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Girl Land

2.76 of 5 stars 2.76 · rating details · 261 ratings · 74 reviews

The physical, emotional, and social milestones of every girl's life: what we've lost and gained in the 21st century.
Caitlin Flanagan's essays about marriage, sex, and families have sparked national debates. Now she turns her attention to girls: the biological and cultural milestones for girls today, and how they shape a girl's sense of herself.

The transition from girl to...more

Hardcover, 224 pages

Published January 12th 2012 by Reagan Arthur Books

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Mar 19, 2012 Alena marked it as i-gave-up

Shelves: first-reads

I won this through First Reads. 30 pages in and I'm already annoyed with the author. Lots of hyperbole: "Every woman I know feels that..." Really? Every woman?

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May 18, 2012 Ikoi rated it 1 of 5 stars

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/10-quot...

Seriously, folks- finally, one of my least favorite writer's bullshit essays in one single volume! Her patriarchyftwsquee articles make my ovaries recoil in relentless horror.

If you liked this book, remove me from your friend list (here and on Facebook, Twitter, etc) ASAP. Thanks.

UPDATE: So, I actually tried to pick up this fuckwittery and attempted to read it. Mission abort due to danger of permanent brain damage due to headdesking. I do have a few sugges...more

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May 11, 2012 Lee Anne rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed-not-bought

What I thought this book was going to be: a series of essays about the milestones of puberty (dating, getting your period, losing your virginity) and how the cultural view on them has changed through the years.

What this book actually is: a series of essays in which generalizations are presented as facts, boys are presented as all-id troglodytes out to rape your daughters, and those daughters are introspective, fragile flowers who must be protected from the wolves at the door waiting to ravish th...more What I thought this book was going to be: a series of essays about the milestones of puberty (dating, getting your period, losing your virginity) and how the cultural view on them has changed through the years.

What this book actually is: a series of essays in which generalizations are presented as facts, boys are presented as all-id troglodytes out to rape your daughters, and those daughters are introspective, fragile flowers who must be protected from the wolves at the door waiting to ravish them.

I did not know from Caitlin Flanagan before I picked up this book; apparently, she is somewhat of a polarizing figure in the feminist journalism world. When her blanket statements weren't flat out wrong: "One of the signal differences between adolescent girls and boys is that a boy does not fetishize the tokens of his childhood."--Um, hello? COMIC CON--they were so all over the place that I couldn't tell what side she was on. In other infuriating places, she calls Anne Frank's quote about people being good at heart her "most famous and least convincing declaration," blames rap music for the ruination of popular culture and the erosion of morals, and spends a good chunk of the chapter called "Sexual Initiation" digressing about Patty Hearst, who wasn't "sexually initiated" by the SLA, as she had a live-in boyfriend. She was, however, repeatedly raped by the SLA, which brings us to one of Flanagan's favorite topics. This woman is unnaturally, unhealthily obsessed with rape. It seems in her world, beginning in "Girl Land," which is not only the title of the book but the cutesy appellation she ascribes to puberty, rape is everywhere and can happen at any time, by any man. She talks about how sad and disillusioning it is the first time a man or boy whistles or hoots at you from a passing car. Now, maybe it's because I was an ugly duckling during my own teen years, but I remember being often annoyed and just as often secretly thrilled that I was the subject of any whistle, and now, at 43, I'd not so secretly love it. It never once made me sad that my childhood was over, and I would now have to fight off the crude advances of cavemen.

In another place, Flanagan finds a letter to the editor in a 1969 issue of Seventeen magazine to probably be false because the writer uses the expression "a good deal afraid" and to Flanagan, that sounds like a "society woman at lunch," yet just twenty pages later, when she's reading a book that's a diary of a teenage girl whose permissive parents led her to a life of drug abuse, sex, and suicide, she quotes from it "We are quite lovely to behold," and relays that it's the "kind of stilted language [Tammy] favored." She is shown clear evidence that teens can sometimes use flowery language, especially written language, yet she doubts the one and not the other?

Worst of all is the chapter "Moral Panics," in which she is all over the place describing the idea of rainbow parties/train parties, and the preponderance of oral sex amongst young teens today. It is impossible to tell where she really stands on this, other than to say it is of course horrible, and you can't tell if she blames Bill Clinton, bad parenting, Jews (no lie), rap music, porn, or all of the above. She then ends the chapter by saying that she would be sad, but not overly so, if she found out her kids had engaged in oral sex, because...wait for it...HER KIDS ARE BOYS, SO IT'S NOT AS BAD. And then she says girls can't possibly get off on giving blow jobs. Now, I think that pop culture is way more extreme than when I was a child, and I have a seven year-old daughter that I am terrified will get pregnant in high school, let alone give blow jobs in middle school. But if Flanagan gets no pleasure from sucking a dick, she's doing it wrong. If at all.

The book ends with a short chapter on her suggestions for how you can protect your daughters' Girl Land--such helpful hints as "do a 15-minute internet search for porn, so you can see what horrible things are out there," and "be more strict with your daughters than your sons; they'll thank you later." This is followed by an epilogue in which she shits all over the memory of her late mother (which she did briefly in an earlier chapter, also). I realized early on how much I hated this book; I kept reading for the thrill of being so angry.(less)

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May 13, 2013 Laurie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Girl Land is not a place that exists in physical space; it’s a place in time. Girl Land is the time between childhood and womanhood, when girls turn inward, write in diaries, and dream of romance. Teen girls need protection during this time; protection from the cruel world, from boys, from the internet. They need a strong father in their lives to provide this protection, yet divorce makes it common that a girl grows up without her father present in the house to protect her from boys. Modern life...more Girl Land is not a place that exists in physical space; it’s a place in time. Girl Land is the time between childhood and womanhood, when girls turn inward, write in diaries, and dream of romance. Teen girls need protection during this time; protection from the cruel world, from boys, from the internet. They need a strong father in their lives to provide this protection, yet divorce makes it common that a girl grows up without her father present in the house to protect her from boys. Modern life is destroying Girl Land. Rather than turning inward and writing in a diary, the modern teenage girl is posting her every mood and deed onto Twitter and Facebook. Worse, she is giving oral sex to boys and thinking she is still a virgin. Refusing to allow the girl internet access in her bedroom is the best gift the parents can give her, because this will protect her from the cold, cruel world.

I found Flanagan’s stand rather at odds with modern thought. Rather than teaching girls to be strong and independent, she wants them to rely on their fathers to protect them. Now don’t get me wrong; I’m all for keeping both parents present in the girl’s life! But I don’t feel that having the father absent from the dwelling is necessarily worse for girls than it is for boys, and I don’t feel that the couple has to be heterosexual to raise a healthy girl. Nor do I think that denying ‘net access in the privacy of a girl’s bedroom will keep her from seeing the wrong things; most modern phones will allow her to see all the wrong places anyway.

I just don’t think that putting a teenage girl in a cocoon is the best way to prepare her for adult life. If going through adolescence is as traumatic as Flanagan says it is, girls need to be given the tools to deal with it, not hidden in fluffy pink womb. Oddly, given that she has sons, the author ignores teenaged boys in this world. Shouldn’t boys be brought up to respect girls and not rape, rather than laying the burden of avoiding rape on the girls? There is something very old fashioned in this book’s message, and I don’t mean that in the good way.
(less)

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Jun 28, 2012 Jessica rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction-other

I've been out of the reading loop for a while as social requirements and the presence of a male friend have kept me busy, so it's rather appropriate that this is my first toe-dip back into the world of bookish things. Flanagan presents here something of a survey of the ways in which the transition from girlhood to womanhood have changed over the course of the last century.

This should be interesting and, for the most part, I agree with her overall thesis that the transition if particularly diffi...more

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May 21, 2012 Kathleen rated it 5 of 5 stars

"Girl Land" was a thoroughly interesting read: I found Flanagan's opinions on modern girlhood, sex, mass media and female rites of passage to be very insightful and developed. Her narrative style struck the perfect balance between eloquence and fluency - the book's prose hung together in almost uncanny cohesion. Her talent for providing substance with flavor was both refreshing and intriguing, and I plan to read more of Flanagan's work in the future. Also, it was a really quick read, which is al...more

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Apr 09, 2012 Chelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2012, non-fiction

This is a well written, excellently researched, engaging book on how the lives and expectations of adolescent and teenage girls has changed over the years. By examining major markers in a girls life that generally signal her ascent into womanhood and how those now occur solidly when society still thinks of her as a girl, Flanagan looks at how this can take a toll on girls.

It's definitely a read for those who either have or work with girls regularly. For me it really reminded me how difficult bei...more

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Mar 19, 2012 JDAZDesigns rated it 2 of 5 stars

Okay. This is not a book I would normally read. I don't have children and I'm well passed the "girl" status. But I read about it somewhere and thought I'd be missing out if I didn't give it a once over. I mean, the description read like I was going to be enlightened about the things through which young girls have to live "these days" that is so different from "the stone age" when I was a girl.

I started to read this book and it was so incredibly, ultimately dull, I had to put it down.

I picked it...more

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Feb 17, 2012 Brie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, won-in-contest, goodreads-first-reads

I know that one of the complaints with this book is that the author is talking about the past. That is what makes this book interesting. It shows how far things have come since when the author was going through "girl land".

I think every woman who has a daughter that is about to turn into a teen needs to read this to refresh her memory of what her teenage years were like for her and how they were when she entered them. Then read the last chapter of this book to see how changed things are now.

I l...more

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Feb 07, 2012 Cassandra rated it 5 of 5 stars

A few years ago, I was about 24 at the time, I was walking on Lexington Avenue near 85th St, in the middle of the day. I over heard the teenage boy in front of me (couldn't have been more than 14) call the teenage girl next to him several names, including ho,bitch etc. What did she do? Shrug! I was stunned. Needless to say, I stopped the young "gentlemen" asked him to repeat himself and when he refused, told him he may never call women those names again ever! I then turned to the young "lady" an...more

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Jan 26, 2012 Tami rated it 5 of 5 stars

I enjoy reading essays, so I give this book its high rating based on the fact that the prose are well written. Finding it to be a perfect marriage of the personal essay to the book review, I enjoyed reading it straight through from start to finish without a break.

Having raised two daughters, now in their twenties, and being the grandma of three young granddaughters, I find Caitlin Flanagan's recently published book, Girl Land, particularly relevant to me. In comparing the teen scenes of generat...more

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Jan 31, 2012 Digna rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

Girl Land mostly encompasses Flanagan's spotlight view of affluent girls and women on the west coast and their twisted perceptions due to mainstream Hollywood.

I had mixed feelings about Girl Land and it was certainly not what I expected. Being the youngest daughter of seven children, three others of which were girls, I could relate to her during some instances in Girl Land. For example the catcalls from the boys and at first feelings of confusion then later when I got older sort of missing that...more Girl Land mostly encompasses Flanagan's spotlight view of affluent girls and women on the west coast and their twisted perceptions due to mainstream Hollywood.

I had mixed feelings about Girl Land and it was certainly not what I expected. Being the youngest daughter of seven children, three others of which were girls, I could relate to her during some instances in Girl Land. For example the catcalls from the boys and at first feelings of confusion then later when I got older sort of missing that attention. However even after 40 I still catch men taking glances at me now and then, so this phase boys and men go through never does really end, it just gets more subtle as they get older. At other times I felt she was too generalized in her depictions of girls as both my daughters had Internet in their rooms and neither of my daughters got involved with dating until their late teens. In fact, my youngest daughter is in a permanent relationship with the only guy she has ever dated in her life at the age of 20. I never had a problem with my girls seeking out porn on the Internet, in fact they were more involved in playing their PlayStation or Nintendo games. We even allowed boys in their rooms and never had to ask them to keep the door open and it was always a video game hangout party. One thing my daughters rarely did was watch television, so maybe Flanagan has her electronics mixed-up. I feel if you want to place blame on society corrupting girls, television is the worst.

When Flanagan writes about the prom she speaks as if all girls go to prom with backpacks stuffed with provocative clothing they later change into for an after party. She is of course speaking of girls in a more affluent area where she lived in California, go figure. When it came to prom my daughters are as different as night and day, one wiggled her way into going to two proms with nothing in hand but her petite purse. Her dates brought her home soon after the prom still in her dress, with her hair still done. While my other daughter could have cared less, had no intention of going to any prom and didn't. So you just can't generalize girls even in the same family. However I see the need for Flanagan to keep her generalization to her part of the country, where unsupervised girls learn the only thing important are looks, parties, sex and drugs. Hollywood has that effect on young people and it all has to do with television. Sorry Flanagan our young girls just don't behave this way on the east coast.

Some information in the book, however I did find interesting, especially when she spoke about particular ads running in a teen magazine in the early 1900's, one I read myself as a teen. Another was her reaction to her first menstrual cycle and how she felt about it. I was totally with her on that issue, as I felt the same way. My daughters are only 18 months apart in age and had totally different reactions to their cycles. My youngest daughter kept it to herself when the "friend," as we call it came along and I had no idea. It had been a year. My husband knew before I did because he did the grocery runs at that time and noticed pads were being used more often. While my oldest daughter had a traumatic crying and screaming spell that sent me running to the bathroom, and the whole household knew what had happened. It left her traumatized.

One predicament I had was with Flanagan's writing style and the long sentences she uses throughout her book. This can be quite annoying when you need to go back and re-read the first part of the sentence, due to having forgotten what you have already read. Flanagan reminds me of someone who needs to come up for air before continuing but refuses to. Not a good writing style for adults like me who has ADHD to enjoy. I am not saying that somethings in her book were not worth stopping and contemplating about, as she has a lot of information packed into this little book. I found most of it, however, to be regarding the lives of upper-class girls and women and it certainly didn't pertain to my life.

Another area I didn't agree with her on was regarding her opinions on raising girls vs boys. I have raised both and I have found I am more afraid for my son, then I was for my daughters, when it comes down to society and their peers. My reason being, boys are so much more immature than girls at the same age and even more sensitive. Especially when it comes to their emotions, as boys tend to have trouble expressing emotions and hold it in, unlike girls who are much more open and talkative with their peers. I also don't agree with the father figure being in the home for girls to be or feel secure or protected. My father and brothers never got involved with my dating and they considered it my business. Now if there is physical or mental abuse going on, that is a different situation. But what happens when a "girl" marries? Is she gonna come running home to papa, brother or uncle every time she has a little spat or argument with her husband? That is how girls learn to become a woman by standing up for herself and dealing with her man on her own. This book was entertaining, whether you can relate to Flanagan or not. She has a unique style of writing, that although did not appeal to me, others may find quite enjoyable. (less)

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Jun 27, 2012 Heather rated it 3 of 5 stars

I somehow lost all of my notes that I wrote down while reading this book so I'll have to go based on what I remember feeling about this book. When I had requested this book, I had no idea who the author was and what exactly was going to be in the book. The author writes about girls moving from their girl hood to pre-teens and teens. The essays are interesting ones, but there are things that she says that seems so outdated to me. You can tell the author is all about women being in a submissive ro...more

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Jan 14, 2012 Penelope rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: goodreads-first-reads, feminism-gender-studies, winter-12, non-fiction

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

First of all, this book is a quick, engaging read. I finished it in a single afternoon. It is not academic in tone or content, and the intended audience appears to be parents of adolescent girls or soon-to-be adolescent girls (not quite what I was expecting). I found it incredibly difficult to relate to this book on all but a few points, as it is rife with stereotypes. I don't mean that the book merely describes stereotypes, I mean that...more I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

First of all, this book is a quick, engaging read. I finished it in a single afternoon. It is not academic in tone or content, and the intended audience appears to be parents of adolescent girls or soon-to-be adolescent girls (not quite what I was expecting). I found it incredibly difficult to relate to this book on all but a few points, as it is rife with stereotypes. I don't mean that the book merely describes stereotypes, I mean that Flanagan's entire analysis seems to rely on them. The focus is on the stereotypical girlhood/adolescence transformation of middle-class American white girls, with a heavily (let me repeat, HEAVILY) hetero-normative approach. For reference, I am an American white cis-female in my 20's from a middle-class family and for the majority of the time I had no idea where Flanagan was coming from (the "prom" chapter was especially ridiculous). Since I found fault in so many of Flanagan's arguments relating to my own teen years, I found it difficult to believe her analyses about decades past. The information presented was interesting, to be sure, but the view seems so narrow and generalized (an odd juxtaposition, but somehow possible in this book) that I'm not even sure what to make of it.

I think the stereotypes and hetero-normative assumptions are really the downfall of this book. Flanagan claims that girls are more sensitive than boys, that they must be sheltered and protected, that a male figure is necessary in order for girls to have a successful (safe) dating life, and actually claims that girls do not "get" anything out of sex acts like oral sex ("a girl may derive a variety of consequences, intended and otherwise, from servicing boys in this manner [performing oral sex], but her own sexual gratification is not one of them" (pg 179)). This quote disturbed me primarily because it places such ridiculous boundaries on what "can" (or "should") be pleasurable for girls. How can Flanagan seriously attempt to dictate what sex acts result in "sexual gratification" for either person involved? Things like "petting" are discussed but in general, penis-in-vagina sex is pretty much the end-all-be-all of sex acts in this book, and the view of sex and sexuality presented here is incredibly narrow minded. Rather than analyzing or challenging the hetero-normative socialization of girls (historically and even currently), Flanagan seems to accept it as a given.

Overall, I was expecting a book more scholarly in tone, with more critical analysis of society itself and how it shapes the lives of female teens. I guess I was expecting more of a hybrid anthropological/critical feminist approach, but the author seems to have formed most of the book around her own experiences and seminal pop-culture from her own girlhood. A lot of Girl Land makes assumptions about the "inner lives" of girls and teens in general, which comes across as naive and somewhat offensive and exclusive. I felt that Flanagan's voice was far too prominent throughout the book, blending research with opinion in such a way that it just seemed sloppy. Harsh, maybe, but I think this book would have been much more successful in its arguments if Flanagan had better separated her own narration and personal views from her research/critical analysis. This book is hardly a chronicle of "Girl Land", but rather a chronicle of "American-white-heterosexual-middle-class-suburban Girl Land"--and even within that niche, focuses on the stereotypes. In general, a very disappointing read. I was expecting a lot more from this book.(less)

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Feb 24, 2012 Nicole Harding rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: c-2012, relationships, sexual-situations, survival, teenage-life, adult

Reading this book reminded me of "Reviving Ophelia" in that it deals primarily with adolescent females. Where Reviving Ophelia was a more emotional storytelling and opened my eyes to the changing mother/daughter relationship, Girl Land is more for understanding the dynamics that create the changes both emotionally, sexually, and environmentally. As I read through the book, I realized that the audience that would get the most out of Catilin Flanagan's book would be father of a girl entering middl...more

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Oct 25, 2012 Amester added it

How do I negative-star a review??
Awful from the word go - chapters of irrelevant Caitlin teen memories, blanket statements thrown out as accepted fact (yes, I'm sure all men with single moms grow up to be sexually predatory and every woman on earth counts adolescence as her most trying time), capped off with the absolute lack of interaction with any current inhabitants of Girl Land (I found no evidence that she spoke to ANY modern-day girls/young women in 'researching' this mess). Never mind tha...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Donna rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: females and parents of females

Shelves: nonfiction

I've enjoyed Caitlin Flanagan in the Atlantic and looked forward to this book. She makes some interesting points about the transition of females from "girls" to "adolescents" brought about by both physical changes and cultural norms. Though about 10 years older than Flanagan, I identified with many of her observations. As a mom of two daughters, I constantly worried while reading whether I had given them all the information I should have while growing up. While the book skews toward white, upper...more

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Jan 23, 2012 Ashley Moonshoes rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, non-fiction

I've never read anything by Caitlin Flanagan prior to receiving this book through First Reads and won't bother with her other books or articles in the future. Based on the intriguing cover and blurbs I was expecting a book with insightful and witty essays about girlhood, maybe some critical exploration of current culture and was more than disappointed.

Flanagan's description of girlhood is nostalgic in the worst way and broadly assumes that all girls are insecure and weak and that boys are just...more

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Apr 06, 2012 Janet Whalen-Jones rated it 1 of 5 stars

Expecting an historical comparison of various aspects of growing up female in different periods of time, I was disappointed to find a rambling personal memoir. One chapter, designated "Moral Outrages", instead of comparing a variety of parental panics over the decades concentrates on the media created pseudophenomenon of the "rainbow party" (Not LGBT politics)and the author's personal dismay about this topic. This could have been a fascinating social history. It wasn't. Flappers, Anne Frank, Jud...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Sara rated it 3 of 5 stars

Since I just had a baby girl I figured I'd get a jump on her teenage years early and read this. It's interesting and makes some clever/insightful points, but then gets weird at the end when the author (who doesn't actually have daughters, just sons) seems to advocate government censorship (?!) as the answer to the problem of girls growing up too fast with too many pressures. She also bases a lot of her observations on "research" from the diary she kept herself as a girl. I was hoping for this to...more

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Feb 06, 2013 Stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

I hesitate to give this book only two stars and yet I only gave three to Moranthology - which I enjoyed so much more - that two stars it must be. The goodreads rating system frustrates me a bit. Can't we go to percentages rather than these silly stars? Or can't we have more stars?

This book is well-written and I must admit I like Flanagan's "voice." I will probably move onto The Hell With All That because she is an interesting writer and I was interested in a great many of the stories and asides...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Sophia rated it 1 of 5 stars

According to Caitlin Flanagan, I too lived in Girl Land, once upon a time—and if I hadn’t, it was because my citizenship had been wrested away by the liberal, permissive parents who’d handed me a library card (R-rated movies!), and worse, a laptop (the Internet!) sealing my fate forever. Girl Land is a gauzy, creepy dreamworld, utterly exclusive even as it makes sweeping generalizations. Yet Flanagan’s meditation on female adolescence exudes enough rose-scented nostalgia to make even the most re...more

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Jul 17, 2012 Sherry rated it 1 of 5 stars

To be honest I didn't finish reading th is book. I didn't like the book starting on page 1 but kept reading until page 60 and it just didn't get any better. Her whole tone and the way she spins "facts" were both annoying and showed what seemed to be a severe dislike of men.

Having both girls and boys I just can't stomach a book that wants to spin all dating scenarios as boys out to take advantage of girls and girls always having to be stressed that they are with a boy that will take it too far.

Y...more

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Feb 07, 2012 Lauren Donoho rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: hated-it, feminism, contemporary

Unquestionably one of the most poorly-researched, poorly-argued, and deeply problematic books about girls that I've ever read - and seriously, there are a lot of sexist books about the mental development of young women, but Flanagan really hits it out of the park in the Sexism World Series here.

I can only link to this blog:http://bitchmagazine.org/post/10..., where the most offensive quotations are illustrated with cat photos. It fairly summarizes my feelings about this book.

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Jun 11, 2012 Melissa rated it 2 of 5 stars

I decided to read this book because Bitch Magazine had such a strongly harsh reaction against it, which made me curious, so I requested it from the library. It took months to get it! There were many people in line before me who had reserved the book. In any case, it was an enormously quick read.

It's a pretty dumb book. I mean, I don't know the point of it, really. Girl Land is supposed to be this, like, time in all girls' lives. I would call this same time "adolescence," but I guess that for th...more I decided to read this book because Bitch Magazine had such a strongly harsh reaction against it, which made me curious, so I requested it from the library. It took months to get it! There were many people in line before me who had reserved the book. In any case, it was an enormously quick read.

It's a pretty dumb book. I mean, I don't know the point of it, really. Girl Land is supposed to be this, like, time in all girls' lives. I would call this same time "adolescence," but I guess that for the sake of trying to write a book, she calls it "Girl Land." Kind of weird! It goes through all these different rites of passage that define adolescence: menstruation, prom, diary keeping, sexual initiation, and so forth. She doesn't have anything particularly new or interesting to say about any of these things. I kept thinking, "Yeah, and...?" as I read it. Utterly pointless.

I do kind of agree with her about some things. For instance, I agree that children -- both girls AND boys -- should be limited and supervised on the internet. I'm not anti-pornography or anything, but I do believe that children having access to so much pornography and graphic sex is not healthy for our young folks. It pornifies our culture, and makes our kids act like little sickos, and, frankly, I don't like it! Maybe I'm being reactionary, but I do think that kids should learn about sex the old-fashioned way -- by experimenting with each other awkwardly as teenagers! But Caitlin Flanagan seems to think that only girls need this type of limitation, and she thinks they need it in order to protect "Girl Land" or some shit. I just didn't understand what she was getting at in most of the book.

I mean, look. I'm concerned about the kids today too. The culture is gross. It's anti-intellectual. Kids have smartphones and are dumb as Britney. They cannot write and they're not into reading. Their parents are Republicans. They are fiercely materialistic. I'm not sure what to do about it except sign up for Big Brothers/Big Sisters and try to get a kid interested in cooking and gardening and reading. Also, I'm just not going to ever have any kids. I don't think that Caitlin Flanagan has any particular insight into these problems or the solutions to these serious problems, though.

That said, I'm not sure Bitch Magazine's vitriol is all THAT justified. It's a stupid book, but it's not, like, horrific or anything. It's not like she's Dr. Laura Schlesinger or something.(less)

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Feb 26, 2012 Jennifer Salazar rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: abandoned

It probably was a sign when I read the opening sentence of the book

“Every woman I’ve known describes her adolescence as the most psychologically intense period of her life.”

Hmmm. Not for me. I can't relate to this book already. I made it through the first chapter and so far it's all been vague generalities. When are we going to actually hear from adolescent girls? Somehow I doubt it in this book.

Quitting while I am ahead and calling it quits on this one. Never rated a book this low before...

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Apr 08, 2012 Natalie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I first heard about this book from my husband. As the parents of 3 soon to be 4 little girls anything about raising and parenting girls catches our attention. This book caught my husband's attention because the author was being interviewed on NPR. All of the callers were fairly hostile toward her ideas on safely helping teenage girls through to adulthood and the conclusions she ends the book with. Here are a few examples: Make her bedroom an Internet-free zone, Get her father involved in her dat...more I first heard about this book from my husband. As the parents of 3 soon to be 4 little girls anything about raising and parenting girls catches our attention. This book caught my husband's attention because the author was being interviewed on NPR. All of the callers were fairly hostile toward her ideas on safely helping teenage girls through to adulthood and the conclusions she ends the book with. Here are a few examples: Make her bedroom an Internet-free zone, Get her father involved in her dating life, and Remember: giving a girl limits doesn't limit the girl. My husband had no problem at all with any of these supposedly radical parenting decisions. He also noticed that not one father called in to complain while he was listening to the interview. All the callers were women (parenting status unknown). With this kind of buzz, I just had to give this book a try.
This isn't a book I am going to run out and recommend to all of my friends. Basically there is a lot of time spent with the harsh realities of life for teen girls. "Girl Land" itself refers to the teen years a girl experiences. The author starts by giving a history of how modern teen life developed after the First World War. She describes how sexual initiation changed through the decades, along with how a teen girl interacts with the outside world. For someone with strict moral standards and who hopes to raise her daughters with such standards, there was a lot in this book that was just a little bit to much. There are a lot of things discussed that made me very sad, and in many chapters I was left wondering if the author recommended a type of behavior or advised against it.
The conclusions the Flanagan leaves the reader with are much more palatable to me. She argues that girls in our time need to be much more protected then they are (I would argue that both girls and boys should be more protected then they are). Her five recommendations (numbers 2-4 are listed above) are no brainers in my opinion. The exception is recommendation #1: Take a 15 minute tour. I have no intention of going to google and typing in Porn (I'm willing to take some things on faith, the fact that any Porn is bad for women, men, children, etc is one of those things. I don't need to be shocked into trying to protect my children from it. I know I have to protect my whole house from it). I especially liked her thoughts on why an internet free zone was a good idea in a girl's bedroom. I've always known that basic internet safety demands this safeguard but I also love the point she makes about protecting a girls dreams, creativity, and self awareness. I also strongly support the idea that a girl's father should be a major part of a girl's life, especially through the teen years.
So this book earned a 3 star rating because it was not a particularly pleasant read, and because I didn't have a clear understanding of the author's views until the end of the book. I also like her conclusions. If the feminist movement encourages girls and women to give up all protection and safe guards in their lives, it is doing them no favors, and I fully intend on helping to shelter our daughters as much as I can, while sheltering myself from things I just don't want in my life.(less)

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Jan 29, 2012 Kristin Shafel Omiccioli rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sociology

I found the prose of this book to be engaging and conversational. I enjoyed the brief analyses of related literature (Are you there, God? it's Me, Margaret, Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, etc.) and many of the author's personal anecdotes. It didn't bother me so much that much of the discussion was about white, suburban, upper/middle-class and the author's own experiences because she freely and often admits this throughout. Even though I personally didn't relate to some of the chapters, espe...more

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Jun 18, 2012 Louisa rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: girly-as-shit, cheesy-memoir, nf

As a researcher, Caitlin Flanagan brings to light some fairly interesting asides. I quite liked the history of prom section that falls somewhere in the middle of the book--even including her discussion of prom's current manifestation as an apotheosis of all that is hyper-excessive in modern teenage life. I do honestly believe that prom is that important to most high school girls.

However, then the oral sex, chapter happens and the book completely falls apart. It such a strange section that leaves...more

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Mar 17, 2012 Anie rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Moms

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

I'm not sure what I was expecting. At times this book was engaging and informative. And others it was so misinformed and so far off base to be laughable. Caitlin Flanagan obviously has nothing in common with the average American girl. Perhaps it is because she did not raise any girls in modern times. She's basing all of her ideas on news articles and apparently teaching high schoolers on the west coast. This is not what life was like fo...more

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About Caitlin Flanagan

Caitlin Flanagan is a four-time finalist for the National Magazine Award. Her essays have appeared in Best American Essays 2003, and Best American Magazine Writing 2002, 2003, and 2004. She has made numerous national media appearances. She has been the subject of profiles and critiques in the New York Observer, Ms., The New Republic and various other publications. She lives in Los Angeles with her...more

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“There is a paradox at the heart of contemporary Girl Land, and this paradox makes the emotional experience of female adolescence more intense and difficult than ever. On the one hand, never in history have girls had so many opportunities, or shared so fully in the kind of power that was only recently reserved for boys. Girls now outperform boys on the SAT; women outnumber men in college, and we are nearing a point at which women will outnumber men in the country’s law and medical schools.” — 2 people liked it

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