Customer Reviews
Mild vs. Wild 
2007-12-30
Today, five- and six-year-olds play with Bratz dolls dressed in miniskirts, leather, and lingerie. Tweens wear thongs, push-up bras, and high heels, and they tune in to the escapades of celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. They shop for t-shirts with phrases like "little hottie" and "kiss me" emblazoned across the chest, and they listen to the sexually explicit music of artists like Ludacris and The Black-Eyed Peas, to name just a few. Quite a difference from the days of Cabbage Patch Kids and Colorforms, no? This is the disturbing phenomenon that Wendy Shalit addresses in Girls Gone Mild.
Shalit delineates the overwhelming sexualization of young girls through well-chosen examples and thoughtful writing, delving into the afore-mentioned trends (and then some) with insight, discernment, and a healthy dose of wit. She explores the pressure put on young women by our hyper-sexualized society and the "bad girl" image they are encouraged to embrace at every turn. Yet, rather than dwelling on this discouraging and at times fearsome landscape, Shalit instead focuses on the young women who are fighting to overcome it: the girls who have "gone mild".
There are the teens who chose to "Girlcott" Abercrombie & Fitch for their offensive, sexually implicit t-shirts; the bright, popular fifteen-year-old who travels the country speaking to teens about abstinence; the sixteen-year-old who objected to reading a sexually explicit novel out loud in her high school English class; and the eleven-year-old who encouraged Nordstrom to provide less revealing, more age-appropriate clothing for teens and tweens. Shalit details the strength and determination of these young women, plus many others, as they rebel against the popular culture and fight for the very unpopular notions of modesty, purity, innocence, and virtue.
Having conducted extensive interviews, online discussions, and meetings with hundreds of young women from every corner of the country, Shalit is clearly in tune to today's trends and the mindset of our nation's young women. Through these stories of "mild" rebellion and a very astute analysis of the culture that has made such rebellion necessary, Shalit not only inspires young women to take on more positive roles in their own lives, she provides them with the means and the motivation to do so.
And that is good news for girls of any age.
A New and Hopeful Trend 
2007-11-28
This book's lighthearted, colorful cover may indicate fluffy content; but don't be deceived. Girls Gone Mild is more of a dissertation than a light read; it is based on numerous personal interviews and ample research. All of this is to support Shalit's thesis: that young, modern North American women are beginning to be discontent with a culture that demands they be bad in order to be accepted.
Girls Gone Mild examines two concurrent trends. The first is the continuing "sluttification," so to speak, of the culture, and the demands it places on young women to be sexy, emotionally detached, and tough. The second is the more hopeful trend that forms the subtitle of the book: "Young women reclaim self-respect and find it's not bad to be good." Shalit focuses on girls throughout the country who are expressing their dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs, and are eager to speak out and live differently.
Shalit herself is a twenty-something-year-old woman with a husband of three years and an infant son. She is also the author of A Return to Modesty, a book that several years ago made waves around the country with its "radical" perspective on the lack of dignity, privacy, and reticence in our culture (from what I have gathered secondhand; I have not yet read it).
She is an Orthodox Jew, and her perspective is inherently religious and conservative, but what I really appreciate about this book is that it makes sense, no matter your religious or political bent. I hope that it will encourage countless young women to rethink the paradigm they are blindly following, and realize that living with dignity and self-respect isn't such a bad thing, after all.
Raising My Standard 2007-11-08
In Wendy Shalit's Girls Gone Mild, Chapter one "Hi, Slut!" captures the stories of teens and college aged students who have been oppressed by the expectation and pressure that they will engage in casual sex.
The story that Shalit tells deeply echoes my own experience with sex and dating. I was twenty years old for the first time that I kissed a boy. I thought that something was wrong with me, and felt prude and repressed. When I went to college I felt an even greater pressure to hook up as all my friends would randomly do so with boys after getting wasted on the weekends. I wanted to go on dates, like the stories my parents would tell. But dating as we know it has disappeared, "Much to the disappointment of many students, male and female, there's no real dating scene at Duke--true at a lot of colleges"(3).
It would be weeks after my first kiss that I would lose my virginity to a very attractive stranger, a visitor to our school, following the encouragements of my friends who couldn't believe that I was still a virgin. I thought to myself, "What is wrong with me? Why haven't I had sex yet?" So I did it. And just as Shalit maintains, the pressure to have casual sex is prevalent, and is proven to be very unfulfilling. After I did it my friends all congratulated me and I felt a sense of relief. But I also felt like I had done something terribly wrong, purging myself of feeling.
I'm not alone. Shalit claims that college students are having sex when they really don't want to, as looking wild and acting wild are supposed to be empowering. But they often lead to "misery, especially for young women who quickly learn to put their emotions in deep freeze in order to do what is expected." When I went on Spring Break in Acapulco I went wild. I thought it was the cool thing to do. I had sex with three people, including the club owner. He actually gave me a Girls Gone Wild Hat after we did it. I still have it. I thought I was doing the right thing for a woman my age. But after that trip I felt disgusted with myself. I was ashamed and empty. I thought I had become really good at keeping my emotions in check. I could hook up with a guy and not fall for him. But it still felt wrong. I regret it. "Everyone swims toward the norm and imagines others are having a great time, when in fact many are drowning"(12).
"Is sex more than just intercourse?"(4). This modern drive for sex has taken precedence over these courtship practices, along with love and intimacy and even marriage. I have never been on a date. Except with my boyfriend, but that doesn't count. Other than that I have never been on a date with a guy. I always wanted to go on dates, but none of my friends ever did it, none of them. I think this has proven to be disadvantageous to society as whole, detaching our emotions and very own self-value.
I feel as though there are conflicting social messages. My inherent values and core beliefs adhere to those of commitment and love. My primary goals in life consist of marriage and children. But I have diverged from my true worth as I have succumbed to the new standard. I have had sex with five people, and I was only in a relationship with one of them. That doesn't make me proud. But we live in an age where as Shalit writes, "sex tapes are star-making vehicles," and the term slut is casually coined to refer to women across America. I don't want to be part of the norm. I want to raise my standards. I don't want to have sex until I am married. And at the very least, I won't have sex with somebody until I truly get to know him.
Turning the tides 2007-11-05
This book offers great explanations of what's happened to my generation and the generation below me. It's been nice to have statics and another reference to use to be able to back up my position that it's not a bad thing to be modest and not chase guys.
Granddaughter's 13th B'day gift 2007-09-24
After her mother and I checked the book out and it passed scrutiny, I gave my granddaughter her hard-bound copy. She was delighted with it and read it non-stop over a three day period.
I think it was a timely item of high quality and a valuable aid for those of us who have young, budding, female friends and relatives.
A 'good book'!
Another Choice 2008-07-23
In a progressive culture where women have a wide range of choices, Wendy Shalit presents a controversial one for women in her book, "Girls Gone Mild".
America, "land of the free, home of the brave," is a place where women are not only encouraged but expected to engage in sexual experiences whether or not they actually desire them, often numbing themselves with alcohol in order to detach themselves from their true emotional inner life. Wendy Shalit dissects our popular culture and analyzes it with help from thousands of young American woman of various backgrounds who have provided her with first-hand accounts of what they are really feeling ... or not feeling. As a female junior in college these women's life stories resonate well with mine.
The tragedy of the death of courtship and the birth of hook-up scenes on college campuses is addressed not only with concern, but with hope. Because as much as some would love to muffle the sound, there are voices on campuses all over America which ask for something different -- the choice to abstain. They want an opportunity to live a lifestyle outside others' expectations without being ridiculed by their peers, their professors, or their parents.
Has guarding one's heart and valuing one's virtue become so offensive that there can be no tolerance or acceptance of such a choice? Listening to the loudest women on college campuses today, one might think so. But Wendy Shailt argues that there is a choice, though it may be quite difficult for those blinded by our sex-obsessed culture even to see that it exists. That one cannot make that choice without raising the hackles and incurring the ridicule and wrath of one's peers and of many soi-disant feminists makes their much-vaunted women's liberation a mockery. Are women really free if the only valid choices they can make are the ones mandated (womandated?) by their feminist leaders?
Everything I hesitate to say 2008-07-15
Absolutely fabulous. What an eye opener! It's everything I've always wanted to say, but couldn't find the right words. My sincerest "thank you" goes out to Wendy Shalit.
Very Disappointing 
2008-07-10
After reading GIRLS GONE MILD, I was excited to see another book continuing her work. Now that I have received my pre-ordered copy today, I am disappointed to see that the chapters are basically reductions of the chapters in GIRLS GONE MILD.
I will read this further and see what new information she offers, but I can't believe this is much different, given that she uses many of the same chapter titles and anecdotes in both books.
Purity: The New Alternative Lifestyle 2008-04-18
As Wendy Shalit explores in her newest book, Girls Gone Mild, we're now living in a new paradigm where -- unlike pervious generations with bad boys like James Dean or the Fonz -- "badness" isn't regarded as "daring" or "cool" or "sexy"; it's become the new social norm, which Shalit explains has created a new kind of repression among girls.
In the same way young women of pervious eras were expected to be good, pure and well-mannered. Today's girls are faced with the social pressures and expectations to be wild, brought on by the media, skimpy teen clothing, sexualized toys like Bratz, boyfriends, cliques, and sometimes even their own parents.
In this much needed book, Shalit takes on the challenge of making a case for the "good girl." To help -- as her subtitle says -- Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to be Good.
Wendy Shalit's goal, she says "is not to attack those who want to be `wild,' but rather to expand the range of options for young people, who I believe are suffering because of the limited choices available to them." In other words, instead of trying to ban "wildness," she wants purity and innocence to be acknowledged for what they are - valid, practical options, even or especially in our sex-saturated culture.
I was originally under the impression Girls Gone Mild was written to middle school and high school age girls, but although there are short exercises and pop quizzes at the end of each chapter that have a vague teen magazine flare to them, Shalit talks more about girls then to them, and it's written in more of an upbeat report-style - very well researched and insightful, but not exactly the sort of thing I could see most middle school or high school girls wading through just for fun. It's also rather long.
In the first couple of chapters, when Shalit emphasizes how sex-saturated our culture has become, some of the examples (bad examples, but they're still in there)might not be appropriate for preteen girls. Because of this, even though Shalit doesn't go into much detail, I wouldn't feel comfortable giving Girls Gone Mild a recommendation to younger girls (maybe a select few, but not a general recommendation.
Although, it isn't the book I'd originally thought it would be, I do think Girls Gone Mild is a great, eye-opening resource for parents, teachers, youth workers and anyone else hoping to help girls and young women successfully navigate their way through their school years and beyond. And I hope, for the sake of the girls in their lives, they'll take advantage of it.
I could also see Girls Gone Mild being a good resource for girls planning or considering living on campus while attending college, because it could provide them with a chance to think through some of the potential problems college students can encounter (co-ed bathrooms, the hookup culture, roommates wanting to hookup in your room, etc.) and how they could handle some of the things they won't hear about on their college tour.
Wendy Shalit is an Orthodox Jew, but this book isn't written to those who are religious or conservative in their morals -- it's written to the general population, which I believe is its best feature because in questioning our culture's view on sexuality, modesty and being good, Shailt has opened the door for further discussion sparked by the question -- "Is it so bad to be good?"
Important Reading for All Young Women and Moms of Girls 2008-01-20
I suspect that Wendy Shalit will be "preaching to the choir" so to speak and that those who could most benefit from reading "Girls Gone Mild" won't. She does an excellent job of discussing how the glorification of promiscuity and meanness between girls oppresses females even more than the bad old patriarchy ever did. If feminism was supposed to be about opening up choices for women, then why all the hostility from certain "feminists" towards women like Ms. Shalit who make traditional choices? How did female empowerment wind up being twisted to mean oversexualized, emotionally numb, and catty towards other girls?
Ms. Shalit does an excellent job discussing the problems but "Girls Gone Mild" struck me as a bit light on the solutions. As a mom of a daughter, I would've liked to see more about what can be done to counter the negative cultural influences aside from raising my child as a strict Orthodox Jew (not necessarily anything wrong with that but we're Christians). I agree with Ms. Shalit that a woman can be smart, independent, assertive, etc. and still be modest, kind, and treat sex as a sacred gift between husband & wife. I just wish she had offered more concrete advice on how to raise my daughter to be one!
