Don't miss our free reading and signing with Peggy Orenstein on Monday, April 4 at 7 p.m.* *Please Note: this FREE event will be held at the Swedish American Museum, 5211 N. Clark St.**
Peggy Orenstein, who dissected the insidious “girlie girl” culture among young girls [and pre-teens] in her New York Times bestseller Cinderella Ate My Daughter, now directs her attention as journalist and mother to teenage sexuality. In GIRLS AND SEX: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape, Orenstein—whom People calls “such a breezy, funny writer, it’s easy to forget she’s an important thinker too”— explores the widening gap between what parents may think they know about their daughters’ sexual lives and what girls are actually experiencing, as well as how they feel about it. Even as the media focuses on the controversies around campus rape and assault, Orenstein pursues a much broader agenda, examining how contemporary culture, saturated in sexting, casual hook-ups, and internet porn, affects high school and college girls and the choices they make. “Girls now live in a culture where, unless both parties agree unequivocally to a sexual encounter, there is no consent—only ‘yes means yes.’ All well and good, but what happens after yes?” To find out, Orenstein interviewed nearly one hundred women between the ages of fifteen and twenty, and consulted with dozens of psychologists, professors, and other experts. What she discovered was often surprising, frequently upsetting, always illuminating. “Even in consensual encounters, much of what girls described was painful to hear,” she reports. “Perhaps that seems like nothing new, but that, in itself, is worth exploring. When so much has changed for girls in the public realm, why hasn’t more—much more—changed in the private one?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peggy Orenstein is the New York Times bestselling author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Waiting for Daisy, and Schoolgirls. A contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, she has been published in USA Today, Parenting, Salon, The New Yorker and other publications, and has contributed commentaries to NPR’s All Things Considered. Orenstein has appeared on myriad shows, from Today to Fox & Friends to CNN. She lives in Northern California with her husband and their daughter, Daisy.