back against antisemitism and enforced religious expression. Olivia is suicidal, has multiple sexual partners, is sexually aggressive, and is referred to as a "slut."

6/28/16: A Chinese textbook calls women who have premarital sex "degenerates."

6/15/16: On Twitter, Taylor Swift's vulva is compared with a ham sandwich. You can't make this stuff up.

If you are appalled by a recent example of reported slut-shaming, please contact me so that we can call it out. This is insane.

3/1/21

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 17:55:19 GMT

Sparked by the documentary Framing Britney, many are now questioning the way that 20 years ago, teenage girl and young women celebrities—Lindsey Lohan, Jessica Simpson, Spears, and others—had been sexualized in ways that we now recognize are unacceptable and, frankly, disgusting.

2/5/21

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 17:57:46 GMT

The University of Tennessee expelled PhD student Kimberly Diei for posting photos of herself on social media that the university judged as "vulgar" and "crude." Diei, who is Black, wore low-cut tops and consciously expressed a message of empowerment for Black women.

Bookcase Porn

Wed, 19 Aug 2020 18:34:44 GMT

The Women's Review of Books, July/August 2020

Book collections are my pornography. I'm not interested in individual titles—anyone can pretend they're reading Zadie Smith. What makes my pulse race is the ways in which people arrange their books. The care of the arrangement reveals the depth of the book collector as well as the ineffable character of the books themselves. During this pandemic, we now have the ability to scan—without the slightest shame—the book collections of Cate Blanchett, Stacey Abrams, and Prince Charles along with those of public health experts, political analysts, and social justice advocates. The visibility of print books has arrived at just the right time. With a president whose favorite books are the ones ghostwritten for him and is a self-proclaimed genius, our souls need to see books more than ever before.

Continue reading at The Women's Review of Books .

Will the Pandemic Disrupt Dress-Coding? Not Likely.

Wed, 19 Aug 2020 18:33:24 GMT

Girls and women are always judged for choosing comfort—but what "comfort" means, even now, is not necessarily what you think.

Ms., August 20, 2020

Girls and women are always judged for choosing comfort—but what "comfort" means, even now, is not necessarily what you think.

Before the pandemic, girls and women who wore what they wanted when they wanted were at risk of being "dress-coded"—called out for being inappropriately provocative. (Remember last year's leggings controversy? )

But with those still fortunate enough to have a laptop job luxuriating in comfortable clothes, I speculated now could be the time when norms change. After all, if Georgia school districts may not impose mask mandates for students to contain the spread of the deadly coronavirus, then surely comfort is having its moment.

Yet at the same time, some schools already have banned students from wearing pajamas during remote learning. In fact, rather than disrupt dress-coding, the pandemic exposes who gets to be comfortable and what "comfort" means.

Continue reading at Ms.

8/16/20

Sun, 16 Aug 2020 16:58:48 GMT

Eric Trump, son of Donald Trump, liked a tweet that called Kamala Harris a "whorendous pick."

Why Women So Often Go Along With Slut-Shaming

Tue, 19 Mar 2019 18:42:40 GMT

Going along with slut-shaming often is the coping mechanism of choice.

Teen Vogue, March 19, 2019

The Academy Awards categorize actors according to their gender. In Kenosha, Wisconsin, cheerleading awards categorized girlsaccording to their body parts. Coaches awarded mock prizes to high school students for having the biggest breasts (the "Big Boobie" award) and possessing a desirable behind (the "Big Booty" award). One cheerleader, a brunette, was given a blonde wig for being "a ditzy girl."

When parents and the American Civil Liberties Union called out the coaches for enabling sexual harassment, one of the coaches— all of whom were women—countered to the school administrators, through records obtained by the ACLU, that the girls hadn't complained. (The coaches have apologized to the students for the awards, according to the New York Times, and told school administrators the awards were in the spirit of fun and that they thought the cheerleaders enjoyed them.) The coaches reportedly said the awards were invented in 2017 by a group of students. One cheerleader explained that the girls went along with the jokes, according to the New York Times. "What else were they supposed to do?" she asked.

What else, indeed. When a girl learns that being sexually humiliated is normal and typical, and that complaining is a risky move, she may accept her objectification with a smile. More troubling, she may become primed to accept this state of affairs for many years to come. Later on, if she is assaulted or harassed by a Larry Nassar or a Harvey Weinstein, this aspect, compounded with the shame and fear many people feel around sexual misconduct, it would be logical and understandable if she kept quiet. Going along with it often becomes the coping mechanism of choice.

Continue reading at Teen Vogue .

What Teen Sexting Reveals About Women & Sexual Coercion

Wed, 17 Jan 2018 18:48:16 GMT

Why do so many women agree to unwanted sex?

Time, January 18, 2018

In this #MeToo moment, women are coming forward not only with accounts of having been sexually assaulted and harassed by their superiors but also with stories of having had sex they didn’t want with their peers: They went along with it because they felt pressured, as a recently published account of an anonymous woman’s date with the comedian Aziz Ansari illustrated. All of this has led to a big question: Why? Why do so many women agree to unwanted sex? Why don’t they just say “no” when there is no physical force used against them? One answer is that their conditioning starts young.

Continue reading h er e.

Women & War: Interview with Helen Benedict

Wed, 06 Dec 2017 18:51:50 GMT

Columbia Journalism School blog, December 7, 2017

Years before pussyhats and #MeToo, Helen Benedict explored the ways in which many women experience sexual violence—only to be blamed for their own victimization. An author of seven novels and five works of nonfiction, and a journalism professor at Columbia University, Benedict has focused for the past decade on the women who served in the Iraq War. Her 2009 nonfiction book The Lonely Soldier described the experiences of women fighting in the war and the astonishing abuse they endured by their male fellow soldiers. The Lonely Soldier inspired the Academy Award-nominated documentary The Invisible Warand instigated a landmark lawsuit against the Pentagon on behalf of victims of military sexual assault.

Benedict developed the book into a play, The Lonely Soldier Monologues, and continues to shed light on the experiences of women and war through two novels—Sand Queen, a Publishers Weekly “Best Contemporary War Novel,” and now Wolf Season, just out from Bellevue Literary Press. Benedict is currently writing a third book to create a trilogy of novels about the Iraq War.

Wolf Season picks up where Sand Queen leaves off, following Naema, who had been a medical student from Baghdad in the first novel, experiencing displacement and the torture of her father, and is now a widowed single mother and physician at a Veterans Affairs clinic in upstate New York. When a hurricane hits their small town, Naema is injured, and her life becomes entwined with a veteran who has survived gang-rape by her fellow soldiers and whose husband was killed in Iraq. The wife of a Marine, who rapes and abuses her while home on leave and then is killed when he returns to Iraq, is also central in this story. The three women are torn by their experiences with war, and their children are likewise wounded in literal and figurative ways. Wolf Season reveals that the traumas of war, particularly for women, never dissipate.

In this interview, Benedict shares her motivations, methodologies, and thoughts on current politics.

What initially motivated you to research women in the Iraq War?

All my writing life, I have examined and exposed the way women are treated by the world, so when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, I became determined to do the same in the context of war. This grew even more urgent when I learned that more American women were serving and dying in Iraq than in any war since World War Two, yet some 90 percent were being sexually harassed and nearly a third were raped or assaulted by their supposed brothers-at-arms. Nobody was exposing this at the time, so I felt I had to. Out of this work came my nonfiction book,The Lonely Soldier, and a play called The Lonely Soldier Monologues.

At what point in this project did you decide that one genre would not be enough for you to express everything you wanted to express?

Sometimes, during my interviews with women veterans, they would hit memories so painful they would fall silent, hands shaking, eyes filling with tears, unable to speak further. This moved me profoundly, and I came to understand that the true story of war lay within those very silences: the private, internal experiences of war and trauma hidden deep inside every soldier’s heart. I knew I could only reach that internal story through fiction.

But soldiers’ stories are, of course, only one side of what is going on in Iraq. I wanted to tell the other side, too, that of civilian Iraqis, a side that has been missing from American public discourse ever since we invaded. So, I found some Iraqi refugees and talked to them for hours, just as I had the soldiers. They, too, were generous, courageous, and eager to help me. They, too, wanted to be heard. D.H. Lawrence once said, “…war is dreadful. It is the business of the artist to follow it home to the heart of the individual fighters.” I wrote Wolf Season because I, too, wanted to follow the war home to the heart.

For you, what are the limits of journalism? Of fiction?

The limits of journalism are the limits of the human being. A journalist who wishes to render the inner, private, profoundly human reaction to an event is limited to what her sources are willing or able to say. Nobody can be entirely open, self-aware, or honest all the time, and memory is a malleable and fickle creature, so it is very hard for a journalist to know when she is hearing the truth.

Fiction can fly right over all these obstacles, taking the writer and reader out of their skins and putting them in the skins of others. What is more, a fiction writer can do this without exploiting, pressuring, exposing, or hurting real human beings.

As for the limits of fiction, I see none but those of the commercial market. Fiction isn’t taken as seriously as it used to be. Novels were once seen as the place to go to for an understanding of the human heart, motivations, and society. Now people go to movies, TV, nonfiction, or self-help books for this. Yet nothing can teach compassion and empathy like a novel.

What courses do you teach at Columbia? How has your work with journalism students informed your own journalism—and fiction?

I teach long-form narrative journalism; a style course; and a reporting class. My students bring me real life stories from all over the city, often the world, which enriches my knowledge. Best of all, they bring me their curious, generous-hearted, passionate selves, burning with the desire to, as Joseph Pulitzer put it, “Afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted.” That is a priceless gift.

Is your work feminist?

Absolutely, my work is feminist! Feminism, which I define as the belief that all people should have equal freedom of movement, respect, opportunities and rights, informs all my work.

I think I became a feminist as soon as I learned to read. Like many writers, I was a loner as a child, partly because my father was an anthropologist who was always whisking us off to live on islands in the Indian Ocean, where I didn’t go to school and had few playmates. So I spent my time reading Mary Poppins, Pippi Longstocking, the Oz books and C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books – all, I realize now, featuring brave, adventurous girls. We traveled in Africa. Almost got wrecked in a hurricane aboard ship. Watched an elephant eat our roof. I wrote a novel at age 8 and another at 11.

At 12, I read Jane Eyre, a book that infected me with a passion for social justice. When I was in my teens, we moved to Berkeley, CA during the time of Black Power and the Panthers and demonstrations against the Vietnam War. I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Soul on Ice, and my passion for social justice grew into something more adult and political.

When your readers close this book, what do you want them to experience?

Primarily, I want my readers to be moved – no surprise there. But I would be extra gratified if they also feel compassion for my characters and are able to bring that compassion to real life refugees, veterans, and all those affected by war.

Posted on https://journalism.columbia.edu/women-and-war .

We're All Sluts Now

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 18:53:38 GMT

U.S. News & World Report, October 12, 2017

Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and Ashley Judd – congratulations, and welcome to the fastest-growing club in America: women who are shamed and punished for their sexuality. You're a big-name celebrity who was sexually harassed by movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and then blamed for what you endured by so-called women's rights champions like Donna Karan, who said you were "asking for it" because of your clothing.

Come right over and sit with all the other women denigrated as "sluts" and "hoes" – which includes financially struggling women desperately trying to get an abortion (last week the U.S. House passed an abortion ban) and those whose employers won't cover their IUD or birth control pill prescription (the White House just rolled back no-copay birth control under the Affordable Care Act).

We are all sluts now.

The public policy decisions and Hollywood revelations of the past week, which on the face of it may appear isolated and unrelated, actually connect tightly like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Snapped together, they reveal the omnipresence of slut-shaming, which shapes laws and norms, affecting all American women.

To continue reading, click here.

The Slut-Shaming of Melania Trump

Wed, 15 Feb 2017 18:56:18 GMT

U.S. News & World Report, February 15, 2017

As wrong and sexist as New York Times writer Jacob Bernstein was to call Melania Trump a "hooker," there is some feminist poetic justice in his slur. After all, Donald Trump has repeatedly reduced women to sexual objects, devaluing them as less than fully human.

He falsely accused Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe whom Hillary Clinton elevated, of having appeared in a "sex tape." He told "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush that because he's famous, he can grab women by the genitals. He dismissed Clinton by saying he "wasn't impressed" by her backside. He discredited the women who have accused him of groping or kissing them against their will by calling them "horrible, horrible liars," adding that one of them can't be telling the truth because, as he said, "Look at her."

If ever there were someone deserving of a sexual put-down, it's Donald Trump.

But Bernstein – who made his remark privately to model Emily Ratajkowski at a Fashion Week party – leveled his insult not at the president but at his wife. And it is never acceptable to insult a woman based on her real or presumed sexual history. Doing so is straight-up slut-shaming.

To continue reading, click here.

Slut-Shaming & the Presidential Candidates

Thu, 27 Oct 2016 18:58:52 GMT

The Huffington Post, October 28, 2016

We are at a pivotal moment in public conversation about the sexual objectification of women. The claim that feminists have been making for decades—that grabbing or kissing someone without consent constitutes sexual assault—is finally understood and acknowledged.

This can also be a watershed moment in recognizing the mindset that creates the foundation for assault: slut-shaming. Looking at Hillary Clinton’s past in addition to Donald Trump’s helps us understand how far we have come.

Back in the 1990s, Hillary Clinton engaged in slut-shaming: she denigrated the credibility of women who claimed they had been sexually involved with or abused by her husband, Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton’s supporters should address this piece of her history head-on instead of burying it. Betsey Wright, then a close adviser to the Clintons, told The New York Times earlier this month that discussing this history is “dredging up irrelevant slime from the past. ” But acknowledging Clinton’s tactics from over two decades ago and putting them in cultural context is necessary to show how much Clinton—and awareness about slut-shaming—has grown....

Continue reading here.

Your Daughter Wants a Sexy Halloween Costume. How You Should Say Yes.

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 19:12:05 GMT

The New York Times, October 16, 2015

Sexy police officer. Sexy nurse. Sexy cat. Sexy angel. Sexy devil.

It’s time to start talking with your preteen or teenage daughter about her Halloween costume. Chances are, she has been plotting it out for weeks, if not longer — even though she may very well insist that she hasn’t spent one second thinking about it yet.

While boys can get away with putting on a sports jersey and claiming they’ve dressed as an athlete, girls must deal with entirely different guidelines. “You’re supposed to wear a sexy costume,” says Evelyn Benson, 16, of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “You don’t even have to talk about it because everyone knows it.”

“Halloween is supposed to be about embracing the sinister, but when you are a girl, ‘sinister’ equals ‘sexual,’” points out Katie Cappiello, co-director and artistic director of the New York City-based theater program the Arts Effect. “It’s the one day when girls are expected to, and can actually justify, pushing the boundaries — but then they are punished for doing what they’re ‘supposed’ to do. It’s an impossible situation.”

To read the rest of this article, click here.

Not a Slut, Not a Victim: The Diary of a Teenage Girl Tells it Like it Is

Wed, 05 Aug 2015 19:14:01 GMT

The Huffington Post, August 6, 2015

The Diary of a Teenage Girl is an astonishing movie about a 15-year-old girl as she discovers the power and pitfalls of her sexuality. Minnie (Bel Powley) has an affair with her mother's 35-year-old boyfriend, Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard), who in legal terms commits statutory rape; yet she does not see herself as a victim, nor does she behave like one. Minnie is ravenously sexually hungry, yet her appetite is portrayed as utterly normal. The surprise of this movie, based on the autobiographical novel by Phoebe Gloeckner and set against the backdrop of 1970s San Francisco, is that it portrays Minnie as someone in control of her body and her life -- even when her surrounding circumstances may lead us to conclude otherwise.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

The Truth About Slut-Shaming

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 19:15:57 GMT

The Huffington Post, April 15, 2015

Monica Lewinsky has been talking about it. The actress Ashley Judd has railed against it. The TV shows "Scandal," "Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce," and MTV's "True Life" have addressed it. Little League pitcher Mo'ne Davis refuses to be intimidated by it.

Slut-shaming. No doubt you've heard this word, but you may be confused about its meaning. You also may be wondering why it has proliferated.

Slut-shaming is the experience of being labeled a sexually out-of-control girl or woman (a "slut" or "ho") and then being punished socially for possessing this identity. Slut-shaming is sexist because only girls and women are called to task for their sexuality, whether real or imagined; boys and men are congratulated for the exact same behavior. This is the essence of the sexual double standard: Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.

To read the rest of this article, click here .

Slut-Shaming Undermines Women

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 19:18:23 GMT

The Boston Globe, February 20, 2015

WITH SEXUAL assault reports coming in practically daily from universities around the country, efforts to reduce these incidents and help women who have experienced them are at an unprecedented high level. While the attention being paid to cases such as the recent conviction of two Vanderbilt University football players is necessary and long overdue, one crucial contributing factor of campus sexual assault is being overlooked: the widespread belief that some women are “sluts.”

“Slut” is a slippery term; it can be applied to almost any girl or woman. And it is. I have yet to meet a woman under 25 who has not been called a “slut” or synonyms like “ho” or “whore” at some point. To most people, these terms refer to a shameful, disgusting woman who is out of control sexually. Yet the women thus labeled are rarely more sexually active than her peers. When an adolescent girl is called such names, very often she is not sexually active at all.

Once labeled, however, a girl or woman becomes a target for slut-bashing (a term I coined in the 1990s to describe repeated acts of harassment conducted by peers) or slut-shaming (which may be more casual, occur only once, and conducted by strangers).

To read more, click here.

My Writing Process

Tue, 26 Aug 2014 19:21:29 GMT

Thank you to Patricia Dunn and Alexandra Soiseth for inviting me to participate in the “My Writing Process” blog tour. For this venture, writers reveal what they’re working on and why and how they write.

But first, I’d like to say a few words about the women who pulled me into this thing.

I met Patricia approximately seven years ago when I interviewed feminist women of faith for my book Taking Back God: American Women Rising Up for Religious Equality . Pat was then the managing editor of the website muslimwakeup.com. We instantly became friends, and we remain friends despite the fact that she has strong-armed me into joining twenty-first century digital culture. Pat is the author of a thoroughly enjoyable young adult novel, Rebels By Accident, about a teenage Arab-American girl who gets caught up in the Arab Spring in Cairo.

Alexandra Soiseth is the assistant director of the MFA writing program at Sarah Lawrence and author of Choosing You: Deciding to Have a Baby On My Own. She’s working on a young adult series about a girl who travels back in time to 1589 Scotland, when midwives and other women healers were burned as witches.

I am happy to participate in this blog tour for two reasons. One, I’m curious to know how other writers create their work, and I’m frequently asked about my own methodology, so this is an excellent opportunity to demystify the process of writing. Two, this blog tour enables writers to support one another—always a good thing.

1. What are you working on?

I completed the manuscript of my newest book, I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet, in the fall of 2013. I hadn’t touched it in many months, but last week I was summoned by my editor to correct some errors in my endnotes. HarperCollins will publish the book in February 2015.

Yes, that’s right: from the time I submitted my manuscript until the pub date, approximately 16 months will pass. But that’s fine with me—which is why I am loyal to traditional publishing. I appreciate that the traditional book publishing industry is meticulous about line editing, copyediting, proofreading, securing permissions, and creating an index—not to mention designing an appealing cover, crafting a promotion strategy, and making sure the endnotes are air-tight.

Right after I completed the manuscript, I began working full-time as a senior writer and editor in the national headquarters of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, as well as for Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the advocacy and political arm of the organization. In this position, I ghost-write op-ed articles, speeches, scripts, and other materials to advance the cause of reproductive rights and to educate folks about women’s health care.

2. How does your work differ from others of its genre?

In my book writing, I strive to recreate the dynamic of a women’s liberation consciousness-raising group. I relate the personal experiences of the girls and women who share their stories with me so that readers come to recognize that the personal is political. All too often, individuals believe that their own experience of oppression or discomfort is unique, and therefore they think they must bear it alone. I prod readers to realize that the many situations girls and women experience as painful or disturbing—from being the target of slut-shaming to being excluded in one’s faith community to feeling pressured to wear crippling shoes for the sake of appearing sexy or pretty—are actually the products of systemic sexism. I also point out how racism and classism are mapped onto the grid of systemic discrimination.

3. Why do you write what you do?

For me, writing is thinking. I am driven to write by the desire to figure out what I think. Even when I’ve completed a piece of writing, I’m still always rewriting it, even if only in my head.

4. How does your writing process work?

I spend the bulk of my time finding people to interview, interviewing them (in person, over the phone, or via skype), transcribing the interviews, reading academic journal articles and other scholarly work, typing up my notes, and then going back and doing more interviews. I end up with hundreds of pages of transcripts and notes. I print them out and mark them up according to theme. Then I cut and paste the material to create new documents organized thematically.

I transcribe interviews the old-fashioned way: I listen to my tapes (yes, I use old-fashioned micro-cassettes with an old-fashioned tape recorder, which I connect to my phone for phone interviews), and I type what I hear. If I had a dollar every time someone tried to persuade me to use computer software for transcription…. I don’t trust a computer to make sense of human speech; I also find that transcribing an interview is a second chance to get inside the head of the interviewee, a process that helps me understand her experience. Finally, I find it disrespectful to take something so precious—a recording of the words spoken by someone who trusts me to guard her intimate, personal story—and feed it to a computer.

For me, the act of writing in the narrow sense—sitting at a keyboard and crafting sentences and paragraphs and chapters—occupies a very small proportion of my time. After I’ve sorted through the transcripts and research, and I’ve created my thematic documents, I know what I want to say and I know how I want to say it. At that point, the words glide out.

I’m thrilled to announce that Shira Tarrant, PhD, will be blogging next week. Shira is an unconventional feminist redefining gender justice. Her books, including Men and Feminism; Fashion Talks; and Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power, highlight contemporary sexual politics. She is currently at work on Gender, Sex, and Politics: In the Streets and Between the Sheets in the 21st Century (Routledge) and The Pornography Industry: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press).

Shira’s commentary is featured on global media such as AlterNet, In These Times, Canadian Broadcast Corporation, NBC, Forbes, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post, Sydney Morning Herald, and on radio stations in Los Angeles, New York, Berkeley, Houston, and elsewhere around the country. Shira is an associate professor in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at California State University, Long Beach. Read more at http://shiratarrant.com.

Shira was very supportive of me wh e n I worked on I Am Not a Slut. I am delighted to participate in this blog tour with her.

August 27, 2014

Does Judaism Need Gender?

Sun, 06 Jul 2014 19:24:04 GMT

The Huffington Post, July 7, 2014

No, says Haviva Ner-David, most known as the first woman to apply to Yeshiva University's rabbinic ordination program and ten years later to receive private Orthodox rabbinic ordination.

Yeshiva University does not accept women into its rabbinical program; once Ner-David's gender was revealed, her application was rejected. And the Orthodox movement does not recognize women rabbis; Ner-David's ordination has yet to be formally acknowledged by the Orthodox rabbinic establishment. So clearly Ner-David rejects the traditional Jewish convention that only men can be rabbis. But Ner-David, who calls herself a "post-denominational" rabbi, goes farther and rejects the need for gendered distinctions in Jewish law altogether.

This theology is quite radical -- even for a post-denominational rabbi.

To read more, click here .

The One Four-Letter Word You Won't Find in Obvious Child

Wed, 04 Jun 2014 19:25:58 GMT

The Huffington Post, June 5, 2014

The new romantic comedy Obvious Child is about Donna, a young bawdy comedian who has a one-night-stand and becomes pregnant. Unprepared for parenthood emotionally or financially, she has an abortion at Planned Parenthood. Although Donna and her friends live and breathe four-letter words, there's one they never mention.

Slut.

Slut-shaming has permeated our milieu so deeply that its absence indeed is remarkable. In real life, girls and women are labeled sluts every day. We see sexual assault victims (like the girl who went to the Steubenville, Ohio party in 2012) pilloried as "loose drunk sluts"; girls who commit suicide (like Audrie Pott and Rehteah Parsons) after they are raped and naked photos of them documenting their supposed sluttiness appear in their classmates' phones; and the victims of the murder spree of Elliot Rodger, who vowed to "slaughter every blonde slut."

Despite these tragic outcomes, many people believe that slut-shaming is a necessary deterrent to keep young women's sexuality in check. When I researched my 1999 book Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation, and when I conducted follow-up research recently for my forthcoming book on slut-shaming in the age of the Internet, repeatedly people said to me that if a girl looks like a slut and acts like a slut, what's the problem with calling her a "slut"? It hadn't occurred to them that this was sexist thinking, since boys are permitted and even encouraged to be sexual, and that besides, "slut" is a slippery word with no fixed meaning, so essentially "sluttiness" is in the eye of the beholder.

To read more, click h ere .

Do We Really Need a Feminist Press?

Thu, 12 Sep 2013 19:27:07 GMT

The Huffington Post, September 13, 2013

Yes, we do.

Founded in 1970 by Florence Howe, the Feminist Press is an independent, nonprofit publisher with an illustrious history. In its earliest years, a husband legally could rape his wife, a pregnant woman could be fired for being pregnant, abortion was illegal, and workplace sexual harassment was rampant and accepted. In this environment, Howe recovered "lost" literary works by Zora Neale Hurston, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and others to show the toll of sex discrimination and the complexity of women's lives -- and also to give voice to what was possible. At the time, the Feminist Press was radical and cutting-edge: no one else cared about these literary treasures that are now on every feminist intellectual's bookshelf or e-reader.

But in 2013, when many authors writing in print on feminist themes -- Toni Morrison, Hanna Rosin, Sheryl Sandberg -- are courted by mainstream publishers, what role does the Feminist Press still serve?

With a new publisher and executive director, Jennifer Baumgardner, the Feminist Press is about to become more relevant than ever before. Baumgardner intends to expand beyond the traditional mission of publishing -- producing books and delivering them to readers. Her goal is to transform the Feminist Press into a nerve center for feminist work that includes books as well as grassroots activism.

To read more, click here .

Being a Woman Part II: The Mystical Side

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 19:28:46 GMT

The Huffington Post, September 4, 2012

What does it mean to be a woman? Caitlin Moran's hilarious feminist memoir How To Be a Woman offers one perspective--the journey from wearing cheap menstrual pads through suffering the torture of high-heeled shoes to being told that sitting on her boss's lap will get her a promotion. But there are many other aspects to being a woman--to being human--that can't be expressed through memoir. For an alternate narrative experience, read the novel The Salt God's Daughter by Ilie Ruby--a lyrical, luxuriantly mystical meditation on being female.

Ruby maps the experiences of three generations of women in 1970s Long Beach, California who are out of sync with everyone around them and who yearn to fit in with conventional society. Diana, an alcoholic single mother, restlessly moves around with her two daughters, Ruthie and Dolly, based on the cycles of the moon. When she dies, the two girls are taken in by nuns at an orphanage. On the cusp of adolescence, Ruthie is sexually assaulted and then bullied as a "slut." Years later, Ruthie meets Graham, a mysterious Scottish fisherman who understands her as no one ever has. Their daughter, Naida, likewise is bullied and marginalized, and desperately searches for a sense of home.

The Salt God's Daughter is astonishing and unusual because selkies--mythical shape-shifting creatures who are human beings on land and seals in the water--are part of the story. In the otherworldly universe Ruby creates, the existence of selkies do not detract from the authenticity of the characters. Quite the opposite: the myth sharpens the characters' humanity.

The genre, magical realism, offers Ruby the opportunity to illuminate select experiences of womanhood--date rape ("Did I deserve it because I never said 'stop'?"), motherhood ("How can I be a better mother than my own?"), and caregiving ("If I can't take care of myself, at least I can look after the welfare of others"). These experiences certainly are not the sum total of any woman's life, and many women never experience them at all. But Ruby's novel comes as close as possible to achieving a deep understanding of the possibilities of being female.

I interviewed Ruby by phone to ask about her unconventional narrative choices.

I'm intrigued by your decision to frame this story within the selkie myth. What inspired you?
My mother, who came of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s, is a musician and artist. She used to play on the guitar a famous folk song "The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry." So I grew up with the selkie myth, which has roots in Orkney, Scotland. There are many versions of the myth. In the version I learned, a woman is searching for love and she draws to her a man from the ocean, a selkie. She falls in love with him and has his child but he mysteriously disappears. He later returns with grave demands. She is forced to accept the circumstances of the relationship.

To read the rest of this interview, click here.

The Next Best Young Adult Novel--"Rebels by Accident"

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:30:44 GMT

The Huffington Post August 15, 2012

We've hit that dreadful time in August when camp and teen programs are winding down but school hasn't started up. What can your kids do for the next few weeks that they'll enjoy and that will stimulate them to look at the world with a fresh eye? If you have a pre-teen or teenage daughter, give her a copy of Rebels by Accident by Patricia Dunn. Your only regret will be that she will devour this book in a day or two, and then you'll be stuck where you were. But at least then you can steal the book for yourself.

The novel, just out this week, follows a 16-year-old Egyptian-American girl named Mariam who is completely disconnected from her cultural-religious background. She couldn't care less about her parents' pasts in Egypt. To her, Egypt is a country of camels, pyramids, and veiled women. All Mariam wants is to wear clothes that don't make her "look fat" and to experience her first kiss.

To continue reading, click here .

Jewish and Transgender: Follow the Words of Hillel

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:32:17 GMT

The Huffington Post, February 25, 2012

On the face of it, "Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders" (just out from University of Wisconsin Press) is the story of how Jay Ladin, the author and an English professor at Yeshiva University in New York City, transitioned into living as Joy Ladin. But it's Ladin's relationship with Judaism that anchors this book and makes it stand out.

What do you do when you're drawn to religion despite the fact that your religion wants to reform you, erase you, abhor you? Ladin, who is not strictly observant but nevertheless remains strongly rooted to Jewish tradition, could have taken the easy way out: She could have walked away from Judaism. Instead, she argues with God. We get to listen in on her side of the conversation.

To continue reading, click here .

Topless Women at SlutWalk Demand Respect: Is This the Right Tactic?

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 19:33:27 GMT

The Huffington Post, October 5, 2011

I wrote the book on sluts -- literally. Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation was first published in 1999 and has since become a required text in many gender and women's studies courses. So when I planned to attend New York City's SlutWalk, I had high expectations. I assumed the event would be the protest rally I'd long been waiting for.

To continue reading, click here .

Wear Comfortable Shoes! Long Lines at Met's McQueen Exhibit

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 19:35:02 GMT

The Huffington Post, August 2, 2011

Each day, seven thousand people wait for hours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan to look at women's high-fashion clothes designed by Alexander McQueen. The exhibit, Savage Beauty, on view through August 7, showcases highlights of the career of the British fashion designer who committed suicide last year at the age of 40. According to the New York Times critic Holland Cotter, the show is "a button-pushing marvel: ethereal and gross, graceful and utterly manipulative, and poised on a line where fashion turns into something else." I arrived the other day to view the exhibit during the special early-morning members' hour. At 8:15am, a hundred people were already waiting. By 8:30, another hundred were snaking around the fountain at the 81st street entrance. By 9:30am, four hundred people had arrived. I came to find out two things: What is all the fuss about? And -- what do the shoes look like?

To continue reading, click here.

Stepping Up

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:36:44 GMT

Brown Alumni Magazine July/August 2011

When I was a student at Brown, I did not care about shoes. My friends and I were oblivious to fashion trends, except when it came to critical and feminist theory. We knew Adorno instead of adornment, de Beauvoir rather than de la Renta, the "epistemology of the closet" instead of shopping for our closets.

I recall during my first semester looking around the Intro to Semiotics lecture hall and noticing that just about everyone, professor included, wore Birkenstocks or Doc Martens. Fresh out of yeshiva day school, I'd never seen either type of shoe. Birkenstocks perplexed me—who'd ever heard of wearing socks with sandals? And the heavy black Oxfords—signifier of tough working-class Brits and privileged, radical-wannabe American college students—were hideously clunky. But I needed new shoes, and Marxist-ugly seemed more functional in New England than hippie-ugly. ...

Continue reading at Brown Alumni Magazine.

The Challenge of Women's Leadership in Orthodox Jewish Communities

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 19:37:54 GMT

The Huffington Post, February 26, 2011

In liberal Jewish synagogues across the country, women have achieved feminist success. They wear ritual garments. They read from the Torah. They are rabbis. But when you enter an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, you enter a gender time warp. Here, women do not count in a prayer quorum. They are not permitted near the Torah. In many cases, you would be hard-pressed even to figure out where the women are located, since they may be seated behind a curtain or wall, or upstairs in a gallery, far from the action. As Tevye the milkman would say, "Sounds crazy, no?"

To continue reading, click here .

Put Down That Armadillo Shoe! Don't Be a Shoe Dupe

Sun, 16 May 2010 19:39:55 GMT

The Huffington Post, May 17, 2010

Ladies, it's time to wake up and smell the nail polish. The fashion industry is selling us shoes agonizing to walk in, excruciating to stand in, torturous from the moment we contort our arches until the evening is over and--hallelujah!--we can kick them off and slip on our grandma slippers. And what are we doing? We are buying them and wearing them! Have we lost our minds?

You should know that people working in fashion do not wear the outrageous shoes they design. Kate Mulleavy, the designer of Rodarte with her sister Laura, was aghast when a New Yorker reporter asked if she wore the six-inch heels she sends down the runway. "Are you kidding?" she said.

It seems to me that designers are testing us. They want to see how far they can go before we protest. At this very moment, they are all wearing athletic shoes and laughing uproariously. They can't believe we are stupid enough to wear their absurd contraptions!

To continue reading this essay, click here .

Two So-Called Sluts, Two Deaths, Only One Uproar

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 19:41:43 GMT

The Huffington Post, April 13, 2010

In recent months, two high school girls were relentlessly harassed as "sluts" by their peers in school and committed suicide as a result -- Hope Witsell in rural Florida and now Phoebe Prince in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The Prince case has led to criminal charges and tremendous international media attention.

As one who personally experienced slut-bashing when I was in high school in the 1980s, and who has spent the last decade writing and speaking about girls nationwide who are ostracized as "sluts," I'm relieved by this wake-up call. Finally, slut-bashing is being taken seriously as a form of harassment -- by schools and by the courts.

Yet at the same time, I am curious to know: why has Prince's death elicited a far stronger reaction than Witsell's? Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has even stepped in, berating school officials for not protecting Prince. Meanwhile, to date no one has so strongly pointed a finger at school administrators at Witsell's school, nor have there been criminal charges brought in her case.

To continue reading this essay, click here .

Girl-Bashing & Its Consequences

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:43:07 GMT

The Huffington Post, December 8, 2009

When it comes to the topic of slut-bashing--when a girl is harassed by classmates because she is believed to be a "slut"--there always has been a lot of harsh judgment. Ten years ago, when I wrote a book about it, I noticed that most people have a compulsive urge to divide so-called sluts into the categories of innocent and guilty.

The thinking went like this: girls labeled "sluts" who are sexually innocent do not deserve to be mistreated, while other girls are guilty of the crime of having been sexual and therefore deserve to be bullied. According to this logic, only those who are innocent and "good" are worthy of our empathy. The rest of them? Who cares--they're "sluts"!

The judgments are even more caustic in today's world of "sexting" (sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically). A "good" girl, many argue, would never take a photo of herself naked and certainly would never email it to anyone. Therefore, if a girl engages in "sexting" and then becomes known as a "slut"-- because the boy to whom she sent her message or photo forwarded it to his friends, who forwarded it to their friends, who posted it on a site where everyone can see it--she has caused her own social demise and has only herself to blame. If walking down the hallway or entering the cafeteria at school becomes a living hell because everyone is calling her names and treating her like a pariah, well, it's a valuable lesson she clearly needs.

But does she really deserve to be punished in this way? Last June, whenever Hope Witsell, a thirteen-year-old from rural Florida, walked into a classroom, someone invariably said, "Oh, here comes the slut." No matter where she tried to hide at Beth Shields Middle School, kids taunted her. Turns out that Witsell had sent a photo of herself topless to a boy she liked. Another girl borrowed the boy's phone, found the photo, and forwarded it to some friends, and before you could say "sexual double standard," everyone at school--even kids who went to a neighboring school--had seen it.

A student advisor for the local chapter of Future Farmers of America (FFA) who went to church every Sunday with her parents and enjoyed fishing with her father, Witsell wrote in her diary that, "Tons of people talk about me behind my back and I hate it because they call me a whore! And I can't be a whore I'm too inexperienced. So secretly TONS of people hate me..."

Two weeks into the summer vacation, the school administration learned about the photo and suspended Witsell for one week in September. Her parents took away her cell phone and grounded her for the summer, but they permitted her to attend an FFA convention in Orlando. Several older boys were staying at the same hotel, met her at the pool, and called her room repeatedly to ask her for a photo of her breasts. According to a friend who was in the room, Witsell was scared of the boys and took the picture to get them to stop bothering her. An adult found the photo and as a result, her school decided not to allow her to run for student advisor this year.

When school started up again, so did the bullying. Witsell met with a school social worker, who noticed cuts on her leg and had her sign a "no-harm" contract in which she agreed to talk to an adult if she felt the desire to hurt herself. But the school did not call the parents.

On September 12, Witsell's mother went to kiss her daughter goodnight, and was startled to see that she was standing with her head lowered. She took a closer look and discovered that Witsell had hanged herself to death with a pink scarf tied to the canopy of her bed. The "no-harm" contract lay in the trash can.

In his excellent exposé, Andrew Meacham of the St. Petersburg Times recounts how Beth Shields Middle School botched up big-time. The school did not take any action against any of the students who forwarded the photo of Witsell or brazenly humiliated her. Instead of being understanding, the school was relentlessly punitive.

We all need to be understanding, not punitive. It's true that Witsell initiated the chain of events that led to her reputation. She did a profoundly stupid thing. And she did it twice--doubly stupid. But she was thirteen. How can you be thirteen and not do something stupid, perhaps even twice?

Witsell is the second girl to commit suicide in reaction to slut-bashing at school that was initiated after a "sexting" incident. Last year in Cincinnati, an eighteen-year-old girl named Jessica Logan also hanged herself. She had sent a photo of herself nude to a boyfriend and after they broke up, he forwarded it to other girls.

According to an Associated Press-MTV poll, a quarter of teenagers and a third of young adults have been involved in "sexting." Ten percent say that they have sent naked pictures of themselves on their cell phone or online. Several years ago at the private Horace Mann School in New York City, a girl sent a digital video of herself masturbating to a male classmate she liked, and it ended up on a file-sharing network that millions could access. (Sometimes students quaintly use tried-and-true bullying methods. At Millburn High, a top-ranked public school in New Jersey, every September the senior girls create a "slut" list of incoming freshman--using a piece of notebook paper.)

Girls take their shirts off, or more, for their cell phone camera for several reasons. They are not mature enough to foresee the consequences. They don't realize that our technologically connected world is monstrously devoid of privacy. Crucially, they get the idea that taking a picture of their naked breasts is empowering and a legitimate way to get attention. This is not an unreasonable conclusion, given the circumstances. Mother-and-daughter pole dancing is considered a legitimate form of familial bonding and otherwise-sensible women leave their homes wearing clothes that resemble costumes from a tacky porn set. And how did Paris Hilton get famous again? Oh yes--there was that sex tape.

At the same time, there is also a bizarre prudery. Two years ago, three juniors at a public high school in suburban New York were suspended for using the word "vagina" during a reading of "The Vagina Monologues." If you were a 13-year-old girl, wouldn't you be confused?

As the sad, sad story of Hope Witsell shows, there shouldn't be any distinction made between those who deserve a bad reputation and those who don't. No girl deserves to be called a "slut." After all, when was the last time a sexually active boy was punished by his school or harassed by his peers? Dividing "sluts" into the innocent and guilty reinforces the idea that male sexuality is normal while female sexuality is deviant at worst, defiant at best. Look what happens when this thinking is taken to its extreme.

Will the Real Islam Please Stand Up?

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:44:37 GMT

The Huffington Post, June 10, 2009

I've been asking devout Muslim American women how they feel about the status of women in Islam. Over and over, they give me the romantic apologist point of view: "Islam is a feminist paradise! I wouldn't change a thing."

But then again, many others offer me -- a Jewish woman -- a vastly different, historical perspective: "I love Islam, but I'm sick of the way the men have taken over this religion to control women, and I want to do something about it."

The romantic apologists claim that the beheading several months ago of Aasiya Hassan in upstate New York was not connected with Islam. (Aasiya Hassan was murdered by her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, founder of a Muslim television station in Buffalo, after she filed for divorce.) They are invested in defending their faith as flawlessly realized, and thus are blind to the reality that the typical non-Muslim American murderer does not saw off his victim's head. And the often horrific treatment of women in Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan? Well, that doesn't have anything to do with Islam either! That's just tribal custom! Muhammad the prophet, peace be upon him, worshiped women, saying that they were the gatekeepers of paradise!

At its roots, yes, Islam truly is feminist. Islam regards women and men as coequals before God. In seventh-century Arabia, Islam gave women rights within marriage (including the right to sexual satisfaction), the right to divorce, and inheritance law centuries before women in the West were granted these rights. The pre-Islamic custom of female infanticide was prohibited. And yes, Muhammad the prophet repeatedly declared that women must be treated with respect. On many fronts, Muhammad improved the status of women.

But men have long interpreted Islam from their own point of view and declared that point of view universal for all believers--just as male Christian and Jewish theologians and religious leaders have done throughout history. This point of view has permitted Muslim men in some cultures through the centuries to take multiple wives and to physically abuse or even murder the women in their lives. More broadly, this point of view has facilitated a general attitude that women have less value than men.

The conflict between opposing interpretations of Islam is played out here in the United States, just as it is wherever there is a Muslim population. A fascinating PBS documentary, "The Mosque in Morgantown," covers one case study. The documentary will air June 15 on PBS stations nationwide at 10pm (check local listings).

"The Mosque in Morgantown" follows journalist Asra Nomani as she challenges the mosque in her West Virginia community to back away from extremism. Formerly of the Wall Street Journal, Nomani currently leads the Pearl Project at Georgetown University, seeking to answer who murdered her colleague and friend Daniel Pearl. After going on hajj, the holy pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in 2003, Nomani returned to Morgantown with a renewed faith. She wanted to be part of her local Muslim community and was excited that a new mosque was being constructed.

On the eve of Ramadan, she reached the front door, but was not greeted with "Assalaam aleikum." Instead, the board president yelled at her, "Sister, take the back door!" Most mosques in the United States do not have separate doors for women, but the attitude toward women Nomani encountered was far from uncommon. Meanwhile, the men delivering sermons were intoning that wife-beating is permissible, that "a woman who loses her chastity is worthless," and, for good measure, that "Jews are the descendents of apes and pigs."

Nomani initiated a series of events intended to force her mosque to retreat from its extremist direction. She walked through the front door and insisted on praying in the men's section (the small women's section is located in another space upstairs); she wrote about the gender inequality in an op-ed in The New York Times; she organized a protest outside the mosque and invited the media, including CNN, to cover it. Soon enough, the mosque leadership voted to expel Nomani, the feminist troublemaker, from the mosque.

Nomani eloquently related these events in her 2005 book, Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam. Even if you've read the book (which I recommend: it's beautifully written and a moving story), you should watch the documentary. It broadens the picture by including the voices of Nomani's opponents. Brittany Huckabee, the film's director and producer, persuaded several of them to explain their side.

The wife of the mosque president defends the mosque's separate door and prayer space. "You can't bend the rules," she explains, because the rules are from God. Another woman says accusingly to Nomani, "You do not show respect to yourself," to which Nomani replies, "I show respect to God."

More than anything else, "The Mosque in Morgantown" reveals that Islam is understood in widely divergent ways, even within the same community. It is impossible to give everyone the Islam they want. As one mosque member says with some exasperation, there are just so many strands of thought and they have just one mosque trying to accommodate everyone.

Yes, but there is a false and dangerous belief that the extremist way is most authentic. Alternate interpretations may be even more true to the spirit of the religion. (This applies to Christianity and Judaism as well.) The Qur'anic verse long understood to permit wife beating, 4:34, is now being revisited by scholars and translators who argue that the word translated as "beat" in fact means "to go away." Thus, the Qur'an does not advocate violence against women but rather the opposite: a non-violent separation between husband and wife when their relationship is heated.

Who gets to define Islam--or any religion? Which interpretation is more "real"? And why does unequal treatment of women always become the litmus test of authenticity? It makes you wonder who is the ultimate power--God, or men invested in protecting their own turf?

# # #

A Rabbi is Not a "Rabbi" in the Jewish Orthodox Twilight Zone

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:46:39 GMT

The Huffington Post, April 23, 2009

Last month, a woman named Sara Hurwitz was honored in a ceremony at a prestigious modern Orthodox synagogue in the Bronx, the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. There was a lot to celebrate: Hurwitz had completed eight years of intensive learning -- the same curriculum completed by male Orthodox rabbinical students. She had passed the rabbinical ordination exams. She has been serving her community -- officiating at funerals, brit milah (circumcision) ceremonies, and the like. She lectures to the community and teaches classes. She offers guidance both spiritual and Jewish legal.

Even though she is a rabbi, her title is not "rabbi." This, my friends, is for one reason alone: she is a woman. Hurwitz's official title, a brand-new, made-up word, is MaHaRaT. The term is an acronym for "Manhiga Hilchatit Ruchanit Toranit," meaning Jewish legal and spiritual leader and Torah teacher.

As a member of an Orthodox community myself, I find this Maharat business maddening, insulting, and degrading. Maharat is a no-name new name. It's created just for the ladies. Stewardess, waitress, actress... Maharat.

I respect Hurwitz. It's never easy to be a pioneer, and she clearly has the Judaic chops for the job. I heard her speak at a recent conference on Jewish prayer and I thought she had a phenomenal presence and wisdom. I also admire the rabbi who leads the Hebrew Institute, Avi Weiss, who is recognized as a great trailblazer within modern Orthodoxy. Weiss is the founder and president of a rabbinical seminary, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, which is dedicated to intellectual openness, including the expansion of women's role in Judaism. The seminary is an alternative to Yeshiva University, increasingly seen as dogmatic and insular. Hurwitz studied privately for six years with Weiss, and it is he who devised the new title.

Rabbi Weiss has taken many risks during his career. He is an activist who has led protests and demonstrations on a range of issues. In the 1970s and '80s Weiss called for the emigration and absorption of Soviet Jews who were not allowed to practice their religion and who were imprisoned for merely requesting permission to leave their country. Since the 1980s he has also been a loud voice in an effort to preserve Holocaust sites from Christianization or desecration.

Here, too, he has taken a risk. After all, Hurwitz is functioning as a rabbi, and within the Orthodox world -- believe it or not -- this is a very big deal. Simply put, the fact that Hurwitz is permitted to perform rabbinic functions, and that she is receiving recognition and validation for it, is a precedent. It's huge, and it's exciting.

It appears that Weiss chose not to make the logical next step, calling Hurwitz "rabbi" (which means "my teacher"), because of the howling reaction this action would elicit from the Orthodox establishment. Although his reputation as an Orthodox iconoclast is sealed, he does have to consider the future careers of the students at his seminary.

In the liberal Jewish denominations, women have been ordained as rabbis since the 1970s (Reform and Reconstructionist movements) and 1980s (Conservative). But within Orthodoxy, the "rabbi" title for a woman with the exact same credentials as a male rabbi is considered as forbidden as eating pork on Yom Kippur. Yet in fact there is no Jewish legal obstacle to calling women "rabbis."

I must point out that within Orthodoxy a woman is not permitted to lead a mixed-gender prayer service or to serve as a witness. Thus, a female Orthodox rabbi is barred from two congregational functions, which could pose a problem from time to time. But it's easy enough to get a pinch hitter. Besides, within Orthodoxy there are so many rabbis who do not serve pulpits that the term "rabbi" is not synonymous with "pulpit rabbi" -- and therefore the term "rabbi" should not be withheld from someone who can't perform all the functions of a pulpit rabbi.

Names do matter, and the title "rabbi" -- as with "priest" for Catholics -- brings with it a high level of respect and awe that "Maharat," let's face it, does not replicate. "Rabbi" is the pinnacle of Judaic authority. Many people regard their rabbi as a mediator of sorts between themselves and God. Children and adults alike look up to their rabbi as a role model. Eventually, I suppose, "Maharat" will cease to sound silly and gobbledy-gooky, and we will accept it as a legitimate title. But it will continue to belittle the women who hold it -- and, by extension, all women -- because it will always signify "she who is not fit to be called 'rabbi.'"

Hurwitz is already a role model and many people will come to regard her, if they don't already, as a Judaic authority. If now is not the right time to call female rabbis "rabbis," then when?

How to Get an Op-Ed Published in The New York Times

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:48:26 GMT

The Huffington Post, January 27, 2009

When I saw last week that The New York Times had published an op-ed by Muammar el-Qaddafi, leader of Libya, it got me thinking. I've been submitting opinion pieces to the Times for years without success. I've sent in punchy, timely essays on sexual harassment, cosmetic surgery, women and religion, and too many others to mention for fear of embarrassing myself.

Most of the pieces went on to be published elsewhere in respectable newspapers and websites. But from the venerable paper of record, if I've been lucky to get any response at all, it has been this: "Dear Ms. Tanenbaum, Many thanks, but I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able to get your essay in the paper. Thank you, though, for thinking of Op-Ed." You're welcome, and thank you for spelling my name correctly.

I've consoled myself with the knowledge that aside from a few high-profile academics and a sprinkling of humor writers, nearly all the contributors to the op-ed page are big-name boys in government and world affairs. If my name never appears on the page, that's the price I pay for choosing to live a life in which I research and write for a few hours each day, then go pick up the kids at 4:30. Even Senator John McCain couldn't get his opinion piece -- a response to one published by Barack Obama, on his plan for Iraq -- in the paper last summer.

So back to Qadaffi. Yes, I know that in 2006 the United States restored diplomatic relations with Libya, and I know that Qadaffi has denounced al-Qaeda and destroyed his country's weapons of mass destruction. Still, I was shocked that the leader who allows his people no basic civil liberties, who was a major backer of the Munich Massacre during the 1972 Summer Olympics, who was responsible for the 1986 Berlin disco bombing, and who during the 1990s refused to allow the extradition to the U.S. or Britain of two Libyans accused of bombing Pan Am 103, could get his byline in the Times.

My strategy isn't working; Qadaffi's is. It seems that I have to work my way up to dictator, finance some terrorism, become shunned by the entire Western world, and then say that I'm sorry and I won't blow up innocent people again. Or maybe any major sin, followed up with a mea culpa, would do the trick. Perhaps in a few years we will see op-eds penned by Rod Blagojevich, Bernard Madoff, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

On second thought, I can handle the rejections. Thank you, New York Times op-ed page, for helping me put this matter in perspective.

Take Your Hand Off My Bible

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:49:50 GMT

The Huffington Post, January 14, 2009

Most of us have a presidential fantasy. Some of us long to transform the health care system. Some imagine the possibilities in humanitarian aid. Others daydream about the presidential lifestyle -- the private chef, the bowling alley in the White House basement, Air Force One.

My fantasy centers on the inauguration. If I were sworn in as President of the United States, so help me God, I would not swear on a Bible.

I do not reject religion. To the contrary, I'm a proud observant Jew. I'm committed to the whole schmear -- no Internet on the Sabbath, jello without gelatin, arguing for the sake of arguing.

But I would not swear on a Bible because my religion is private. It must be protected; I must be free to practice it. But it should not inform public policy and absolutely should not become a symbol of loyalty to the Constitution. Use of the Bible is not required by the Constitution. Fusing the oath with a religious text believed to be the word of God mocks the Constitutional doctrine of separation of religion and government. It also, I believe, debases the sacred text to a political prop.

My interpretations of the Bible reflect my theology. They are, and always will be, open to competing interpretations. They are personal, biased, and inherently limited. Different people arrive at alternate conclusions on how they understand their Bible and want to practice their religion.

I'm thrilled that Barack Obama will be our new President. But on the matter of religion, he's not off to a promising start. Was it really necessary to ask the evangelical Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation? Rev. Warren, a best-selling author and senior pastor of the Saddleback Church, the fourth-largest church in the country, in Orange County, California, is enormously powerful. He uses his influence to advance his personal, biased, limited understanding of the Christian Bible. Rev. Warren advocates the narrowing of women's and men's life choices through restriction of reproductive rights. He supports discrimination against gays and lesbians; not only does he oppose same-sex marriage, he has compared it with incest, marriage between an adult and a child, and polygamy. He rejects the theory of evolution. He holds a frightening attitude about Jews: we will burn in hell, he has affirmed, if we don't accept Jesus as our savior.

Rev. Warren is entitled to his religious interpretations. But he does not represent America, and therefore should not have been chosen to be so visible at such an historic moment. Recognizing his error, Obama has now invited V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, to deliver another invocation at the first official inaugural event. Unlike Rev. Warren, Bishop Robinson represents inclusion and tolerance. He says, "I am very clear that this will not be a Christian prayer, and I won't be quoting Scripture or anything like that. The texts that I hold as sacred are not sacred texts for all Americans, and I want all people to feel that this is their prayer."

But the damage is done. Obama never should have chosen Rev. Warren in the first place. Obama would have done better to choose an historian, an artist, an orator -- not a preacher. God may bless America, but America should not bless God.

Religious Enough for You? Women Light the Holiday Fires

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 19:51:17 GMT

The Huffington Post, December 21, 2008

When Orthodox Jewish families light Hanukkah candles this evening, will the women light too? More than how many jelly doughnuts and chocolate coins can my kids eat before they feel sick (answer: more than you can imagine), I wonder how many stringently observant Jewish women will take advantage of the fascinating loophole that permits them to participate in this ritual.

Most Jewish women in the liberal denominations (Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist), as well as in modern Orthodox communities, are delighted to light the candles (even though this means more melted wax to contend with later). But there remain too many holdouts who prefer to have a man or even a boy over the age of 13 light on their behalf.

Under normal circumstances, halakhah (Jewish law) stipulates that women are exempt from fulfilling time-bound obligations--presumably because historically they have been too busy tending to household and child-related responsibilities. Over time, this exemption has unfortunately become understood by many leading Orthodox authorities to be a prohibition. But there are a few exceptions to the exemption: lighting Shabbat candles, drinking the four cups of wine at the Passover Seder, listening to the reading of the Scroll of Esther on Purim... and lighting the menorah on Hanukkah.

The Talmud tells us that women have an obligation to light the candles "for they too were included in the miracle" of the holiday. In the second century B.C.E., the Syrian-Greeks stripped the Jewish minority in their midst of their right to observe Judaism, on pain of torture and death. A tiny army, the Maccabees, led a revolt. The miracle was that after the Syrian-Greeks had ransacked the Temple in Jerusalem, only a lone canister of oil, enough to light up the Temple's menorah for one day, remained. Yet it actually burned for eight days. Perceiving this as a miracle and a sign that God was watching over them, the Maccabees were so energized that they went on to conquer the Syrian-Greek army.

Medieval rabbis explained that women "too were included in the miracle" in that they too were persecuted. But one medieval rabbi offered a different line of reasoning: it was because of a righteous woman that military victory against the Syrian-Greeks was at hand. Legend has it that before being married, brides were forced to be intimate with the Syrian-Greek governor. When the daughter of the high priest, Judith, went to the home of the governor, she shrewdly fed him cheese until he was overcome with thirst; then she gave him wine until he fell asleep. When he passed out, she beheaded him, causing his army to flee. In commemoration, there is a custom that women refrain from work during the time the Hanukkah lights are burning. (Women, take note: oil burns much longer than wax.)

Orthodox Jewish women know all of this. Today's Orthodox Jewish women are the best Judaically educated women in all of history. Over the course of the twentieth century and continuing into the twenty-first, there has been an explosion of desire of Orthodox girls and women to study their sacred texts in depth. They know the halakhah. They can cite the Talmud upside down and sideways. And many are speaking up, drawing from their extensive knowledge to collect their religious rights.

Yet there is a profound disconnect between the Judaic knowledge that women have attained and their ability to put that knowledge to practical use. Many are afraid to take on religious rituals, even uncontested ones like lighting Hanukkah candles.

This is not just a Jewish phenomenon. In fact, many devout Christian and Muslim women have also relied on male religious leadership their entire lives and have become reflexively dependent on men, even when they themselves, or other women they know, are knowledgeable about their religious tradition. Many assume that that they are forbidden from certain practices or leadership roles, when in fact they are not.

When they turn to their sacred texts, Christian and Muslim women are often surprised to discover that much of what has been withheld from them, because they are women, is rooted in misunderstanding and error--or a deliberate power grab on the part of men who have reserved for themselves the status that historically has come from serving God.

When Catholic women ask why only men can be ordained as priests, they are told that women are unable to act in persona Christi--they cannot represent Christ--because they do not resemble Jesus Christ in his maleness. But Jesus never said anything about maleness--or about a priesthood. The claim that priests must be male is not based on the Bible, since the priesthood was created only in 313, and it contradicts the Christian idea that all who are baptized are in the image of God (imago dei). The Pontifical Biblical Commission conceded over thirty years ago that there is no valid scriptural reason not to ordain women, but the Vatican silenced its conclusions. There is no reason for women to be shut out of the ordained priesthood. They are shut out only because the pope wants it so.

This is why the National Coalition of American Nuns went public last week in their endorsement of women's ordination and Roy Bourgeois, a renegade priest who is expected to be excommunicated by the Vatican because of his support for female priests. A total of 113 nuns signed their names to a letter addressed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a powerful Vatican agency, in a campaign led by the Women's Ordination Conference.

Likewise, in nearly all mosques in the United States, women are segregated from the men (as in Orthodox synagogues). In many mosques they sit upstairs in a gallery, far from the action, unable to see or even hear the imam; in other mosques they sit in a separate section behind the men with a physical barrier demarcating the spaces. In some cases women are relegated to a different room entirely.

But the physical barrier between the sexes did not originate with the prophet Muhammad. True, during his time the sexes were separated during prayer, but the prophet did not require a barrier between them. Moreover, there is no verse in the Qur'an or the hadith (collections of traditions of Muhammad) establishing the need for a barrier. Today, progressive scholars insist that separating the sexes has no legitimate basis in Islam. A few brave women have stood in the back of the men's section, refusing to budge, to stake their claim to equal access.

Devout people of various faith backgrounds have a tendency to mistake stringency for piety. And many people--including many women themselves--believe that women should be excluded from full religious participation in order for the religious experience to be authentic. But a growing number of devout women today are enthusiastically embracing Bible and Qur'an study. They are taking back their faith intellectually. And the more they learn, the more they discover that they love their tradition and want to honor it as faithfully as they can--which means being full, active participants, if not leaders.

Transgender Professor at Yeshiva U.--Mazel Tov!

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:52:37 GMT

The Huffington Post, September 19, 2008

Two weeks ago at Yeshiva University, English professor Joy Ladin, Ph.D., returned to work after a two-year leave. Ladin is transgender -- she was formerly Jay Ladin -- making Y.U. the first religiously conservative university in the United States with a transgender faculty member, according to Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. Ladin, who is Jewish and describes herself as "practicing," teaches at the women's undergraduate school. She had been granted tenure immediately before she told the school about her gender identity in 2006.

This is big news. If the average American isn't too sure what "transgender" means, think of how much more strongly this will hit among most Orthodox Jews, who have yet to invite over a gay man or lesbian for Friday night flanken and matzah ball soup.

("Transgender" is an umbrella term used to describe people whose sense of themselves as male or female differs from that associated with their birth sex. Some transgender people -- transsexuals -- live or wish to live as members of the gender opposite to their birth sex. According to the American Psychological Association, about 1 in 10,000 biological males and 1 in 30,000 biological females engage in cross-dressing. Not all transgender people, however, are cross-dressers.)

Yeshiva University, located in Manhattan, is technically secular. With over seven thousand students, it encompasses a medical school (Einstein), law school (Cardozo), school of social work (Wurzweiler), and other renowned graduate programs that are not specifically Jewish and in which most students are not Jewish.

But in a practical sense, Y.U. is a Jewish institution. Its motto is the Hebrew "Torah U'Maddah" -- Torah combined with secular knowledge." The university includes undergraduate and high school campuses, where the curricula conform to Orthodox Jewish principles. All the undergrads and high school students are Jewish, primarily Orthodox. Even in the secular graduate programs, Orthodox Judaism is in the air: classes are not held on Shabbat or Jewish holidays, and only kosher food is permitted. Most Orthodox Jews consider Y.U.'s rabbinical seminary to be the most prestigious in the U.S.

So why was Ladin -- who was put on indefinite leave after she told the university that she wanted to transition to female -- back on campus? Because New York City prohibits the firing of employees based on gender identity. Legally, Y.U. may not have had a choice. Ethically, Y.U. does have a choice -- to treat Ladin with respect, or to make her feel unwanted and abnormal. Richard Joel, president of the university, has declined to comment specifically about Ladin but did say, "I'm proud of my university and all my faculty."

Then there's the more prevalent attitude. The reaction of Rabbi Moshe Tendler, an Orthodox rabbi and a senior dean at the rabbinical school, says it all. "He's not a woman. He's a male with enlarged breasts," Tendler told the New York Post, pointedly referring to Ladin as male even though she identifies as female and is taking progesterone and estrogen to feminize her appearance. "He's a person who represents a kind of amorality which runs counter to everything Yeshiva University stands for. There is just no leeway in Jewish law for a transsexual." Tendler, who is also a professor of biology and medical ethics, continued, "There is no niche where he can hide out as a female without being in massive violation of Torah law, Torah ethics, and Torah morality."

Tendler also spoke with the Jerusalem Post, saying, "I think a teacher that behaves in so aberrant a way must also impinge on the moral conscience of the student body" and that "we should reserve the right to be judgmental when someone violates the basic tenets of society."

Within Orthodox Judaism, everything comes down to what is permitted and what is forbidden by Jewish law. As a member of an Orthodox community myself, I have enormous respect for Jewish law, which guides my life in huge and small ways every day, every hour. If Tendler can make a persuasive argument that Jewish law forbids being transgender, I would listen carefully. But expressing contempt and disgust for another human being (a widely respected member of the faculty, no less) is never permitted. To my mind, Tendler's comments about Ladin serve more than anything else to devalue his authority as a Jewish leader.

There is ample evidence that the great rabbis have long recognized the limits of the male and female categories. In the first two centuries of the Common Era, the rabbis of the Mishnah identified at least four possible genders or sexes. In addition to male and female, they claimed, there are two sexes that are neither male nor female, called the tumtum (person whose genitals are obscured, making their gender uncertain) and the androgynos (person who has aspects of both male and female genitalia). According to one interpretation, the first human being was an androgynos. The rabbis even discussed two other categories for gender identity that don't appear at birth but develop later in life.

Traditional Judaism privileges categories and boundaries--the demarcations between work and Shabbat, kosher and not kosher, obligated and not obligated. But some things defy categories altogether, or have fuzzy boundaries. Not everything is airtight, even with seemingly obvious binaries. We light Shabbat candles eighteen minutes before sunset; the question of whether or not Shabbat restrictions begin at candle-lighting or at sunset continues to be debated. On Passover, Sephardi Jews eat rice and corn, foods that Ashkenazi Jews shun as not kosher during the holiday; so are those foods kosher for Passover or not?

In daily life, we regularly encounter in-between zones. In fact, the rabbis celebrated these spaces and moments. They spent hours analyzing dawn and dusk, those times when it's not really day and not really night.

In-between zones offer the greatest opportunity to behave in holy ways -- and that includes being respectful of all people, even if they make you uncomfortable.

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Copyright © 2008 by Leora Tanenbaum. All rights reserved. If you want to reprint this essay, email your request to leora@takingbackgod.com.

Feet are a Feminist Issue

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:56:10 GMT

The Huffington Post, July 1, 2008

In Sex and the City, Carrie and her friends pound the Manhattan pavement in stilettos. For me, the mystery isn't if they live happily ever after but whether or not they have bunions and hammertoes.

Many real-life Manhattan women walk around the city in rubber flip-flops, platform peekaboos, and floppy ballet shoes with elasticized backs. With the gladiator sandal trend there are now lots of ankles encased in complicated straps and buckles. Don't be fooled. Pancake-flat shoes without arch support can make a woman feel like she's been fighting all day long in a Roman amphitheater.

Shoes can transform an outfit from the mundane to the magical, as Sarah Jessica Parker's character loves to remind us. High-heeled shoes give the illusion of elongating the legs, which is slimming. And shoes are relatively easy to shop for; one doesn't have to enter a dressing room and disrobe. For many women, myself included, that fact alone makes shoe shopping particularly alluring. So if my toes squish just a little to fit, or if they flop and flip without any protection to keep them in place, who cares? Isn't that the price of being a woman?

It's hardly news that looking feminine can be painful--from plucking, waxing, injecting, chemical-peeling, and the slicing off of fat and bone. Whether we accept, reject, or howl against this premise that femininity is a masochistic process, we can all agree that a woman should not damage her body permanently in the pursuit of looking attractive.

Ladies, please forgive me: I don't enjoy being the messenger of depressing news. But you should be aware that your most fashionable shoes, no matter how chic and status-laden, harm your feet. They have cramped toe boxes, inadequate arch support, and force you to hobble rather than stride. I've never met anyone not horrified by Chinese foot-binding, in which girls' toes were deliberately broken. Yet we jam our own toes into shoes with barely enough room for a kitten's paw, leading to potential serious injury. Some women have even revived foot-binding in a sense: they undergo cosmetic foot surgery, shortening their toes to fit into their shoes.

Recently my feet and knees started to hurt even when I wore flats or sneakers. I visited a podiatrist, who informed me I have bunions. Bunions? The word made me think of onions and bad breath. Bunions, I now know, occur when the big toe shifts angle, pointing toward the little ones instead of straight forward. The large joint of the big toe becomes inflamed. It turns out that my pronated feet (they roll inward), which I always thought had no consequence other than my walking a little ungracefully, are a health hazard.

According to my podiatrist, my shoes did not cause my bunions--I can thank heredity for that--but they exacerbated the problem. And I am far from alone. The overwhelming majority of bunion sufferers are women--some podiatrists say the ratio of women to men is 9 to 1--because men are more likely to make practical, sensible shoe choices. Poorly fitting shoes also may lead to hammertoes (when toes curl down), corns (thickened skin), neuroma (when two bones rub together and pinch a nerve), and plantar fasciitis (heel pain). In a 2003 survey of women by the American Podiatric Medical Association, 73 percent reported experiencing physical problems from wearing shoes.

From now on, my podiatrist pronounced, I am to wear customized orthotic inserts with arch support in all my shoes, sandals, and boots. He did not recommend surgery, although many bunion sufferers do go under the knife. In a haze over the enormous expense of custom orthotics--which insurance companies do not reimburse--I was delayed in my realization that I was in for a big lifestyle change. Trendy shoes, especially sandals, do not accommodate orthotics. I've never been a fashion plate but I certainly never expected that before hitting midlife I would be cruising the grandma aisle at the shoe store.

I've had a few months now to scope out the selection of footwear called "comfort shoes." In truth, the choices aren't quite that limited. Many companies now create shoes with support that aren't ugly and some that are even a little cute. Many shoes also have insoles that can be removed, creating space for orthotics. I do wear high heels without orthotics once or twice a week, but only for a few hours at a time and I never do serious walking in them.

Pluck and wax if you must. But choose your shoes wisely; don't let ill-fitting shoes cut off the circulation of blood to your brain.

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Copyright © 2008 by Leora Tanenbaum. All rights reserved. If you want to reprint this essay, email your request to leora@takingbackgod.com.

Anti-Abortion Protesters Block the Liberty Bell

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:54:07 GMT

The Huffington Post, July 1, 2008

Anti-Abortion Protesters Block the Liberty Bell

Wed, 28 May 2008 19:57:23 GMT

The Huffington Post, May 29, 2008

My children, ages six and eight, don't know about the birds and the bees. But now they do know about abortion.

On our wholesome family trip to historic Philadelphia over Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I took the kids to visit the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were signed. On every street corner on all sides of the historic district were anti-abortion protesters. I don't know if they were from Operation Rescue or a different fundamentalist Christian group. All I know is that they had billboard-sized photos of bloody, dismembered fetuses from late-term abortions (or possibly third-trimester miscarriages). And there was no way to cross the street without seeing those pictures.

My husband and I tried to avoid them. We saw the protesters as we approached, groaned to ourselves, and looked around frantically to find alternate ways to get to the sites. But there were no other entry ways. We were stuck. My six-year-old saw the pictures and screamed. He cried, trembling. We left the area to find a place for lunch, and he refused to eat a bite. An hour later we returned, and the protesters were still there. Finally, as we were finishing up our healthy dose of Americana, the protesters called it a day and left.

Both my kids were frightened but my six-year-old in particular has been distraught. He told his best friend at school that he went to Philadelphia, where he saw a picture of a dead baby on a fork. He has had trouble going to sleep. He is terrified that he could somehow wind up like an aborted fetus. I tell him he is safe, he has nothing to worry about, we will protect him. But the truth is, I can't protect him from vile political and religious rhetoric.

Yes, anti-abortion protesters have the right of free speech. But should they be allowed to traumatize children? They deliberately chose a spot that is a magnet for families with young children because, it seems, they want to scare children and give them nightmares, thereby winning over the parents to their cause.

Those of us who support reproductive rights consider abortion a sad but sometimes necessary option. We wish that more affordable and more effective forms of contraception were available so that abortions would become less frequent. We wish that all young people had access to comprehensive sex education so that they would know there are ways to prevent pregnancy aside from abstinence, which doesn't work.

Make no mistake about it: the ultimate goal of Christian anti-abortion activists is a nationwide ban on abortions at every gestational stage. Tellingly, they choose to represent only late-term abortions. Yet late-term abortions (after the twentieth week), the kind resorted to by only the most desperate women in horribly dire circumstances, account for only 1.2 percent of all abortions performed in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute. Assuming that the pictures are in fact from abortions and not miscarriages, they do not represent typical abortions. Their value is political and religious, not educational.

I told my children that abortions are sad, but what is much, much sadder, what is in fact tragic, is that thousands of soldiers--people who were born and lived lives, with children and families--have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that they continue to die. Indeed, a memorial in honor of the soldiers across from the Liberty Bell was overshadowed by the anti-abortion protesters. What kind of Memorial Day was that?

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Copyright © 2008 by Leora Tanenbaum. All rights reserved. If you want to reprint this essay, email your request to leora@takingbackgod.com.

Nice Jewish Girl Attends Jum'a Before Shabbat

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:58:26 GMT

The Huffington Post, April 14, 2008

In an effort to improve Muslim-Jewish relations in New York City, the city's most prominent mosque and the flagship seminary of the Jewish Conservative movement have reached out to one another. Last month, Imam Shamsi Ali of the Islamic Cultural Center, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side, gave a sermon after minha (afternoon prayer) at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Returning the favor, Rabbi Burton Visotzky, a JTS professor of Interreligious Studies, spoke at the ICC (also known as the 96th Street Mosque) last Friday after jum'a (Friday noon prayer).

This interfaith dialogue is vitally important because Muslim-Jewish relations are at an all-time low. After the 9/11 attacks, the then-imam of the 96th Street Mosque, Muhammad Al-Gamei'a, stated that the Jews were responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center and were guilty of disseminating "heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism and drugs." In recent months, the infamous email about Barack Obama -- he's a radical Muslim! He studied in madrasah! His middle name is Hussein! -- has been taken very seriously by many American Jews. It's time for both faith communities to push aside the hazerai (nonsense) and build a real relationship.

After spending the morning chopping vegetables and marinading chicken for Shabbat dinner, I joined the group of JTS professors and administrators who went with Dr. Rabbi Visotzky to lend support. I wore loose-fitting pants and sweater, brought a scarf to cover my hair and neck, and remembered to wear sandals that would be easy to kick off. Within seconds of our arrival at the mosque, a man sternly said to one of the women in our contingent, "Sister, cover your neck!" She had covered every one of her hairs with a dark, opaque scarf but unwittingly had left her neck completely exposed. One of the other women quickly tossed her an extra scarf. Disaster averted. I felt as if I were in the ultra-Orthdox Mea She'arim neighborhood in Jerusalem, where posters on every street warn girls and women to dress modestly in long skirts and long sleeves. You wouldn't want to be caught there in a tank top.

In fact, the entire experience for me was a slap-in-the-face signal that devout Muslims and Jews are not altogether that different, particularly in the worship department. Just as when I attend my own Orthodox synagogue, located a half-mile away from the mosque, I was separated from the men. After we placed our shoes in cubbyholes, we women filed up the staircase to the cramped balcony above while the men found places in the majestic sanctuary downstairs. There appeared to be nearly a thousand men and perhaps sixty women in attendance for the congregational prayer.

Imam Ali delivered his khutba (sermon). He told the worshippers that Muslims need to reach out and live harmoniously with other people because all people are servants of Allah. If someone chooses another path, he said, Muslims have a responsibility to show them the right way. However, one may not force others to follow the Islamic way. "We must show respect and dignity to all children of Adam," he said. "Everyone is dignified by Allah." It is human nature, he continued, that different people have different opinions, and Allah knows this. "But this difference of opinions does not make us hate each other. This diversity is seen in Islam as good," Imam Ali declared, and all of us must "make an effort to get to know one another."

Although I tried, I could not see the imam at all during his sermon. He spoke from a platform that was obscured from all but a few choice seats in the women's section. So I ran my gaze across the women listening to him. Their hijabs reminded me of the tichels common in Borough Park and other Hasidic neighborhoods. I craned my head to check out the men below. The several men from JTS blended in with the crowd, the kippot on their heads closely resembling the kufis. After the sermon, it was time to pray. The bowing and prostrating was not altogether different from the shuckling (rhythmic swaying) commonly done during Jewish prayer.

Then it was the rabbi's turn. Dr. Rabbi Visotzky thanked the imam for inviting him to speak in this "beautiful house of God." He recalled when Jews and Muslims lived together relatively harmoniously in medieval Muslim rule and then as co-minorities under Christian rule. He lamented that the relationship today has deteriorated and called on both communities to come together as New Yorkers to help people in need. He announced that JTS and the mosque have agreed to a joint social action program that will include students from both institutions volunteering side by side at a Manhattan soup kitchen.

Imam Ali presented the rabbi with a Qur'an, and everyone was all smiles. One woman came up to me and said shyly, "My boss is Jewish." What to say in response? Stumped, I smiled back. In her awkward way, she was trying to make a connection, and I wanted to connect back. Several other worshippers made a point of walking up to the JTS contingent to say welcome and how glad they were that their mosque was going to work together with the Jewish community. A few asked how they could get information to become personally involved.

I wished the JTS folks a "good Shabbos," then went home to get the vegetables and chicken ready for dinner.

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Copyright © 2008 by Leora Tanenbaum. All rights reserved. If you want to reprint this essay, email your request to leora@takingbackgod.com.

Your Pill is Safer Because of Her

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:59:42 GMT

The Huffington Post, February 27, 2008

In Buffalo, New York, a mother of three and a user of the contraceptive pill, Anne S., was suffering from attacks of dizziness and double vision. She also felt stiffness in her neck. Alarmed, she called her gynecologist and asked, "Is the Pill safe? Should I be taking it?"

Her doctor snapped, "Of course it's all right for you to take the Pill. If it weren't, I'd never have prescribed it."

Eight days later, Anne S. died of a stroke.

She was one of hundreds of women to die in the 1960s from taking the Pill. At the time, the Pill's dosage of estrogen was considerably higher than it is today, resulting in blood clots, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, depression, and cancer.

Ah, the 1960s. Remember when it was a given that doctors were men and nurses were women? Back then gynecologists routinely downplayed serious risks and side effects because, as one doctor explained at the time, his female patients were not capable of weighing the information. "If you tell them the symptoms they'll have them the next day." In a 1970s Newsweek-Gallup poll, it was revealed that two-thirds of the women taking the Pill had never been warned by their physicians of any hazards.

Barbara Seaman, who died of lung cancer today in New York City at the age of 72, rallied to educate people about the politics of the health care industry -- in connection with the Pill and so much more. Because of her, many lives have been saved. She was, in the words of Gloria Steinem, "the first prophet of the women's health movement."

Barbara was my role model and dear friend. Fourteen years ago, Barbara took it upon herself to mentor me, then a freelance journalist covering women's issues for various local papers and the occasional glossy magazine. I still can't believe my enormous luck that Barbara chose me as one of the young writers she had selected over the years to mentor. She read all my rough drafts and unfailingly suggested brilliant inserts, practically dialing the numbers herself of people she recommended I call for another live quote. Having been on the front lines of the women's lib movement, she knew all the leading activists and writers from that era and introduced me to Alix Kates Shulman, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Phyllis Chesler, Gloria Steinem, Erica Jong, and many others. Through her I also met many feminist activists and writers from my own generation, including Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards.

For many years, Barbara and I spoke on the phone for hours each day. It wasn't all serious talk about women's rights, although we certainly covered that territory very thoroughly. Barbara also loved to dish and she generously shared with me delicious tidbits about the endless people about town whom she invariably knew quite well. But as with everything else in her life, she did this with a good and generous heart, always looking for new ways to introduce people who didn't know each other but should have. Nothing seemed to give her greater pleasure than sparking a connection between two like-minded people, acting as matchmaker and catalyst for new ideas and events.

In the 1960s Seaman covered women's health for the Ladies' Home Journal and Bride's magazines. She received a steady stream of letters from readers who complained about problems they had with the Pill. "The most disturbing thing about my reader mail," she once remembered to me, "was that the doctors denied and tried to invalidate the women's experiences."

After poring through medical journals, Barbara found growing evidence of the drug's risks. Her book The Doctors' Case Against the Pill was published in 1969, exposing the fact women taking the Pill were human guinea pigs. The Food and Drug Administration had approved the drug as a form of birth control in 1960 even though only one study had been conducted, involving fewer than a thousand poor women in Puerto Rico, most of whom did not know they were participating in medical research and the overwhelming majority of whom had taken the drug for less than a year. Five of the women had died during the study.

Barbara did not want to ban the Pill, since many women wanted to use it and there were few other contraceptive options at the time. She simply wanted women to know what they were in for through full disclosure of the drug's risks.

This was not the first time that Barbara had witnessed male doctors dismiss women's concerns. In 1957, when she wanted to breast-feed her newborn son, her doctor discouraged her because at the time, infant formula was marketed even more heavily than it is today. Her doctor ignored Barbara when she told him she would do it anyway. He prescribed a laxative that breast-feeding mothers should avoid at all costs. Her son almost died.

With the Pill, she smelled not only incompetence, greed, and politics -- but sexism. And she paid for her nosiness. The magazines where she worked fired her after their advertisers complained about her book. But The Doctors' Case attracted the attention of Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin), who convened hearings, held January through March 1970, to investigate the full extent of the dangers.

Unbelievably, only men were allowed to testify. Not a single woman on the Pill, nor a single female medical expert, was given the chance to speak. A Washington, D.C.-based feminist group, D.C. Liberation, found out about the hearings and stormed the Senate. Members of the group, led by a recent Barnard graduate named Alice Wolfson, staged a demonstration and were removed from the chamber. Characteristically Barbara followed them, introduced herself, and invited them to lunch. "That was when the women's health movement was born," Barbara told me years ago. Barbara Ehrenreich later wrote that Barbara Seaman "proved that women can talk back to doctors -- calmly, rationally, and scientifically. For many of us, women's liberation began at that moment."

The demonstrations led to wide media coverage of the hearings, which caused women around the country to re-evaluate -- and reject -- their gynecologists' advice. Because of Barbara's efforts, the Food and Drug Administration ordered manufacturers of the Pill to insert warnings in each packet, despite vehement opposition from the manufacturers and the American Medical Association. Soon, women with higher risks than others -- for example, older women who smoked -- selected themselves out, and morbidity dropped off. Eventually the manufacturers were able to reduce the hormone dosage significantly. The amount of hormones in the drug was ten times what is needed for contraception.

The Pill hearings marked the first time that feminists rallied around health issues in general rather than just around the right to an abortion. The Boston Women's Health Book Collective, publisher of Our Bodies, Ourselves and its spin-offs, was founded in 1969 and burgeoned in the hearings' aftermath. In 1975, Barbara co-founded the National Women's Health Network, a non-profit advocacy organization that does not accept money from drug companies.

Barbara remained concerned about the health risks associated with hormone therapies and spent the rest of her life warning consumers to be skeptical of pharmaceutical claims. In her 2003 book The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth, she debunked received wisdom that hormone replacement therapy such as Premarin prevents heart disease, osteoporosis, cancer, and other ailments. Indeed, several years ago a major study on hormone therapy was halted when it became clear that the hormones increased the risk of breast cancer and heart disease at a rate that far outweighed the benefits.

With Barbara Seaman gone, we have lost our singular health-care muckraker. As a result of her tireless activism, we are less naïve and ask tougher questions. We do our own research; we arrive at our doctor's office with printouts from the Internet; we get second and third opinions. We may not always choose to make the best health decisions, but at least we now know not to accept the claims of the drug companies and Food and Drug Administration at face value.

We can pay tribute to Barbara's life not only by remaining skeptical of the drug industry, but also by acting as a matchmaker whenever possible. If you know two people who don't know each other but should, introduce them. The more connected we are, the more we can shake things up when necessary.

#

Copyright © 2008 by Leora Tanenbaum. All rights reserved. If you want to reprint this essay, email your request to leora@takingbackgod.com.

Boys Gone Wild at Giants Stadium, Gate D

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:01:02 GMT

The Huffington Post, November 21, 2007

There's an alternative halftime show at Jets home games, reports The New York Times. Fans congregate at Giants Stadium's pedestrian ramps at Gate D. There they proceed to chant and demand that any woman walking by expose her breasts. When a woman decides she'd prefer to remain with her shirt actually on her body, fans boo, spit, and hurl plastic beer bottles. When she obliges and lifts her shirt and bra, fans take video clips on their phones, which end up online.

Security guards make no attempt to intervene by protecting the women or arresting the men for harassment. But when one 23-year-old Bronx resident flashed the crowd on Sunday, two security guards approached her and warned her about indecent exposure laws. And when a reporter tried to interview two guards (it's not clear if they were the same or different guards) about the routine, ritualized harassment, he was detained in a holding room, threatened with arrest, and asked for his tape recorder.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but the sexual double standard is alive and well. Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts. And across the land, people continue to believe that this is the way it's supposed to be.

I'm not a prude, and I don't sniff out harassment in every sexual act. When a woman consents to expose herself, I disapprove but I'm not alarmed. But at Gate D, is the exhibitionism truly consensual? And even if it is, I can't help but wonder what motivates women to allow themselves to be so degraded.

Undoubtedly, many of those who bare their breasts feel they have no choice, since the menacing, drunk, verbally violent crowd could turn physically violent in a heartbeat. These women could be groped or worse, so what choice do they really have? And in this age of Lindsay, Britney, and Girls Gone Wild, many feel they have no choice for other reasons too. Very many girls and women of all ages believe that their value primarily comes from their sexual appeal or behavior. They have come to consider sexual objectification--being made into a thing for others' sexual use, rather than being seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making, according to the American Psychological Association--as completely normal. So it doesn't surprise me that the Bronx resident who flashed her breasts on Sunday--while on a first date, no less--justified her behavior to the Times: "I love my body and I like what I have, so let everybody share it."

But she didn't come to the game, on a first date, intending to provide cheap thrills to masses of harassing men. The crowd at Gate D pointed at her and chanted in her direction. Those men cheapened her sexuality. This, my friends, passes as normal and acceptable, in New Jersey and elsewhere. Too many women are taking off their shirts not because they are sluts, and not because they are raunchy, and not because they are stupid, and not because they are proud of their bodies. They are taking off their shirts because all around them, they see that this is what women are supposed to do.

Yet when men and women follow this script, the women get pulled aside for a lecture about indecent exposure laws and the men remain oblivious that they are guilty of sexual harassment. Which means the men will harass again and again.

#

Copyright © 2008 by Leora Tanenbaum. All rights reserved. If you want to reprint this essay, email your request to leora@takingbackgod.com.

What Not to Wear: Wendy Shalit Goes Deep Into Your Closet

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 20:03:07 GMT

The Huffington Post, July 26, 2007

Quick: What is "modest fashion" for a girl or woman? Is it crewneck tops and loose, shapeless pants? Buttoned-up cardigans and ankle-grazing skirts? Are sandals ever "modest"? What about a few inches of bare legs peeking from beneath a calf-length hem?

After 279 pages of Wendy Shalit's Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to be Good, I still don't know what the author means exactly when she upholds "modesty" in female attire. Since the book is a love letter to Orthodox Judaism (Shalit grew up in a Reform Jewish household but became traditionally observant, or Orthodox, as an adult, and never misses the opportunity to wax poetic about how Orthodox Jewish females are superior because they know from modesty), allow me to report how the women in my own Orthodox community dress on a typical Sabbath morning. Last Saturday, when the sun beat down brightly, I saw regulars in cap sleeves, scoop-necklines, pegged knee-length skirts, and high heeled sandals (sans hose)--and others in skirt suits, blouses with sleeves that brushed the wrists, and long tiered skirts. To my eyes, every one appeared to be dressed in a dignified, appropriate, and modest style befitting religious worship. Would Shalit deem only those totally covered kosher?

(Disclosure: Shalit criticizes my first book, about the dangers of the sexual double standard, but my opinions about her work had gelled before I reached the reference, which appears on page 271 and which I didn't know about in advance.)

If I had to characterize my own manner of dressing, I would call it "sexy-schlumpy." I typically pair a fitted V-neck top (a high neckline accentuates my bust more than a low one, and a loose top makes me look pregnant) with an A-line skirt that falls below the knees. I like my hourglass shape and enjoy dressing in a feminine way, but a dash of schlumpiness adds necessary comfort, especially when I'm chasing down my kids to shmear sunscreen all over them before they board the day camp bus. And yes, I do value modesty, a great deal actually--but on my terms. Would Shalit advise me to go completely schlumpy to conform to her ideal vision?

On this issue, the definition of modest dress--the crux of the book, really--Shalit is coyly vague. She celebrates "Pure Fashion Shows" and even offers detailed tips on how to produce such a show, never explaining what the clothes themselves should look like. The closest we get to specifics is her approval of the fact that stores are now carrying shirts that go past the belly and jeans that cover the behind--evidence, she argues, of a backlash to skimpy clothes.

Yet on every other topic she addresses, she writes in absolutes. In many instances, I agree with her completely: Little girls should never wear "Care Bear" thongs and shirts that say "This T-Shirt Would Look Better Wet," nor dress up like prostitutes on Halloween, or on any other day. Teenage girls and young women should never feel obligated to say "yes" to casual sex, oral or otherwise, to please a guy or because they believe this is what girls and women are supposed to do. Females of any age should never be made to feel ashamed for thinking that sexuality is private and special. Stripping should never be upheld as a profession for girls to aspire to. Ariel Levy covered this ground two years ago in Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, but it's worthwhile to cover it again since the equation of "femininity" with "sexuality" continues to be widespread, together with the message that looking sexy is what females do best.

Clearly, the oversexualization of females is not empowering anyone and is causing a tremendous amount of damage in terms of how girls and women regard themselves and how boys and men treat girls and women. It is a huge step backward for women and it is endlessly disturbing. At its root, this phenomenon stems in part from the desire of females to please males to an extreme degree. Shalit admits this and offers quotes from young men who shake their heads over teenage girls who perform oral sex on guys because they worry that if they don't, they will be friendless or ostracized.

But instead of expressing sympathy for the girls caught in this impossible situation, and instead of showing any judgment of the boys who press their advantage, she blames the girls themselves, as well as feminists (much as Levy did in her own work, which is why her chauvinist pigs were "female" -- get it?). Shalit is downright disdainful of girls who succumb to the pressures of oversexualization, and applies just as much pressure on them to dress in a certain way that they already experience -- but from the other extreme end of the fashion spectrum. In a typical passage, she relates how she shared a Toronto bus with two teenage girls who had just come from the beach and were wearing "midriff-baring shirts and skintight pants." Shalit asked if she could quiz them on their opinion of new clothing trends.

“Well, midriff-exposing tops aren’t ‘in’ anymore, they volunteer, without batting an eyelash. ‘They’re not?’ I say, surprised. I feel it’s rude to point out that their stomachs are visible this very moment, so I just nod politely. Perhaps they didn’t realize they had put on cropped tops that morning. ‘Yes, you know, like, the long polka dot shirts? They’re very “in” now,’ they continue, seemingly without any self-awareness. ‘OK,’ I begin slowly, not sure of how to broach the topic of their clothing. ... ‘So do you guys see yourselves as ... rebelling against this new trend?’ They look at me as if I’m batty, and exchange glances. How could they resist a new trend? Why would they resist a new trend? The blonde rolls her eyes and explains to me, patiently, as if to a small child, ‘Nooo! The polo shirts, with like the V-necks and the collars? We’re going to the mall to buy some now.

There was only one responsible thing to do, which was to let the girls get off the bus and buy those shirts as soon as possible.”

Girls who wear revealing clothes, we learn, are brainless trend-chasers, which Shalit repeatedly tells us is "sad" and "depressing." Later she informs us that they are also bullies because their parents don't teach them about boundaries or good manners and that because of them, a number of "good" girls have committed suicide. Girls who reject sexual clothes, however, are consistently praised as precocious and "wise beyond their years" because they penetrate the sexualized hype and recognize that dressing modestly showcases their individuality, not their bodies.

But I would argue that instead of dismissing these girls, we should listen to them very carefully -- so that we can help them, not shoo them off to the mall. No matter what females wear, males who want to objectify them will objectify them. I've learned this firsthand -- a number of years ago I wore exclusively over-sized, baggy clothes and that did not halt the objectifiers, not at all.

It seems to me that the unhealthy desire on the part of girls to please guys goes hand in hand with their feelings of worthlessness, with their sense that their sexuality is the only power they possess. Shalit criss-crossed the U.S. and Canada, speaking with a hundred girls and young women, but it appears that she exhausted all her thoughtful conversations on the girls who made choices she approved of. It would be far more illuminating--and helpful--to analyze the thinking of the girls she does not approve of. Only then can we educate girls--and their mothers--that while they should feel comfortable with their sexuality, pole dancing does not equal liberation.

Then again, neither does a collared polo shirt.

Copyright © 2008 by Leora Tanenbaum. All rights reserved. If you want to reprint this essay, email your request to leora@takingbackgod.com.

Goodbye, F-Word: Hello, 'Women's Lib'

Wed, 30 May 2007 20:04:50 GMT

The Huffington Post, May 31, 2007

How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb? One, and that's not funny!

Most American women, especially young women, agree with the feminist goal of women's equality yet eschew the label. Speaking as a feminist myself, I can't say I blame them. Let's face it: In the minds of most Americans, a "feminist" is and always will be a humorless hairy woman who hates men yet also inexplicably wants to be identical to them. She doesn't wear makeup, cuts her hair short to look like the lesbian she is, loves her career too much and doesn't like children nearly enough. She's too angry and complains too much. To many women of color, she cares only about white women; to many white women, she intellectualizes things far too much and doesn't know squat about real women's lives.

The term "feminist" dates back to late-nineteenth-century France, when it was actually not pejorative. But in the U.S., right from the get-go in 1906, the term was flung like a rotten tomato of an insult. Throughout the feminist "first wave" of the suffrage movement and the "second wave" of the late 1960s and early 1970s, feminism was alternately deemed dangerous or dead. In the 1980s and beyond, with the ascent of the televangelists of the religious right, feminists were maligned as evil destroyers of moral society. In the 1990s, Rush Limbaugh equated them with Nazi murderers. Thus, today's "third wave" is a very hard sell.

Here's my proposal: ditch "feminism" and find a replacement term. "Feminism" as a label has been stigmatized to the point where it can no longer be recuperated. At the very least, let's take a break from the term while we think things through.

I'm not advocating a burial of the movement. Now more than ever, we need feminism. We're losing our reproductive rights at an alarming clip. There remains a substantial wage gap between mothers and fathers. The sexual double standard is still in place, leading to sexual violence (if a girl once said "yes," the thinking goes, she's never entitled to say "no"). Girls and women "gone wild" believe, not entirely incorrectly, that their sexual allure may be their most potent power in the world at large. Religious institutions are run largely by men even though in many houses of worship, it's mostly women who sit in the pews. Mothers who work long hours are denigrated as terrible moms while fathers who do the same are lauded if they change one diaper a week. It's still true that a man who stands up for himself is assertive while a woman who does the same is a bitch. And so on.

Authors and activists Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards have observed that because feminism has had so many successes over the decades, it's taken for granted. For the younger generations, "feminism is like fluoride. We scarcely notice that we have it -- it's simply in the water." But "on a political level the movement is more like nitrogen: ubiquitous and inert."

So let's resuscitate the term, die-hards say. Author Paula Kamen has expressed this sentiment better than anyone. "A natural response is to change the word 'feminist' to a word with fewer stigmas attached," she writes. "But inevitably the same thing will happen to that magical word. Part of the radical connotation of feminism is not due to the word, but to the action. The act of a woman standing up for herself is radical, whether she calls herself a feminist or not." True enough, but embracing the shared term "feminist" is often the first step in doing something active to fight for women's rights.

Meanwhile, the "I'm-not-a-feminist-but" women can be tough nuts to crack, politically speaking. Very often the woman who says, "I'm not a feminist, but I'm angry and scared because I can't get a legal abortion in my county" or "I'm not a feminist, but my husband left me and even though I spent all those years taking care of our kids and home, I'm left penniless" does not necessarily want to unify with other women in similar circumstances because she's afraid to associate herself with those who are (in her mind) self-righteous, unsmiling, and always picking a fight. Too many of us are spending too much time trying to convince the "I'm-not-a-feminist-buts" that the feminazi stereotypes are trumped up and that if they don't act now, their contraceptives along with their right to an abortion will be as outdated as "gal Fridays."

Jessica Valenti, founder and editor of the website feministing.com and author of the recently published Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters, is on a valiant mission to win over the "I'm-not-a-feminist-buts." To her credit, she's trying to make feminism cool and fun again. But many feminist proselytizers aren't as savvy as Valenti; in an effort to convert, they glorify anything women do as "feminist," to the point where wearing a bikini is considered "feminist." Not that there's anything wrong with a bikini, but wearing one won't get us another woman on the Supreme Court.

Feminists have debated a name change for some time now. Alice Walker prefers the term "womanist," which refers to the perspective of women of color; and every once in a while someone pipes up with "humanist." I say: let's do as the radical feminists of the "second wave" did. Let's call ourselves "women's libbers." I admit it's confrontational, which will turn off some. But it's tempered with a whiff of nostalgia and it would re-connect us with the movement's history. Best of all, it connotes a sense of urgency, which women desperately need.

The women's liberation movement, whose heyday was 1967 to 1973, grew out of the anti-war and black freedom movements. Women's lib focused on the collective experiences of women. It jump-started the Our Bodies, Ourselves-style focus on women's health, rape crisis centers, the "sisterhood is powerful" ethic, awareness that "the personal is political", and the ever-valuable tool of consciousness-raising. But by the mid-1970s, a more individualistic strand of feminism became dominant and "women's lib" was thrown away like a stretched-out bra.

"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is," the British writer Rebecca West famously said in 1913, her words later memorialized on countless office corkboards. "I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute." But today, in an effort to be palatable and accessible, feminism isn't always sharply distinguished from the doormat and prostitute businesses. Let's breathe "women's lib" back to life. If we don't liberate ourselves, who will?

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Copyright © 2008 by Leora Tanenbaum. All rights reserved. If you want to reprint this essay, email your request to leora@takingbackgod.com.

Christopher Hitchens to God: Drop Dead

Tue, 15 May 2007 20:06:04 GMT

The Huffington Post, May 16, 2007

If I were sitting in the pews listening to Christopher Hitchens delivering a sermon on his new book, a denunciation of religion, I would roll my eyes, perhaps doze off, maybe even walk out. This is what believers in houses of worship do when confronted with overblown, out-of-touch, and insulting words from the pulpit. But as Hitchens imagines it, we sit docilely to even the most inane homilies from our religious leaders, listening and absorbing. Then we go off, clutching our sacred texts, to abuse, oppress, and murder.

Unlike most preachers, admittedly, Hitchens is entertaining and erudite, and he studs the pages of his book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, with golden nuggets of rhetoric. But as an observant Jew myself, who also happens to be involved in the movement for women's meaningful participation and leadership in Orthodox Judaism, I read this book feeling as if I were watching the local news with its endless worst-case scenarios and hyperreal depiction of daily life.

Hitchens calls all religions --not only Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-- to task for being transparently man-made ("the 'revelation' at Sinai and the rest of the Pentateuch was an ill-carpentered fiction, bolted into place well after the nonevents that it fails to describe convincingly or even plausibly"). They are foolish and delusional ("The real 'miracle' is that we, who share genes with the original bacteria that began life on the planet, have evolved as much as we have"). They're not even functional ("Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, [religion] no longer offers an explanation of anything important"). They're stupid (in 2005 in Nigeria, a group of Islamic religious leaders "declared the polio vaccine to be a conspiracy by the United States" against Muslims. Believers refused the vaccine and within months, polio was back and spreading fast).

And of course, they are abusive --witness the Vatican's complicity and cover-up of "a huge racket of child rape and child torture, mainly but by no means exclusively homosexual, in which known pederasts and sadists were shielded from the law and reassigned to parishes where the pickings of the innocent and defenseless were often richer." And murderous --"I leave it to the faithful to burn each other's churches and mosques and synagogues, which they can always be relied upon to do"; "Conceivably, some readers of these pages will be shocked to learn of the existence of Hindu and Buddhist murderers and sadists. Perhaps they dimly imagine that contemplative easterners, devoted to vegetarian diets and meditative routines, are immune to such temptations?"

Yes, yes. Atheists and believers alike know that religion has lubricated mass acceptance of misogyny, slavery, and tyranny. But so have secular, non-religious leaders and regimes. Even after reading Hitchens' catalogue of atrocities committed in the name of religion, I am still unconvinced that religion, in and of itself, is the problem.

Fundamentalism, not religion per se, is the real culprit. Hitchens confuses the part for the whole: not all believers are fundamentalists. In fact, most of us aren't. Believe it or not, for all of his influence in creating the "religious right" as a formidable political force, even the late Jerry Falwell did not represent all evangelical Christians (those who consider themselves "born-again" and embrace a personal relationship with Jesus). Millions continued to find Tinky Winky of the children's program Teletubbies adorable despite Falwell's trashing of the character's gender-bending, and cringed when he blamed political liberals for September 11. Millions of evangelicals today defiantly align themselves with the political left, are appalled by religious attempts to control their votes, and want nothing to do with the Bush administration's hypocritical born-again political agendas.

Likewise, when the Ayatollah Khomeini put a hit on novelist Salman Rushdie, the ayatollah did not speak for all Muslims. (Hitchens once had Rushdie spend the weekend in his Washington apartment, an act of bravery and friendship; Hitchens and his family consequently became potential targets themselves.) Over 97 percent of U.S. Catholics reject the Vatican's ban on contraception. And let's face it: how many Jews support "metzitzah b'peh," a disgusting act committed by very few ritual circumcisers that involves sucking off the foreskin with the mouth?

Using these examples and others like them, Hitchens bases his argument on the lowest common denominator. But millions of believers wrestle with their faiths and don't take doctrine at face value. Around the world, there is a growing movement of devout women across religious lines standing up for their rights. Many of them call themselves "feminists"; others avoid the term like they wish Eve had spurned the serpent's fruit. No matter what you call them, these are women who want to maintain their tradition, only make it better. They are Catholics --including nuns, supposedly the most obedient of the faithful-- active in the movement for women's ordination; evangelicals who reject the "headship" belief, traced to the New Testament, that husbands should rule over their wives; Orthodox Jews who find no obstacle in Jewish law to women's ordination or reading the Torah in synagogue; and Muslim women who refuse to pray behind the men in mosque and who denounce last year's attempt in Ontario to adopt sharia-based law to settle Muslim family disputes.

Feminists certainly don't have a monopoly on religious dissent. Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong titled his 1998 call for reformation Why Christianity Must Change or Die. Every faith and denomination is confronted with supporters of gay rights. And as the pope reminded us last week, liberation theology --which fuses religious belief with social action for the poor-- is alive and well in Latin America.

To Hitchens, religion is all theology, all the time. But one of the main reasons that religious feminists, gay-rights activists, and others refuse to leave their faiths is that theology isn't always what it's all about. In fact, mainline Protestantism and Conservative and Reform Judaism are often derided for not adhering to traditional doctrine. Religion offers community, a framework in which to celebrate lifecycle events and mourn loss of life, distinctive recipes, and a code of values for moral living, among many other positive things.

We all know that religion often leads to oppression. But instead of ditching their faith, millions of believers are doing something much more challenging and worthwhile: working on reform. Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun and tireless lecturer and writer, asked 3,000 Catholics assembled in Milwaukee last November celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the reform organization Call To Action: Why should Catholics speak up for reform? Her thunderous answer was that "What happens in the world and in the Church does not depend on God. It depends on us. It is not God's fault if things we have done already do not change. It is our fault!... We cannot blame God for what we do not do to save ourselves." Whether or not God is great is not the issue. Reforming our institutions, including but not limited to our religious ones, is the task before us.

#

Copyright © 2008 by Leora Tanenbaum. All rights reserved. If you want to reprint this essay, email your request to leora@takingbackgod.com.

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