The Purity Myth

Author: Jessica Valenti
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458766756
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 374

Book Description
The United States is obsessed with virginity - from the media to schools to government agencies. This panic is ensuring that young women's ability to be moral agents is absolutely dependent on their sexuality. Jessica Valenti, executive editor of Feministing.com and author of Full Frontal Feminism and Yes Means Yes, addresses this poignant issue in her latest book, The Purity Myth. Valenti argues that the country's intense focus on chastity is extremely damaging to young women. Through in depth analysis of cultural stereotypes and media messages, Valenti reveals that powerful messages - ranging from abstinence curriculum to ''Girls Gone Wild'' commercials - place a young woman's worth entirely on her sexuality. Morals are therefore linked purely to sexual behavior, as opposed to values like honesty, kindness, and altruism. Valenti approaches the topic head-on, shedding light on chastity in a historical context, abstinence-only education, pornography, and public punishments for those who dare to have sex, among other critical issues. She also offers solutions that pave the way for a future without a damaging emphasis on virginity, including a call to rethink male sexuality and reframing the idea of ''losing it.'' With Valenti's usual balance of intelligence and wit, The Purity Myth presents a powerful and revolutionary argument that girls and women, even in this day and age, are overly valued for their sexuality, and that this needs to stop.

Purity is a Myth

Author: Zanna Gilbert
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781606067246
Category : Art, Argentine
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
"Purity Is a Myth presents new scholarship on Concrete art in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay from the 1940s to the 1960s"--

Why Have Kids?

Author: Jessica Valenti
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547892616
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Book Description
Jessica Valenti explores modern motherhood and the choice to have children.

Unprotected

Author: Miriam Grossman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781595230454
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description
Our campuses are steeped in political correctness—that's hardly news to anyone. But no one realizes that radical social agendas have also taken over campus health and counseling centers, with dire consequences. Psychiatrist Miriam Grossman knows this better than anyone. She has treated more than 2,000 students at one of America's most prestigious universities, and she's seen how the anything- goes, women-are-just-like-men, "safer-sex" agenda is actually making our sons and daughters sick. Dr. Grossman takes issue with the experts who suggest that students problems can be solved with free condoms and Zoloft. What campus counselors and health providers must do, she argues, is tell uncomfortable, politically incorrect truths, especially to young patients in their most vulnerable and confused moments. Instead of platitudes and misinformation, it's time to offer them real protection.

Purity and Danger

Author: Professor Mary Douglas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136489274
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Book Description
Purity and Danger is acknowledged as a modern masterpiece of anthropology. It is widely cited in non-anthropological works and gave rise to a body of application, rebuttal and development within anthropology. In 1995 the book was included among the Times Literary Supplement's hundred most influential non-fiction works since WWII. Incorporating the philosophy of religion and science and a generally holistic approach to classification, Douglas demonstrates the relevance of anthropological enquiries to an audience outside her immediate academic circle. She offers an approach to understanding rules of purity by examining what is considered unclean in various cultures. She sheds light on the symbolism of what is considered clean and dirty in relation to order in secular and religious, modern and primitive life.

Yes Means Yes!

Author: Jaclyn Friedman
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 158005899X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
This groundbreaking feminist classic dismantles the way we view rape in our culture and replaces it with a genuine understanding and respect for female sexual pleasure. In the original edition, feminist, political, and activist writers alike presented their ideas for a paradigm shift from the "No Means No" model--and the result was the groundbreaking shift to today's affirmative consent model ("Yes Means Yes," as coined by this book). With a timely new introduction, refreshed cover, and the timeless contributions of authors from Kate Harding to Jill Filipovic, Yes Means Yes brings to the table a dazzling variety of perspectives and experiences focused on the theory that educating all people to value female sexuality and pleasure leads to viewing women differently, and ending rape. Yes Means Yes has radical and far-reaching effects: from teaching men to treat women as collaborators and not conquests, encouraging men and women that women can enjoy sex instead of being shamed for it, and ultimately, that our children can inherit a world where rape is rare and swiftly punished.

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting

Author: Vijay Prashad
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 9780807050118
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
Selected as One of the Village Voice's Favorite 25 Books of 2001 In this landmark work, historian Vijay Prashad refuses to engage the typical racial discussion that matches people of color against each other while institutionalizing the primacy of the white majority. Instead he examines more than five centuries of remarkable historical evidence of cultural and political interaction between Blacks and Asians around the world, in which they have exchanged cultural and religious symbols, appropriated personas and lifestyles, and worked together to achieve political change.

Sex Object

Author: Jessica Valenti
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062435108
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 133

Book Description
New York Times Bestseller - An NPR Best Book of the Year “Sharp and prescient… The appeal of Valenti’s memoir lies in her ability to trace objectification through her own life, and to trace what was for a long time her own obliviousness to it…Sex Object is an antidote to the fun and flirty feminism of selfies and self-help.” — New Republic Author and Guardian US columnist Jessica Valenti has been leading the national conversation on gender and politics for over a decade. Now, in a darkly funny and bracing memoir, Valenti explores the toll that sexism takes from the every day to the existential. Sex Object explores the painful, funny, embarrassing, and sometimes illegal moments that shaped Valenti’s adolescence and young adulthood in New York City, revealing a much shakier inner life than the confident persona she has cultivated as one of the most recognizable feminists of her generation. In the tradition of writers like Joan Didion and Mary Karr, this literary memoir is sure to shock those already familiar with Valenti’s work and enthrall those who are just finding it.

Pure

Author: Linda Kay Klein
Publisher: Atria Books
ISBN: 150112482X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Book Description
In Pure, Linda Kay Klein uses a potent combination of journalism, cultural commentary, and memoir to take us “inside religious purity culture as only one who grew up in it can” (Gloria Steinem) and reveals the devastating effects evangelical Christianity’s views on female sexuality has had on a generation of young women. In the 1990s, a “purity industry” emerged out of the white evangelical Christian culture. Purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls came with a dangerous message: girls are potential sexual “stumbling blocks” for boys and men, and any expression of a girl’s sexuality could reflect the corruption of her character. This message traumatized many girls—resulting in anxiety, fear, and experiences that mimicked the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—and trapped them in a cycle of shame. This is the sex education Linda Kay Klein grew up with. Fearing being marked a Jezebel, Klein broke up with her high school boyfriend because she thought God told her to and took pregnancy tests despite being a virgin, terrified that any sexual activity would be punished with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. When the youth pastor of her church was convicted of sexual enticement of a twelve-year-old girl, Klein began to question purity-based sexual ethics. She contacted young women she knew, asking if they were coping with the same shame-induced issues she was. These intimate conversations developed into a twelve-year quest that took her across the country and into the lives of women raised in similar religious communities—a journey that facilitated her own healing and led her to churches that are seeking a new way to reconcile sexuality and spirituality. Pure is “a revelation... Part memoir and part journalism, Pure is a horrendous, granular, relentless, emotionally true account" (The Cut) of society’s larger subjugation of women and the role the purity industry played in maintaining it. Offering a prevailing message of resounding hope and encouragement, “Pure emboldens us to escape toxic misogyny and experience a fresh breath of freedom” (Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and founder of Together Rising).

Believe Me

Author: Jessica Valenti
Publisher: Seal Press
ISBN: 1580058787
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Book Description
What would happen if we believed women? A groundbreaking anthology offers a potent rallying cry and theory of change Harvey Weinstein. Brett Kavanaugh. Jeffrey Epstein. Donald Trump. The most infamous abusers in modern American history are being outed as women speak up to publicly expose behavior that was previously only whispered about -- and it's both making an impact, and sparking a backlash. From the leading, agenda-setting feminist editors of Yes Means Yes, Believe Me brings readers into the evolving landscape of the movement against sexual violence, and outlines how trusting women is the critical foundation for future progress. In Believe Me, contributors ask and answer the crucial question: What would happen if we didn't just believe women, but acted as though they matter? If we take women's experiences of online harassment seriously, it will transform the internet. If we listen to and center survivors, we could revolutionize our systems of justice. If we believe Black women when they talk about pain, we will save countless lives. With contributions from many of the most important voices in feminism today, Believe Me is an essential roadmap for the #MeToo era and beyond.