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Pretty in Punk: Girl's Gender Resistance in a Boy's Subculture
Why would an articulate, intelligent, thoughtful young woman shave off most of her hair, dye the remainder green, shape it into a mohawk, and glue it onto her head? What attracts girls to male-dominated youth subcultures like the punk movement? What role does the subculture play in their perceptions of themselves, and in their self-esteem? How do girls reconcile a subcultu...more
Hardcover, 304 pages
Published
March 1st 1999
by Rutgers University Press
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One of the few sociological texts that considers girls' involvement with punk, and how it effects their social lives, interactions with authority, peer and familial relationships, and professional ambitions. Most importantly, it challenges the supposedly egalitarian gender and sex politics of punk, delving into how boys and men in this scene could be just as exclusionary, sexist, misogynistic, and regressive as any other music scene, yet makes you really root for these tough, smart, courageous g...more
coming from a anarcha-punk perspective:
this book did nothing for me. it basically highlighted the most nihilistic people in punk that yell at you when you dont give them change, beat their dogs, come to your benefit shows and refuse to pay, get really wasted and wreck your house, then overextend their stay.
this book was really disheartening and i felt like silences the women who do shit in punk outside of college acedemia upper middle class riot grrls or skumfuck gutter punks. ...more
this book did nothing for me. it basically highlighted the most nihilistic people in punk that yell at you when you dont give them change, beat their dogs, come to your benefit shows and refuse to pay, get really wasted and wreck your house, then overextend their stay.
this book was really disheartening and i felt like silences the women who do shit in punk outside of college acedemia upper middle class riot grrls or skumfuck gutter punks. ...more
Except for trying to make herself seem uber cool, tyhis is a really good book. I realized very quickly, however, that the point of the book seemed more to revolve around the author, rather than the actual points of the subculture.
i read this and was bored. it's about clothes and hair. nobody gives a shit.
This book is half sociological theory about gender-construction in subcultures and half true stories of girls in punk subculture. The sociological theory I found a little dry; I'd forgotten that in academic writing you have to spend a paragraph explaining every quote you use. However, the true stories about punk girls were interesting, as were the ideas presented in the book. Leblanc does an excellent job explaining the multiple problems and pressures of being a girl in any subculture and the di...more
Dissappointing. Not enough theory or analysis.
this book ended up being very useful to me in college as i wrote a lot of papers about subjects where it could be referenced. at the time there wasn't a lot of material on the subject and people were only begining to use the internet as a research tool (yes 10 years ago the academic search engines we use every day were still being developed).
that being said, it's not that great of a book. It's pretty boring even considering how interested i was in the subject at the time but I did ...more
that being said, it's not that great of a book. It's pretty boring even considering how interested i was in the subject at the time but I did ...more
I read this book when I was 15 before I ran away from home. I really don't remember anything about it other than that. I do remember enjoying it though
Dated by now, and dry academic reading that can be rough without some background in sociology and feminist theory (I have the latter, but not the former), but there were flashes in there of... me, I guess. Can I say that without sounding like a douchebag? Bald women in combat boots, traipsing through life with foul language and an ironic grin. I can get behind that.
Read this a long time ago. Interesting and academic, also dry.
A part of Punk that is underlooked and under appreciated.
I think i had high expectations for this book, and so i was let down. I dont feel that Leblanc came to any conclusions or made any summaries of her own. Everything i read in this book I already knew from my own involvement in the punk scene. I think i could have written a much more interesting book had i just interviewed my girlfriends, and they would have been much more well spoken, and portrayed punks in a better light...
I first picked up this book just to read, and ended up doing a paper on it in college. The author looks at the female punk from the view of an ex-punk who was a sociologist. I enjoyed it at the time and found several parallels to my own life. I still own it and think that I should read it now that I'm a little older and to relive my youth.
Finally! Someone talks to punk girls about what it's like to be female in that subculture. Take away points: punk women often use humor more successfully than aggression to deal with harassment (sexual and in general), and instead of fretting over teenage girls we should LISTEN to them!
8/26/2010 - loaned to D.
8/26/2010 - loaned to D.
Interesting book, like the investigation into the gutter punk culture. Fairly dry reading, but enjoyable nonetheless. Worth reading for a girl who has run in the punk culture at some point or another.
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Recommends it for:
grad students or women's studies majors
maybe its because i'm not in school anymore, but i just can't get past all the theory nonsense. i mean really. with such a great title, one would think i wouldn't be so bored all the time.
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I'm only giving this three stars because I was forced to use it for 8000 projects in undergrad, because ... there wasn't any other academic writing about this stuff at the time.
I found this book while looking for sources and ended up reading the thing cover-to-cover, couldn't put it down. Wish there was more on the topic.
So far this is an enjoyable read inspecting women's interaction with the patriarchal forces within punk, and outside of the subculture.
interesting, but not particularly informative, as i recall. though she made some solid arguments.
grrrl power.
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