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240th out of 422 books
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The Purity Myth: How America�s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women
by
Jessica Valenti (Goodreads Author)
There is no working medical definition for "virginity."
“Vaginal rejuvenation” – in which a woman’s labia is trimmed and vagina tightened or her hymen is completely replaced (a "revirginization")– is the fastest-growing form of plastic surgery in the U.S.
Over 1,400 federally-funded Purity Balls, where young girls pledge their virg...more
“Vaginal rejuvenation” – in which a woman’s labia is trimmed and vagina tightened or her hymen is completely replaced (a "revirginization")– is the fastest-growing form of plastic surgery in the U.S.
Over 1,400 federally-funded Purity Balls, where young girls pledge their virg...more
Hardcover, 263 pages
Published
March 24th 2009
by Seal Press
(first published March 21st 2009)
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Mindy
marked it as to-read
Recommended to Mindy by:
http://www.feministing.com/
I saw this book on an ad on this page:
http://www.feministing.com/archives/0135...
which is making me throw up a little in my mouth every time I think about it. At some point we have to start calling some aspects of religion what they are, just plain abuse.
http://www.feministing.com/archives/0135...
which is making me throw up a little in my mouth every time I think about it. At some point we have to start calling some aspects of religion what they are, just plain abuse.
Very interesting read. The author puts forward the argument that defining women by and labeling their morality by their sexual activity and choices is problematic. Valenti argues that overvaluing virginity is on the same continuum and spectrum as labeling women “sluts”. In the end, Valenti is not promoting promiscuousness. She is not promoting prudishness. She is not discouraging men from finding women attractive. What she is arguing is for an identification of women that is separate from ...more
Christy Stewart
rated it
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Reading the book was like being lifted of a burden because with every chapter I was SO relieved that what I felt helpless to argue about anymore was covered so succinctly and eloquently in this book. I don't tend to like to read nonfiction books I agree with (because what's the point? I might as well sit in the bathroom and talk into the mirror) but I've never been more pleased to agree with a book in my life, if someone asked me what I felt about feminism and/or sexuality I could hand them th...more
Valenti makes a number of good arguments in _The Purity Myth_: that it's dangerous and damaging to teach young women that their morality or lack thereof hinges on whether or not they have sex, rather than whether or not they are kind people living ethical lives; that obsession with sexual purity infantilizes women; that the virgin-whore dichotomy enables the abuse and marginalization of women, and pushes a view of masculinity that is toxic to both women and men. Valenti is right on the mark in ...more
MORAL HAZARD
Laura M. Carpenter
Review of The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women
By Jessica Valenti
Seal Press
For decades, Right-Wing think tanks and conservative Christian organizations have promoted what Jessica Valenti calls the “purity myth”: the belief that virginity separates moral/good women from their immoral/bad sisters. In its blatant attempt to re-establish traditional gender roles, the purity movement backs...more
Laura M. Carpenter
Review of The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women
By Jessica Valenti
Seal Press
For decades, Right-Wing think tanks and conservative Christian organizations have promoted what Jessica Valenti calls the “purity myth”: the belief that virginity separates moral/good women from their immoral/bad sisters. In its blatant attempt to re-establish traditional gender roles, the purity movement backs...more
Valenti's overall thesis is one I'm totally onboard with, but by midway through the book gets a bit repetitive. I'm also not in love with her tone, which vacillates between academic and blogger. I feel some of her points are diminished by striking some tonally weird notes. Also I wish she'd found a way to lace in the more memoir-esque aspects better. It's like, research paper, blog, personal story, research paper.
Also not quite sure who the audience is for this book. As someone who ...more
Also not quite sure who the audience is for this book. As someone who ...more
I gave it 2 stars, as some of it was interesting, but the good did not stop me feeling the bad about it.
I will quote the awsome response from author Nina Power, her view is very much the same as mine:
"Stripped of any internationalist and political quality, feminism becomes about as radical as a diamanté phone cover. Valenti ‘truly believes’ that feminism is necessary for women ‘to live happy fulfilled lives’. Slipping down as easily as a friendly-bacteria yoghurt dri...more
I will quote the awsome response from author Nina Power, her view is very much the same as mine:
"Stripped of any internationalist and political quality, feminism becomes about as radical as a diamanté phone cover. Valenti ‘truly believes’ that feminism is necessary for women ‘to live happy fulfilled lives’. Slipping down as easily as a friendly-bacteria yoghurt dri...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Valenti's book The Purity Myth takes a hard look at the virgin/whore dichotomy in our culture and really takes the virginity movement to task. She exposes much of the rhetoric the movement uses to appear feminist and forward-thinking.
What she doesn't do that disappoints me is correct much of the movement's lies. She talks many times about the lies and false statistics abstinence only education feeds our children, but does not provide the actual facts.
The book is a call to act...more
What she doesn't do that disappoints me is correct much of the movement's lies. She talks many times about the lies and false statistics abstinence only education feeds our children, but does not provide the actual facts.
The book is a call to act...more
Young women have their morality defined solely by their sexuality. A "good girl" keeps her legs crossed; a "bad girl" doesn't. There is nothing in that definition about not stealing another girl's Game Boy Color, volunteering at a local homeless shelter, or considering the effect her actions have on others. In other words, there is nothing related to morality in that definition, which seems obvious to me but less so to the entirety of American culture. Which, as we know f...more
The Purity Myth / 978-1-58005-314-3
I wasn't sure that I'd like "The Purity Myth", although I was comfortably certain that I was a member of the proverbial choir for this book. As much as I've enjoyed Valenti's writings in the past, I'm not always comfortable with the blogosphere and sometimes find that I disagree with some of the more "if you disagree, you are wrong" writing style of some blog writers out there.
"The Purity Myth" does not fall into this trap, however...more
I wasn't sure that I'd like "The Purity Myth", although I was comfortably certain that I was a member of the proverbial choir for this book. As much as I've enjoyed Valenti's writings in the past, I'm not always comfortable with the blogosphere and sometimes find that I disagree with some of the more "if you disagree, you are wrong" writing style of some blog writers out there.
"The Purity Myth" does not fall into this trap, however...more
While I think some of the conclusions Valenti came to were preposterous and I was disappointed that she minimized the damage to our boys as well as girls the book was very intriguing. I caught myself needing to rethink my own preconceptions about the importance to abstinence. I find myself at some point falling into the same traps about whether girls and women desire sex and are the gatekeepers. While I don't view sex as a moral or immoral action, nor do I feel strongly about the importance o...more
I'm disappointed in this one. I really truly enjoyed "Yes Means Yes" (co-edited by Valenti) and felt that perhaps this volume would expand upon several of the key points in that anthology. Instead it was rehashing many of the same issues, using the same examples, and in general was written with a tone that implied readers will have a lack of familiarity with the subject matter.
S argued that perhaps this book is written for "people who don't read books" (that is, p...more
S argued that perhaps this book is written for "people who don't read books" (that is, p...more
Imagine if you will that you are a young, white woman applying for a job. Now, imagine that the person interviewing you asks if you are married. You, as a young, pretty, white woman answers no. The interviewer then mumbles and writes a notation on his paper and asks, to your astonishment, if whether or not you're still a virgin, and that you must answer honestly. So, you as this young, pretty, white woman answers back to him that you have had in your lifetime two men that you had had sex with. ...more
Valenti sets out to write an expose of American cultural obsession with virginity and its effects; mostly, she succeeds, and the book is interesting and provocative. The cultural obsession here is mostly coming out of the conservative religious corner; although abstinence only education has federal funding and legislative support, Valenti emphasizes that most Americans don't support it (80% think school sex ed should include contraceptive information) and purity balls are a decidedly evangelical...more
This is a really fascinating, frightening and most of all, important book to read. Some of it you may be aware of, some of it you may not. One statistic that was shocking to me: the 1,400 Purity Balls (Where a young woman or girl pledges her virginity to her father in a prom-like setting) that are held each year are federally funded. Or that a Utah woman was jailed for murder after she refused to have a c-section and one of her twins emerged stillborn.
I have read Female Chauvinist Pi...more
I have read Female Chauvinist Pi...more
An excellent, excellent argument for re-shaping society to measure a woman's worth on something other than her sexuality. This is not, I must add, an argument for irresponsible sex, what it is a good breakdown of the myths behind a false concept of 'purity.' Valenti analyzes the message of many purity movements and organizations, abstinence-only education, and the concept of a woman as a passive being. In short, she argues that we are not giving young women the tools they need to be moral act...more
This book takes a look at the virgin/whore dichotomy, specifically by exploring, as the subtitle says, America's obsession with virginity. From abstinence only sex education to pornography, purity balls to issues of rape, this book explores a wide spectrum of symptoms and consequences of a society that too often defines women's worth by how they choose to use--or not use--their bodies.
This book, while it explores areas traditionally defined as feminist, does not require a reader hav...more
This book, while it explores areas traditionally defined as feminist, does not require a reader hav...more
Control of women through gendered forms of victimization is well documented. Susan Faludi's 1992 book, Backlash, is perhaps the best known contemporary text addressing many of these topics. Blaming women for social ills because of their perceived violations of traditional social mores is nothing new, but connotations of such in the Internet age, where messages about young women's corruptibility spread quickly, have the power to be tremendously damaging. Such victimization, in the end, is often i...more
Let me begin this review by professing my support for Jessica Valenti's overarching purpose in The Purity Myth: to expose the trope of sexual purity as deeply entrenched in American culture and to demonstrate the harmfulness of this trope on young American women. I agree with her assessment of the state and nature of "purity" (indeed, race theorists and sexuality theorists have long since questioned the value of the concept of purity), and I applaud her commitment to the social, psycho...more
Required Reading. Seriously. If you are a woman, or you care about a woman, you should be required to read this book. As a gender studies major in undergrad at an all women's college, and someone who has self identified as a fairly staunch feminist since high school, I'm not sure I was quite the target audience for this book. I say that, because Valenti takes her time, slowly making her points and she wasn't talking about things that I didn't know about before reading. The strength of this book ...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Feisty reportage on what the author calls the "virginity movement." Explores how girls' value is defined in terms of their sexuality. With all the talk about the sexualization of girls, don't forget this analysis and perspective. It's not only about the ads and the thongs for 7 year olds -- it's about the incredible power and reach of the abstinence movement, the state of sex ed in our country, and the pressure girls face to define their worth in terms of virginity.
This is an extremely interesting book. As a person who does, in fact, believe in waiting until I get married to have sex, I was a little apprehensive about reading this (but insatiably curious). I assumed that the author didn't want girls to wait at all.
And that was the point she was trying to make.
She expertly, and with a quick wit that I enjoyed, explained the different ways that the Virginity Movement is impacting America. From the ridiculousness of abstinence-only educati...more
And that was the point she was trying to make.
She expertly, and with a quick wit that I enjoyed, explained the different ways that the Virginity Movement is impacting America. From the ridiculousness of abstinence-only educati...more
I found this book both enlightening and horrifying. I had a very general idea of many of these topics but wasn't aware of most of the specifics. My school district (like most of the country) promoted abstinence only education and I still see (I graduated from high school more than 4 years ago) its affects on my friends. One moment I kept thinking of as I read this book was some sort of activity in which a girl had to go up in front of an assembly and chew up an oreo and spit it into a cup. That ...more
Sarah
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone who truly cares about women's liberation
Shelves:
non-fiction
I don't really know what to say about this book. It was refreshing, both in style and content, and, I think, a long time coming. As someone who is not an American, at times I felt frustrated by the lack of a wider context - these issues are not just prevalent in American society, but in Western society as a whole (if not more) - but I understand that this was intentional to give the book a narrower and more manageable scope.
For years I have argued that virginity is so meaningless a ...more
For years I have argued that virginity is so meaningless a ...more
If you're a regular reader of the feminist blogosphere, give it a pass. It's nothing you haven't read before, and Valenti is such a clunky prose-stylist, it's kind of a chore to read. She loves her one-sentence paragraphs and italics.
Also, she writes as though she is preaching to the choir, without explaining why she is sex positive, why abstinence-only education is harmful in any kind of detail, how other countries are doing it better--and her examination of the issues is so simplis...more
Also, she writes as though she is preaching to the choir, without explaining why she is sex positive, why abstinence-only education is harmful in any kind of detail, how other countries are doing it better--and her examination of the issues is so simplis...more
I literally read this entire book in a few-hour sitting last night and could not put it down. Coming from a more conservative hometown, I have long been fascinated by the intersection of women's rights and politics in our society, and I was blown away by the author's comprehensive review of the many facets of oppression (however seemingly innocuous). The myriad elements of the "purity myth" (including purity balls, abstinence-only education, violence against women, legislative action a...more
Although Valenti is *quite* loud in her opinions, I find this book interesting and refreshing. One does not know how indoctrinated an ideal is in one's culture, race, sex, until someone points it out and calls it by name.
*Sigh*
I am disappointed that Valenti talks about herself quite a bit. I suppose I need to come to a realization that if it's nonfiction and has to do with pop culture, the author will talk of his/herself in the book.
*double sigh*
... and t...more
*Sigh*
I am disappointed that Valenti talks about herself quite a bit. I suppose I need to come to a realization that if it's nonfiction and has to do with pop culture, the author will talk of his/herself in the book.
*double sigh*
... and t...more
Sarah Stumpf
added it
This was an excellent book, and Valenti's best in my opinion. The reading style is breezy enough and avoids a lot of mucky gender studies theory while simultaneously presenting pretty meaty concepts. A lot of it wasn't new to me, as a fan of her blog for many years, but she did a great job of putting everything together to make a neatly packaged argument. I was impressed by the quality of evidence used to make serious arguments about the well being of woman, and how Valenti was able to meld h...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Truth About Americans and Sex | 1 | 17 | Jun 23, 2009 08:27am | |
| Dispatches from the War Against Sex | 1 | 20 | Jun 17, 2009 10:15am |
Readers Also Enjoyed
Jessica Valenti is the founder and editor of the popular blog and online community, Feministing.com.
She is the author of Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters, He's a Stud, She's a Slut...and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know, and The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession With Virginity is Hurting Young Women. In 2011, the Purity Myth was m...more
More about Jessica Valenti...
She is the author of Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters, He's a Stud, She's a Slut...and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know, and The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession With Virginity is Hurting Young Women. In 2011, the Purity Myth was m...more
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“Now, should we treat women as independent agents, responsible for themselves? Of course. But being responsible has nothing to do with being raped. Women don’t get raped because they were drinking or took drugs. Women do not get raped because they weren’t careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them.”
—
55 people liked it
“The desirable virgin is sexy but not sexual. She's young, white, and skinny. She's a cheerleader, a babysitter; she's accessible and eager to please (remember those ethics of passivity!). She's never a woman of color. SHe's never a low-income girl or a fat girl. She's never disabled. "Virgin" is a designation for those who meet a certain standard of what women, especially young women, are supposed to look like. As for how these young women are supposed to act? A blank slate is best.”
—
55 people liked it
More quotes…
Mar 08, 2011 07:02am
Jun 28, 2011 10:27pm