Peggy Orenstein Quotes & Sayings

But it is Bella, not the supernaturals she falls in with, who is the true horror show here, at least as a female role model. — Peggy Orenstein

Princess play feels like proof of our daughters' innocence, protection against the sexualization it may actually be courting. It reassures us that, despite the pressure to be precocious, little girls are still
and ever will be
little girls. And that knowledge restores our faith not only in wonder but, quite possibly, in goodness itself. — Peggy Orenstein

Sexualization is the performance of sexuality, the performance of sexiness. Girls are super good at that now. — Peggy Orenstein

I talked to a junior in college, and she was fed up. She said, "I'm not doing other girls any favours by faking orgasms and not calling out guys when we're having unequal experiences." — Peggy Orenstein

Young people are not tabulae rasae. They have a sense of right and wrong. But if they're repeatedly exposed to certain themes, they are more likely to pick them up, to internalize them and have them become part of their sexual scripts. — Peggy Orenstein

Children weren't color-coded at all until the early twentieth century: in the era before Maytag, all babies wore white as a practical matter, since the only way of getting clothes clean was to boil them. What's more, both boys and girls wore what were thought of as gender-neutral dresses. When nursery colors were introduced, pink was actually considered the more masculine hue, a pastel version of red, which was associated with strength. Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy, and faithfulness, symbolized femininity. — Peggy Orenstein

Displaying yourself as sexy doesn't do anything to increase sexual self-knowledge or pleasure. — Peggy Orenstein

American Psychological Association, the girlie-girl culture's emphasis on beauty and play-sexiness can increase girls' vulnerability to the pitfalls that most concern parents: depression, eating disorders, distorted body image, risky sexual behavior. — Peggy Orenstein

We continue to think of virginity as first intercourse. That ends up minimizing and marginalizing other things kids are engaged in, like oral sex. And it's not going to feel particularly good for girls as the big marker of adulthood. — Peggy Orenstein

To bring home the point, she compared New Years resolutions of girls at the end of the nineteenth centyry with those at the end of the twentieth. Heres what a young woman of yore wrote:
Resolved: to think before speaking. To work seriously. To be self-restrained in conversations and actions. Not to let my thoughts wander. To be dignified. Interest myself more in others.
And the contemporary girl:
I will try to make myself better in any way i possibly can.... I will lose weight, get new lenses, already got new haircut, good makeup, new clothes and accessories. — Peggy Orenstein

Sex-ed courses look at girl's internal parts: for boys it's about ejaculation, erection and wet dreams; for girls, it's periods and unwanted pregnancy. We never talk to girls about sexual self-exploration or self-knowledge. — Peggy Orenstein

Sexualization is imposed from the outside as opposed to sexuality, an understanding of the body's responses and desires and ability to communicate that, cultivated from within. — Peggy Orenstein

Some girls bragged to me that they could "have sex like a guy," by which they meant they could engage without emotion, they could objectify their partners as fully and reductively as boys often objectified them. That seemed a sad, low road to equality. What if, instead, they expected boys to be as sexually giving as girls? What if they were taught that all sexual partners, whether total strangers or intimates, deserved esteem and generosity, just as people do in any human interaction? What if they refused to settle for anything less? — Peggy Orenstein

Simpson Rowe was quick to say that only perpetrators are responsible for assault, but assertiveness and self-advocacy are crucial defensive skills. — Peggy Orenstein

All girls over age 14 remove pubic hair. The only touching is to remove hair. That's grim. — Peggy Orenstein

i get why manufacturers play to pink- it makes good business sense. A marketing executive i spoke with at LeapFrog which is based in Emeryville, California, told me that her company even had a name for it the pink factor.
If you make a pink baseball bat, parents will buy one for their daughter, she explained. then if they subsequently have a son, they'll have to buy a second bat in a different color. Or, if they have a boy first and then a daughter, they'll want to buy a pink one for their precious little girl. Either way, you double the sales. — Peggy Orenstein

Wait a minute,' I countered. 'Didn't you just tell me about all the strong women role models in your family, about how you were loud and have a big personality and didn't take shit?'
'I know,' she said. 'I think I didn't realize...' She paused, trying to reconcile the contradiction. 'I guess no one ever told me that the strong female image also applies to sex. — Peggy Orenstein

I know that if i could imbue her with a superpower, it would be the ability to withstand the pressures of the cultures around her, to be her own woman despite the potential costs: i would give her the courage of her convictions — Peggy Orenstein

Leaving something unnamed makes it quite literally unspeakable: a void, an absence, a taboo. — Peggy Orenstein

Intimate justice touches on ideas of gender inequity, violence, bodily integrity, physical and mental health. I don't expect a 15-year-old girl to have that figured out; it's hard enough to have it figured out when you're 50. — Peggy Orenstein

What's more, I live in Berkeley, California. If princesses had infiltrated OUR little retro hippie hamlet, imagine what was going on places where women actually shaved their legs! — Peggy Orenstein

Right-wing influence on sex education has played an equal, if not greater role. Federally mandated abstinence-only programs, which began in the early 1980s, not only reinforced that intercourse was the line in the sand of chastity, but also, using the threat of AIDS as justification, hammered home the idea that it might well kill you. Oral sex, then, was the obvious work-around. I doubt, though, that social conservatives would consider it a victory that, across a range of studies, college students who identify as religious are even more likely than others to say oral sex is not "sex," or that over a third of teenagers included it in their definition of "abstinence" (nearly a quarter included anal sex), or that roughly 70 percent agreed that someone who engages in oral sex is still a virgin. — Peggy Orenstein

What this means for parents is that you never know what your child's "sex education" class may entail. Only fourteen states require that sex ed be medically accurate. — Peggy Orenstein

For years we've used the bases analogy - with intercourse being the "ultimate sex" even though that's probably not going to feel good to girls. That model doesn't let you say "I like it at second base, maybe I'll stay here." — Peggy Orenstein

I'm going to say this once here, and then - because it is obvious - I will not repeat it in the course of this book: not all boys engage in such behavior, not by a long shot, and many young men are girls' staunchest allies. However, every girl I spoke with, every single girl - regardless of her class, ethnicity, or sexual orientation; regardless of what she wore, regardless of her appearance - had been harassed in middle school, high school, college, or, often, all three. Who, then, is truly at risk of being "distracted" at school? — Peggy Orenstein

The notion is called wabi-sabi life, like the cherry blossom, it is beautiful because of its impermanence, not in spite of it, more exquisite for the inevitability of loss. — Peggy Orenstein

It's particularly important as parents in our conversations with our daughters and our sons to consider ideas intimate justice when we talk about and set them going on their early formative experience. — Peggy Orenstein

When we've defined femininity for their generation so narrowly, in such a sexualized, commercialized, heteroeroticized way, where is the space, the vision, the celebration of other ways to be a girl? — Peggy Orenstein

Maybe I wanted children, maybe I didn't, but I wanted the decision to be a choice, not a mandate. Last time I checked, childlessness was only supposed to be a condition of career advancement for nuns. — Peggy Orenstein

They too struggle with the expectation to look sexy but not to feel sexual, to provoke desire in others without experience it themselves. Our daughters may not be faced with the decision of whether to strip for maxim, but they will have to figure out how to become sexual beings without being objectified or stigmatized. — Peggy Orenstein

There is only one princess in the Disney tales, one girl who gets to be exalted. Princesses may confide in a sympathetic mouse or teacup, but they do not have girlfriends. God forbid Snow White should give Sleeping Beauty a little support. Let's review: princesses avoid female bonding. Their goals are to be saved by a prince, get married, and be taken care of the rest of their lives. — Peggy Orenstein

The key may be to keep the bright light of public attention shining. According to a study by the American Psychological Association, the reported numbers of assaults increase an average of about 44 percent when campuses are under formal scrutiny. Afterward, though, they sink back to their original levels, indicating that some schools provide a more accurate picture of sexual assault only when forced to do so. — Peggy Orenstein

Rather than freedom from traditional constraints, then, girls were free to "choose" them. Yet, the line between "get to" and "have to" blurs awfully fast. — Peggy Orenstein

Girls did not always organize their thinking about themselves around the physical. Before World War I, self-improvement meant being less self-involved, less vain: helping others, focusing on schoolwork, becoming better read, and cultivating empathy. Author Joan Jacobs Brumberg highlighted this change in her book The Body Project by comparing the New Year's resolutions of girls at the end of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: "Resolved," wrote a girl in 1892, "to think before speaking. To work seriously. To be self-restrained in conversations and actions. Not to let my thoughts wander. To be dignified. Interest myself more in others. — Peggy Orenstein

Children as young as twelve to eighteen months can recognize brands, it went on, and are "strongly influenced" by advertising and marketing. Yikes! — Peggy Orenstein

And isn't that, at it's core, what the princess fantasy is about for all of us? "Princess" is how we tell little girls that they are special, precious. "Princess" is the wish that we could protect them from pain, that they would never know sorrow, that they will live happily ever after ensconces in lace and innocence. — Peggy Orenstein

That said, pointing out inaccurate or unrealistic portrayals of women to younger grade school children-ages five to eight-does seem to be effective, when done judiciously:taking to little girls about body image and dieting, for example, can actually introduce them to disordered behavior rather than inoculating them against it. I may be taking a bit of a leap here, but to me all this indicated that if you are creeped out about the characters fromMonster High, it is fine to keep them out of your house. — Peggy Orenstein

If toting the standard equipment is not what male or female, exactly what does?
well, duh, its barrettes.
At least thats what kids think it is your clothing, hairstyle, toy choice, favorite color.
Slippery stuff, that. You can see how perilously easy would be to err — Peggy Orenstein

Saying "yes" [to sexual activity] is a pretty low baseline for sexual experience and I wanted to write about what was happening to girls after "yes." — Peggy Orenstein

Women are one-half of the world's people; they do two-thirds of the world's work; they earn one-tenth of the world's income; they own one one-hundredth of the world's property. — Peggy Orenstein

How about this, I would counter: try not commenting on your own looks - on the size of your thighs or the tightness of your jeans. At least not in front of your daughter. Girls receive enough messages every day reducing them to their appearance without women they love delivering them, too. — Peggy Orenstein

It's not that pink is intrinsically bad, but it is such a tiny slice of the rainbow, and, though it may celebrate girlhood in one way, it also repeatedly and firmly fuses girl's identity to appearance. — Peggy Orenstein

The anesthetizing against caring really threw me for a loop. I was seeing it with 15-year-olds. It was how they were starting their intimate lives. It alarmed me. — Peggy Orenstein

Before World War I, self-improvement meant being less self-involved, less vain: helping others, focusing on schoolwork, becoming better read, and cultivating empathy. Author — Peggy Orenstein

Identify, I've learned, can be sliced many ways and there is gain with every loss. — Peggy Orenstein

I also worry about the incessant drumbeat of self-objectification: the pressure on young women to reduce their worth to their bodies and to see those bodies as a collection of parts that exist for others' pleasure; to continuously monitor their appearance; to perform rather than to feel sensuality. — Peggy Orenstein

I'd believed I could keep out the tales and the toys but had failed on both counts. — Peggy Orenstein

Let me be clear here: I object - strenuously - to the sexualization of girls but not necessarily to girls having sex. I expect and want my daughter to have a healthy, joyous erotic life before marriage. Long, long, long before marriage. I do, however, want her to understand why she's doing it: not for someone else's enjoyment, not to keep a boyfriend from leaving, not because everyone else is. I want her to do it for herself. I want her to explore and understand her body's responses, her own pleasure, her own desire. I want her to be able to express her needs in relationship, to say no when she needs to, to value reciprocity, and to experience true intimacy. — Peggy Orenstein

Girls are removing pubic hair before fully having it. They would say I feel cleaner, it's for me, but then they'd say if a boy saw pubic hair down there they'd head for the hills. — Peggy Orenstein

You're beautiful' is not something you want to say over and over to your daughter, because it's not something that you want her to think is so important. "That said," she continued, "there are times when it is important to say it: when she's messy or sweaty, when she's not dressed up, so that she gets a sense that there is something naturally beautiful about her as a person. And it's also important to connect beauty and love. To say, 'I love you so much. Everything about you is beautiful to me - you are beautiful to me.' That way you're not just objectifying her body. — Peggy Orenstein

I never expected, when I had a daughter, that one of my most important jobs would be to protect her childhood from becoming a marketers' land grab. — Peggy Orenstein

Encouraging girls to explore sexuality within mutually caring, emotionally connected relationships is one thing; insisting on it is another. — Peggy Orenstein

Girls would say: "I have a boyfriend for that." So in addition to putting their pleasure literally into someone else's hands - an inept teenage boy - these are the same girls who say they do not climax with a partner. It's the opposite with boys; they say because they can do that themselves, girls should perform oral sex. — Peggy Orenstein

The point of creativity is to express and challenge yourself, to make meaning, to embrace your life. — Peggy Orenstein

As long as adults still avoid open discussion on sexuality, teens will inevitably seek information on today's electronic street corner. — Peggy Orenstein

Effectively, it makes the greasepaint permanent, blurring the lines not only between public and private but also between the authentic and contrived self. If all the world was once a stage, it has now become a reality TV show: we mere players are not just aware of the camera; we mug for it. — Peggy Orenstein

I found that in a perverse way our culture and parents are far more comfortable talking about girls' vicitimization than girls' sexual agency. — Peggy Orenstein