News & Reviews
The Unreported Generational Gap
Shalit writes in the Wall Street Journal (Dec. 21, 2007):
"But by omitting all the younger, more wholesome role models from his show, Dr. Phil unwittingly revealed how much distortion is required to prop up this media-stoked controversy. The dichotomy between prudish elders and wild young'uns turns out to be, on closer examination, largely adult dogma. Yes, many young people are rebelling--but today they rebel, increasingly, by upholding high standards in the face of the low ones promoted around them."
"But by omitting all the younger, more wholesome role models from his show, Dr. Phil unwittingly revealed how much distortion is required to prop up this media-stoked controversy. The dichotomy between prudish elders and wild young'uns turns out to be, on closer examination, largely adult dogma. Yes, many young people are rebelling--but today they rebel, increasingly, by upholding high standards in the face of the low ones promoted around them."
Commentary Magazine calls Girls Gone Mild "charming, moving, sometimes heartbreaking"
Sam Schulman writes in the October issue of Commentary magazine:
In Shalit’s re-creation, the vulgar sexualization against which her
heroines struggle is thus in most cases something imposed on them not
so much by their peers as by adults, in an act of imperialism de haut
en bas. It is the authorities who have gone wild, and the young who
suffer. . .
And the good news? Shalit’s evangel is that, spontaneously, many girls
are beginning to resist—rediscovering the virtues of self-assertion by
rejecting the expectations of others to be “people-pleasing bad girls."
Lively Q & A with Wendy on Washington Post's Book World Live
Read the transcript of Wendy's answers on the Washington Post's Book World Live. Here's the first question:
Toronto Star Spotlight
The Toronto Star's Judy Gerstel reports on a lunch meeting with Wendy:
"An American who became a Torontonian by marriage four years ago, Shalit is the author of two thoroughly researched books about "young women reclaiming their self-respect" and rejecting promiscuity and the hypersexuality of popular culture and fashion.
Girls Gone Mild has just arrived on bookshelves. Her previous book, A Return to Modesty, was praised by Salon, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, which called her "a prodigy at cracking the codes of culture." Playboy, on the other hand, put it under the heading, A Man's Worst Nightmare."
Modest Proposals: Take Back the Campus (Panel - November 13, 5pm - 7pm)
Join Laura Sessions Stepp, a Washington Post writer and author of Unhooked (2007), Dr. Miriam Grossman, a campus psychiatrist at UCLA and author of Unprotected (2006), Wendy Shalit, author of A Return to Modesty (1999) and Girls Gone Mild (2007), Cassandra DeBenedetto, a recent graduate of Princeton University and founder of Princeton's Anscombe Society, and Dawn Eden, the director of the Cardinal Newman Society's Love and Responsibility Program and author of The Thrill of the Chaste (2007).
A book signing and wine-and-cheese reception will follow the discussion.
Wendy Shalit Lecture at the Toronto Jewish Book Fair
A talk about the new role models and reclaiming feminism, with book signing to follow
8PM, Sunday November 11th Toronto's Leah Posluns Theatre, next to the Bathurst Jewish Community Center on 4588 Bathurst St.
Adults $10--all proceeds to benefit the Koffler Centre of the Arts--but students admitted FREE. Tickets available at the door. There will be some mature material in the talk, so it is not appropriate for those under 16.
'Mild, Mild Life' (The National Review)
But today, more and more sensible young women are bridling when they hear “bitches” and “hos” on the radio. And it’s not a political issue in the least. A 25-year-old former model tells Shalit that it won’t be the conservative media that will help the culture go mild. The revolution, the model says, will continue to happen from within: It will start in a girl’s childhood home, “with a mother who values herself, and a father who respects her.” It will continue in college and in the workplace.
On that Air with BBC's "Woman's Hour"
Woman's Hour asks "Do young women feel pressured to be 'wild' or 'sexy' in a culture that sees 'modest' as dull?" Listen to this segment of Wendy with the BBC's Jenni Murray.
Interest in Girls Gone Mild Spreads to India
A number of Indian publications have run features on Girls Gone Mild, including the influential "Times of India," which wrote:
Wasn't India always a modest country? "Yes," says Delhi-based sociologist, Prof Karuna Chanana, "but things would change sooner or later. Now, we pursue the western model of a liberated woman, with great emphasis on the body. Traditionally, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were modest countries and women dressed modestly. I knew that corporate world would 'catch the Indian woman's body'. The body is also the symbol of love and sexuality."
This is a rebellion against Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and other popular icons. Says Preeti Desai, a former Miss England, "Globally, we've seen a culture that promotes over-sexualised young girls. It was liberating to get implants, and to lap-dance."
'Girls Gone Mild' Movement Catching On
Glee Magazine writes:
Shalit defines “girls gone mild” as teens and young women who reject promiscuous bad-girl roles and resist pressure from the media and one’s peers to be sex symbols; ultimately, they are not really “mild” at all but instead, reclaiming their individuality.
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Notable and Quotable
"The steamy days of Washington summer may be upon us, but these girls, all from Burke, were definitely not getting skimpy. For a generation bombarded with news of pantyless celebrities, most of the girls we interviewed were surprisingly modest, more Hilary Duff than Lindsay Lohan."
-- Ylan Q. Mui, 'It's Not Just Parents Saying No to Skimpy Clothes,' Washington Post, June 4, '07