Quotes by Leora Tanenbaum, Slut!: Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation

“When a stranger on the street makes a sexual comment, he is making a private assessment of me public. And though Ive never been seriously worried that I would be attacked, it does make me feel ungu...”

“In comparison, young unmarried women in America were fortunate: They had a certain measure of sexual freedom. Eighteenth-century parents allowed their daughters to spend tie with suitors unsupervis...”

“Unwed white girls who became pregnant in the postwar years were considered psychologically disturbed but treatable, whereas their black counterparts were presumed to be biologically hypersexual and...”

“Indeed, girls can be so in need of social approval that they confuse harassment for acceptance--thinking that any attention is better than none. Since many girls as well as boys buy the idea that s...”

“I couldn't stand being identified by my sexuality, I retaliated by insisting that people regard me for my intellectual worth. My intellect became a form of damage control.”

“If I had been armed with a feminist understanding that no girl deserves to be called a slut, perhaps I would have fought back by reporting the harassment to my school's headmistress or another scho...”

“Intercourse was now forbidden to everyone but married people; bundling disappeared. In its place young courting couples engaged in "petting"--which, interpreted broadly, meant that they were could ...”

“Abstaining from sex, hitting the books, and wearing loose-fitting clothes are common ways that girls try to molt their "slutty" image. But more often their shame leads them to self-destructive beha...”