Updated with a new introduction, this fifteenth anniversary edition of A Return to Modesty reignites Wendy Shalit’s controversial claim that we have lost our respect for an essential virtue: modesty.
When A Return to Modesty was first published in 1999, its argument launched a worldwide discussion about the possibility of innocence and romantic idealism. Wendy Shalit was the first to systematically critique the "hook-up" scene and outline the harms of making sexuality so public.
Today, with social media increasingly blurring the line between public and private life, and with child exploitation on the rise, the concept of modesty is more relevant than ever. Updated with a new preface that addresses the unique problems facing society now, A Return to Modesty shows why "the lost virtue" of modesty is not a hang-up that we should set out to cure, but rather a wonderful instinct to be celebrated. A Return to Modesty is a deeply personal account as well as a fascinating intellectual exploration into everything from seventeenth-century manners to the 1948 tune "Baby, It’s Cold Outside." Beholden neither to social conservatives nor to feminists, Shalit reminds us that modesty is not prudery, but a natural instinct—and one that may be able to save us from ourselves.
Review
"Wendy Shalit’s first book, A Return to Modesty. . . created a storm when it was published nine years ago…As a veteran of pro-sex feminism who still endorses pornography and prostitution, I say more power to all these chaste young women who are defending their individuality and defying groupthink and social convention. That is true feminism!" (Camille Paglia )
"Her book has touched a nerve in a society overdosed on sex...Shalit defends...compellingly, shame, privacy, gallantry, and sexual reticence" (Tamala M. Edwards Time)
"Ms. Shalit marshals impressive evidence from philosophers as well as the tabloids to make her case for a return to modesty -- as both a sexual ideal and a strategy for greater pleasure...[a] serious yet bouncy study" (Ruth R. Wisse The Wall Street Journal)
"A Return to Modesty provides one invaluable service. There is a growing body of scholarly research on young adulthood that may, in the aftermath of Shalit's booming polemic, be more difficult to ignore." (Emily Eakin The New York Times Book Review)
"The book of the moment...makes a compelling case for the idea that the sexual revolution hasn't been entirely good for either women or men...Social workers, health professionals and others who bemoan the loss of "boundaries" in the lives of troubled girls will find a hopeful message in the book" (Shari Roan Los Angeles Times)
"The first book of its kind...to blaze down the center of the postfeminist battleground between left and right." (Norah Vincent Salon)
"[An] earnest and serious book....A fascinating subject [brought] to our attention in a fresh way." (Suzanne Field The Washington Times)
Cassandra West Chicago Tribune Brilliant...
Jonathan Yardley The Washington Post Book World Wendy Shalit makes a strong case that deserves respectful...attention.
Don Feder Boston Herald Wise...
Barbara Dafoe Whitehead Commonweal Shalit is a fiercely intelligent and resourceful critic....We should all pay heed.
Gilbert Meilaender The Christian Century [Shalit] writes well, has read widely, has a keen sense for the fault lines in an argument, and is willing to buck the prevailing tides. Although this is in some respects a young woman's book written for other young women, I wonder if we ought not be recommending it to young men. They might learn from it some important lessons about masculine character and conduct in our culture.
Ariel Swartley L.A. Weekly I find I like Wendy Shalit very much, both as a writer and, even more, as a fierce defender of young women's right to establish boundaries of their own.
Elizabeth Powers Commentary A powerful and witty book that registers all the changes in our social landscape in all their starkness while also illuminating many of the steps that brought us to where we are.... A Return to Modesty seeks to reclaim what has been forgotten: that sex is significant....[P]artly with the aid of expert testimony from earlier and more decorous ages, but mostly through her own preternaturally sharp eyes and mind, Shalit has seen deeply into female nature, and into the malaise of a generation.
Kirkus Reviews A heartfelt (and controversial) plea....A daring book aimed at the core of contemporary gender theory....It is audacious, and it should not be dismissed.
Jae-Ha Kim Chicago Sun-Times Impassioned...
Andrea Neal The Indianapolis Star Shalit assails a culture in which "scoring" is a virtue, but acting like ladies and gentlemen is not. Old-fashioned? Perhaps. Persuasive? Absolutely.
Melinda Ledden Sidak The Weekly Standard Excellent argument...
Catherine Muscat The Dartmouth Review What makes Wendy Shalit's analysis so refreshing is that she examines and justifies the nature of sexual modesty through rational discourse, rather than relying solely on the increasingly remote influence of religion....While Shalit's assault on sexual promiscuity is not to be taken lightly, she manages to infuse some humor in her discourse.
Edith Kurzweil editor of Partisan Review and author of Freudians and Feminists In this book Wendy Shalit brilliantly demonstrates how our views of natural modesty have been perverted by ideology....Her book is a tour de force everyone should read and reflect upon. It is a return to first-rate sociology without jargon, an examination of the values of the culture at the end of our century.
"A Return to Modesty is...so uncompromising in voice and stance that one is tempted to think of its author as Simone de Shalit or Wendy Wollstonecraft, but make no mistake: she imitates nothing and no one...Every page of this book [is] wise, fresh, and funny, sparkling with her special brand of astringent charm" (Florence King National Review)
About the Author
Wendy Shalit began to write A Return to Modesty as an undergrad at Williams College, where she received her BA in philosophy. She is also the author of The Good Girl Revolution and her essays on literary and cultural topics have appeared in The Wall Street Journal , The New York Times , and other publications. Now that she is the mother of three lively and opinionated children, she is more modest and humbled than ever before.
Amazon.com Review
The 23-year-old author first heard of "modestyniks"--Orthodox Jewish women who withhold physical contact from men until marriage--while a freshman at Williams College. She was initially fascinated by the way in which they cleave to old ideals, especially amid a sexually saturated contemporary world. But more so, Wendy Shalit was aghast at how modestyniks are dismissed as sick, delusional, or repressed by the secular community. "Why," asks the author, "is sexual modesty so threatening to some that they can only respond to it with charges of abuse or delusion?"
In her thoughtful three-part essay, the author reveals an impressive reading list as she probes the cultural history of sexual modesty for women and considers whether this virtue may be beneficial in today's world--if not an antidote to misogyny. In an age when women are embarrassed by sexual inexperience, when sex education is introduced as early as primary school, and when women suffer more than ever from eating disorders, stalking, sexual harassment, and date rape, Shalit believes a return to modesty may place women on equal footing with men. She yearns for a time when conservatives can believe the claims of feminists and feminists can differentiate between patriarchy and misogyny and share in the dialectic of female sexuality.
While the young author's argument is often limited by naiveté and her own lack of experience, her profound intelligence and daring are undeniable. A Return to Modesty is a thought-provoking debut that introduces an original and exciting new feminist thinker. --Kera Bolonik
One day in fourth grade, a nice lady suddenly appeared in our Wisconsin public elementary school classroom. This lady's name was Mrs. Nelson -- "Good morning, Mrs. Nelllllson!" -- and she arrived carrying a Question Box. It was a brown, medium-sized box about the size of a hat, and it had black question marks all over it. The Question Box was our Learning Tool, she said.
I was very excited about the Question Box, because it interrupted, then completely substituted for, the whole math lesson that day.
The class waited in anticipation. Mrs. Nelson opened the top of her box and pulled out a long slip of white paper. Then she read it, cheerily, as if she had just cracked open a fortune cookie: "And the first question is...'What is 69?'" She looked up from the white slip and faced us buoyantly: "What is 69, class?"
Well, that was a good question, because I certainly didn't know the answer. If she had asked what is 69 plus something, that would have been easy, but 69 all by itself was pretty philosophical. Some boys in the corner giggled. I immediately shot a glance at our teacher, who was standing up in the back of the classroom with his arms folded across his chest. Usually when the boys giggled, that meant something wrong was going on, and somebody was going to get into trouble. But this time our teacher didn't say a thing; he just looked straight ahead attentively at Mrs. Nelson. This confused me, but before I could try to make anything of it, Mrs. Nelson was speaking again.
"Now remember, boys and girls, there is absolutely nothing to giggle about! The first thing we're going to learn in Human Growth and Development is that no question is off limits!"
The outburst died down. Mrs. Nelson began again: "69 is...more giggles. Then "69 is, um..." I looked back at my teacher, who by now had turned bright red. This was a really strange math lesson.
Finally, after what seemed like 69 attempts to explain the number 69, I raised my hand and piped up, "May I please go to the bathroom?" As I left I could hear Mrs. Nelson was still quizzing: "Doesn't anyone know what 69 is? Well...these questions were put in by the fifth-grade class. You'll have the chance to fill the Question Box with your own questions."
When I came home I told my mother about my day, about this mysterious number that was very important and shouldn't be off limits. My mother wasn't so enthusiastic. She had me bring a note to school asking for a description of what we would be learning in our special math lessons. I brought it home, and when my mom opened it she was even less enthusiastic. She was also angry, and so was I -- but not for the same reason. I was annoyed because she wouldn't let me see the letter. She seemed to be under the impression that what was going on at our special math sessions was not math at all, but something else entirely. But what? She wouldn't let me see.
"If I knew you weren't going to let me see, I would have opened it before I walked home," I said petulantly.
But my mom wasn't paying attention. She was pacing around the kitchen, fuming. "I can't believe they're planning on teaching you how to masturbate in fourth grade. I can't believe it!"
What was she talking about?
"In fourth grade! Where is your father?" Then to me: "Go find your father."
That was when my mom called Mrs. Nelson. I had a feeling she was going to, so I ignored the directive to find my father. I remember, a few minutes later, my mom putting her hand over the phone and saying to me, in a high, extra polite voice, "Mrs. Nelson would like to know if I want you to be whispering in the locker room." Then she asked me, very gravely, "Do you want to be whispering in the locker room?" I thought about it, and said yes. I liked whispering. Whispering about stuff is exciting.
"Yes," my mom had returned the phone to her ear. "Yes, I've asked her, and she says she does want to whisper in the locker room." I found this terrifically funny, that adults could disagree over whispers. "I get to whisper in the locker room!" I called, jumping up and down.
"Yes, I'll have her bring another note. Goodbye."
From that day forward, I sat out sex education in the library. I always felt bad for the girls who didn't have this escape because after each sex ed session, as the lockers slammed and everyone prepared for the next class, the boys would pick on them, in a strange, new kind of teasing.
"Erica, do you masturbate?" one boy would say to one poor pigtailed victim as she struggled to remove her books as fast as she could. Then another boy would say, closing in on her from the other side, "It's really natural, you know." Or sometimes just "why aren't you masturbating now, Erica? It's normal, you know."
Then, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
"Why aren't you developing, Erica?"
"It's time for you to be developing, didn't you hear? Weren't you taking notes in class?"
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
"Well, I was paying attention, and you're really behind your proper growth and development!"
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
"You may be a treasure, Erica, but you ain't got no chest!"
And so on. Invariably just before the moment when the girl would burst into tears, I noticed that she would always say the same thing: "Mrs. Nelson says that if you tease us about what we learn in class, then you haven't understood the principle of respect." Respect is a very important doctrine in sex education class. Sex ed instructors often use Respect, a puppet turtle, to teach elementary school children about their "private places." As it happened, Mrs. Nelson was usually gone by the time the teasing began, so no one really cared about what they had learned from Respect the Turtle.
My public school wasn't unique. In 1993 more than 4,200 school-age girls reported to Seventeen magazine that "they have been pinched, fondled or subjected to sexually suggestive remarks at school, most of them...both frequently and publicly." Researchers from Wellesley College, following up on the magazine's survey, found "that nearly two-fifths of the girls reported being sexually harassed daily and another 29 percent said they were harassed weekly. More than two-thirds said the harassment occurred in view of other people. Almost 90 percent were the target of unwanted sexual comments or gestures." School officials do very little about this, the study also found. One 13-year-old girl from Pennsylvania told them: "I have told teachers about this a number of times; each time nothing was done about it."
More recently, psychologist Mary Pipher reports in Reviving Ophelia that she is seeing an increasing number of girls who are "school refusers," girls who "tell me they simply cannot face what happens to them at school." One client, Pipher says, "complained that boys slapped her behind and grabbed her breasts when she walked to her locker." Then "another wouldn't ride the school bus because boys teased her about oral sex." Pipher concludes that the harassment that girls experience in the 1990s is "much different in both quality and intensity" from the teasing she received as a girl in the late fifties.
When I was in college, a mother who owned the local deli persistently brought up in conversation how much her daughter was being sexually taunted by the boys at her school. The girl couldn't even concentrate on her homework when she was at home: all she did was dread returning to school. The mother was visibly distraught. She grew up in the fifties, she told me, and "this kind of thing never happened to us. Sure, the boys would flirt and tease us, but they were shy and nervous about it. They never ganged up on the girls like this. I'd never heard of a bunch of guys assaulting a girl verbally and physically."
For some reason, no one connects this kind of harassment and early sex education. But to me the connection was obvious from the start, because the boys never teased me -- they assumed I didn't know what they were referring to. Whenever the...
Updated with a new introduction, this fifteenth anniversary edition of A Return to Modesty reignites Wendy Shalit’s controversial claim that we have lost our respect for an essential virtue: modesty.
When A Return to Modesty was first published in 1999, its argument launched a worldwide discussion about the possibility of innocence and romantic idealism. Wendy Shalit was the first to systematically critique the "hook-up" scene and outline the harms of making sexuality so public.
Today, with social media increasingly blurring the line between public and private life, and with child exploitation on the rise, the concept of modesty is more relevant than ever. Updated with a new preface that addresses the unique problems facing society now, A Return to Modesty shows why "the lost virtue" of modesty is not a hang-up that we should set out to cure, but rather a wonderful instinct to be celebrated.
A Return to Modesty is a deeply personal account as well as a fascinating intellectual exploration into everything from seventeenth-century manners to the 1948 tune "Baby, It’s Cold Outside." Beholden neither to social conservatives nor to feminists, Shalit reminds us that modesty is not prudery, but a natural instinct—and one that may be able to save us from ourselves.
Review
"Wendy Shalit’s first book, A Return to Modesty. . . created a storm when it was published nine years ago…As a veteran of pro-sex feminism who still endorses pornography and prostitution, I say more power to all these chaste young women who are defending their individuality and defying groupthink and social convention. That is true feminism!" (Camille Paglia )
"Her book has touched a nerve in a society overdosed on sex...Shalit defends...compellingly, shame, privacy, gallantry, and sexual reticence" (Tamala M. Edwards Time)
"Ms. Shalit marshals impressive evidence from philosophers as well as the tabloids to make her case for a return to modesty -- as both a sexual ideal and a strategy for greater pleasure...[a] serious yet bouncy study" (Ruth R. Wisse The Wall Street Journal)
"A Return to Modesty provides one invaluable service. There is a growing body of scholarly research on young adulthood that may, in the aftermath of Shalit's booming polemic, be more difficult to ignore." (Emily Eakin The New York Times Book Review)
"The book of the moment...makes a compelling case for the idea that the sexual revolution hasn't been entirely good for either women or men...Social workers, health professionals and others who bemoan the loss of "boundaries" in the lives of troubled girls will find a hopeful message in the book" (Shari Roan Los Angeles Times)
"The first book of its kind...to blaze down the center of the postfeminist battleground between left and right." (Norah Vincent Salon)
"[An] earnest and serious book....A fascinating subject [brought] to our attention in a fresh way." (Suzanne Field The Washington Times)
Cassandra West Chicago Tribune Brilliant...
Jonathan Yardley The Washington Post Book World Wendy Shalit makes a strong case that deserves respectful...attention.
Don Feder Boston Herald Wise...
Barbara Dafoe Whitehead Commonweal Shalit is a fiercely intelligent and resourceful critic....We should all pay heed.
Gilbert Meilaender The Christian Century [Shalit] writes well, has read widely, has a keen sense for the fault lines in an argument, and is willing to buck the prevailing tides. Although this is in some respects a young woman's book written for other young women, I wonder if we ought not be recommending it to young men. They might learn from it some important lessons about masculine character and conduct in our culture.
Ariel Swartley L.A. Weekly I find I like Wendy Shalit very much, both as a writer and, even more, as a fierce defender of young women's right to establish boundaries of their own.
Elizabeth Powers Commentary A powerful and witty book that registers all the changes in our social landscape in all their starkness while also illuminating many of the steps that brought us to where we are.... A Return to Modesty seeks to reclaim what has been forgotten: that sex is significant....[P]artly with the aid of expert testimony from earlier and more decorous ages, but mostly through her own preternaturally sharp eyes and mind, Shalit has seen deeply into female nature, and into the malaise of a generation.
Kirkus Reviews A heartfelt (and controversial) plea....A daring book aimed at the core of contemporary gender theory....It is audacious, and it should not be dismissed.
Jae-Ha Kim Chicago Sun-Times Impassioned...
Andrea Neal The Indianapolis Star Shalit assails a culture in which "scoring" is a virtue, but acting like ladies and gentlemen is not. Old-fashioned? Perhaps. Persuasive? Absolutely.
Melinda Ledden Sidak The Weekly Standard Excellent argument...
Catherine Muscat The Dartmouth Review What makes Wendy Shalit's analysis so refreshing is that she examines and justifies the nature of sexual modesty through rational discourse, rather than relying solely on the increasingly remote influence of religion....While Shalit's assault on sexual promiscuity is not to be taken lightly, she manages to infuse some humor in her discourse.
Edith Kurzweil editor of Partisan Review and author of Freudians and Feminists In this book Wendy Shalit brilliantly demonstrates how our views of natural modesty have been perverted by ideology....Her book is a tour de force everyone should read and reflect upon. It is a return to first-rate sociology without jargon, an examination of the values of the culture at the end of our century.
" A Return to Modesty is...so uncompromising in voice and stance that one is tempted to think of its author as Simone de Shalit or Wendy Wollstonecraft, but make no mistake: she imitates nothing and no one...Every page of this book [is] wise, fresh, and funny, sparkling with her special brand of astringent charm" (Florence King National Review)
About the Author
Wendy Shalit began to write A Return to Modesty as an undergrad at Williams College, where she received her BA in philosophy. She is also the author of The Good Girl Revolution and her essays on literary and cultural topics have appeared in The Wall Street Journal , The New York Times , and other publications. Now that she is the mother of three lively and opinionated children, she is more modest and humbled than ever before.
Amazon.com Review
The 23-year-old author first heard of "modestyniks"--Orthodox Jewish women who withhold physical contact from men until marriage--while a freshman at Williams College. She was initially fascinated by the way in which they cleave to old ideals, especially amid a sexually saturated contemporary world. But more so, Wendy Shalit was aghast at how modestyniks are dismissed as sick, delusional, or repressed by the secular community. "Why," asks the author, "is sexual modesty so threatening to some that they can only respond to it with charges of abuse or delusion?"
In her thoughtful three-part essay, the author reveals an impressive reading list as she probes the cultural history of sexual modesty for women and considers whether this virtue may be beneficial in today's world--if not an antidote to misogyny. In an age when women are embarrassed by sexual inexperience, when sex education is introduced as early as primary school, and when women suffer more than ever from eating disorders, stalking, sexual harassment, and date rape, Shalit believes a return to modesty may place women on equal footing with men. She yearns for a time when conservatives can believe the claims of feminists and feminists can differentiate between patriarchy and misogyny and share in the dialectic of female sexuality.
While the young author's argument is often limited by naiveté and her own lack of experience, her profound intelligence and daring are undeniable. A Return to Modesty is a thought-provoking debut that introduces an original and exciting new feminist thinker. --Kera Bolonik
--This text refers to the hardcover edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1: THE WAR ON EMBARRASSMENT
Every blush is a cause for new blushes.
-- DAVID HUME, 1741
One day in fourth grade, a nice lady suddenly appeared in our Wisconsin public elementary school classroom. This lady's name was Mrs. Nelson -- "Good morning, Mrs. Nelllllson!" -- and she arrived carrying a Question Box. It was a brown, medium-sized box about the size of a hat, and it had black question marks all over it. The Question Box was our Learning Tool, she said.
I was very excited about the Question Box, because it interrupted, then completely substituted for, the whole math lesson that day.
The class waited in anticipation. Mrs. Nelson opened the top of her box and pulled out a long slip of white paper. Then she read it, cheerily, as if she had just cracked open a fortune cookie: "And the first question is...'What is 69?'" She looked up from the white slip and faced us buoyantly: "What is 69, class?"
Well, that was a good question, because I certainly didn't know the answer. If she had asked what is 69 plus something, that would have been easy, but 69 all by itself was pretty philosophical. Some boys in the corner giggled. I immediately shot a glance at our teacher, who was standing up in the back of the classroom with his arms folded across his chest. Usually when the boys giggled, that meant something wrong was going on, and somebody was going to get into trouble. But this time our teacher didn't say a thing; he just looked straight ahead attentively at Mrs. Nelson. This confused me, but before I could try to make anything of it, Mrs. Nelson was speaking again.
"Now remember, boys and girls, there is absolutely nothing to giggle about! The first thing we're going to learn in Human Growth and Development is that no question is off limits!"
The outburst died down. Mrs. Nelson began again: "69 is...more giggles. Then "69 is, um..." I looked back at my teacher, who by now had turned bright red. This was a really strange math lesson.
Finally, after what seemed like 69 attempts to explain the number 69, I raised my hand and piped up, "May I please go to the bathroom?" As I left I could hear Mrs. Nelson was still quizzing: "Doesn't anyone know what 69 is? Well...these questions were put in by the fifth-grade class. You'll have the chance to fill the Question Box with your own questions."
When I came home I told my mother about my day, about this mysterious number that was very important and shouldn't be off limits. My mother wasn't so enthusiastic. She had me bring a note to school asking for a description of what we would be learning in our special math lessons. I brought it home, and when my mom opened it she was even less enthusiastic. She was also angry, and so was I -- but not for the same reason. I was annoyed because she wouldn't let me see the letter. She seemed to be under the impression that what was going on at our special math sessions was not math at all, but something else entirely. But what? She wouldn't let me see.
"If I knew you weren't going to let me see, I would have opened it before I walked home," I said petulantly.
But my mom wasn't paying attention. She was pacing around the kitchen, fuming. "I can't believe they're planning on teaching you how to masturbate in fourth grade. I can't believe it!"
What was she talking about?
"In fourth grade! Where is your father?" Then to me: "Go find your father."
That was when my mom called Mrs. Nelson. I had a feeling she was going to, so I ignored the directive to find my father. I remember, a few minutes later, my mom putting her hand over the phone and saying to me, in a high, extra polite voice, "Mrs. Nelson would like to know if I want you to be whispering in the locker room." Then she asked me, very gravely, "Do you want to be whispering in the locker room?" I thought about it, and said yes. I liked whispering. Whispering about stuff is exciting.
"Yes," my mom had returned the phone to her ear. "Yes, I've asked her, and she says she does want to whisper in the locker room." I found this terrifically funny, that adults could disagree over whispers. "I get to whisper in the locker room!" I called, jumping up and down.
"Yes, I'll have her bring another note. Goodbye."
From that day forward, I sat out sex education in the library. I always felt bad for the girls who didn't have this escape because after each sex ed session, as the lockers slammed and everyone prepared for the next class, the boys would pick on them, in a strange, new kind of teasing.
"Erica, do you masturbate?" one boy would say to one poor pigtailed victim as she struggled to remove her books as fast as she could. Then another boy would say, closing in on her from the other side, "It's really natural, you know." Or sometimes just "why aren't you masturbating now, Erica? It's normal, you know."
Then, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
"Why aren't you developing, Erica?"
"It's time for you to be developing, didn't you hear? Weren't you taking notes in class?"
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
"Well, I was paying attention, and you're really behind your proper growth and development!"
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
"You may be a treasure, Erica, but you ain't got no chest!"
And so on. Invariably just before the moment when the girl would burst into tears, I noticed that she would always say the same thing: "Mrs. Nelson says that if you tease us about what we learn in class, then you haven't understood the principle of respect." Respect is a very important doctrine in sex education class. Sex ed instructors often use Respect, a puppet turtle, to teach elementary school children about their "private places." As it happened, Mrs. Nelson was usually gone by the time the teasing began, so no one really cared about what they had learned from Respect the Turtle.
My public school wasn't unique. In 1993 more than 4,200 school-age girls reported to Seventeen magazine that "they have been pinched, fondled or subjected to sexually suggestive remarks at school, most of them...both frequently and publicly." Researchers from Wellesley College, following up on the magazine's survey, found "that nearly two-fifths of the girls reported being sexually harassed daily and another 29 percent said they were harassed weekly. More than two-thirds said the harassment occurred in view of other people. Almost 90 percent were the target of unwanted sexual comments or gestures." School officials do very little about this, the study also found. One 13-year-old girl from Pennsylvania told them: "I have told teachers about this a number of times; each time nothing was done about it."
More recently, psychologist Mary Pipher reports in Reviving Ophelia that she is seeing an increasing number of girls who are "school refusers," girls who "tell me they simply cannot face what happens to them at school." One client, Pipher says, "complained that boys slapped her behind and grabbed her breasts when she walked to her locker." Then "another wouldn't ride the school bus because boys teased her about oral sex." Pipher concludes that the harassment that girls experience in the 1990s is "much different in both quality and intensity" from the teasing she received as a girl in the late fifties.
When I was in college, a mother who owned the local deli persistently brought up in conversation how much her daughter was being sexually taunted by the boys at her school. The girl couldn't even concentrate on her homework when she was at home: all she did was dread returning to school. The mother was visibly distraught. She grew up in the fifties, she told me, and "this kind of thing never happened to us. Sure, the boys would flirt and tease us, but they were shy and nervous about it. They never ganged up on the girls like this. I'd never heard of a bunch of guys assaulting a girl verbally and physically."
For some reason, no one connects this kind of harassment and early sex education. But to me the connection was obvious from the start, because the boys never teased me -- they assumed I didn't know what they were referring to. Whenever the...
--This text refers to the hardcover edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
A heartfelt (and controversial) plea, insisting that the power to heal the American female's ills lies in the reinstatement of sexual restraint, resurrection of romantic ideals, and simple good manners. Twenty-three-year-old Williams College graduate Shalit, whose 15 minutes of fame arrived when her red-faced critique of co-ed bathrooms on campus reached the pages of Reader's Digest, has produced a daring book aimed at the core of contemporary gender theory. Shalit demonstrates familiarity with both conservative and feminist explanations of women's problems such as eating disorders, teen pregnancy, date rape, and stalking, but presents what she terms a ``middle path'' to elucidating and curing these problems. It is natural for women to be modest, she argues, and low self-esteem and disrespect from men were natural consequences of the promotion of sexual promiscuity among young people of both sexes. There is true compassion for womens sense of self in her critique of premarital sexual practices, and she insists that while male behavior is often unacceptable and degrading to women, men are only acting rationally within the constraints of popular expectations. She finds that despite the stigma placed on modesty today some traces remain, pointing towards the primordial defenses that once protected women by placing them out of reach of men who were not prepared to commit and treat them with respect. Orthodox Jewish rules of modesty and Islamic dress provide Shalit with material to show the benefits of restraint in male-female relations: it puts women in control of access to their bodies, allows them to preserve the beauty of their romantic aspirations, compels men to invest themselves in relationships, and enhances the erotic potential of eventual intimacy, she says. The message of this book is rarely heard, it is audacious, and it should not be dismissed out of handdespite Shalit's occasional reliance on women's magazines such as Mademoiselle and Elle as a source of information on the state of the American female soul. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.