Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut [Hardcover]

Emily White (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 2002

The American high school is a tribal place -- and often a cruel one. Divisions are drawn between jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, drama geeks, goths. But there is one person who exists outside of the cliques, who is never welcomed into any group. She is the girl with the reputation, the one boys are drawn to and other girls avoid. Many people remember her from their high school days -- some can even recall her name -- but few have thought about her significance: Why is she such a universal figure? Has she done the things of which she is accused? How is her reputation created in the first place? She is the high school slut, and "Fast Girls" explores her experience and her legacy.

In this brilliant fusion of reportage, criticism, and memoir, Emily White provides an in-depth look at the girls who were labeled high school sluts and the culture that perpetuates the myth. White began this project by placing a query in a syndicated newspaper column -- "Are you now or were you the slut of your high school class?" -- and by setting up an 800 number in her home to talk with girls who were branded as sluts. Through interviews, e-mails, and other exchanges with more than one hundred girls and women across the country, White identifies the common threads in their life stories and deconstructs the archetype of the slut, revealing how it reflects our society's attitudes toward sex, women, and the outsider. She seamlessly combines her own research with cogent analysis of feminist thought and a critical examination of popular films and music, resulting in a book that not only explains the preconditions of the slut -- what qualities lead a girl to be targeted, which communities most often target her-- but also tells us why our culture "needs" her.

With remarkable empathy and understanding for her subjects, Emily White opens a window on the tribal world of teenagers and the lasting effects of adolescent ostracism. Incisive and affecting, provocative and haunting, "Fast Girls" marks the debut of an important new voice for feminism.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Haunted by memories of the way her high school classmates had treated Anna "Wanna" Thomas, the school's designated "slut," former Seattle Stranger editor White decided to investigate the near-universal American myths of the "fast girl" and the actual women behind those myths. She contacted over 150 mostly white women and girls between ages 13 and 55. Typical of them is 25-year-old Madeline, who was rumored in high school to have crabs, AIDS and herpes; had "whore" written in lipstick on her locker; and was beaten up at a party by other girls. White uses the recollections of these women to piece together what she calls the American slut archetype: a girl whose body matures early, who is said to have sex with teams of boys and who is frequently a victim of childhood sexual abuse. White often and sometimes gratuitously cites Foucault, de Beauvoir, Jung, Elaine Showalter and other scholars as she examines why these labels are ever present in the adolescent social universe, and what they reveal about Americans' conflicted attitudes toward female sexuality. Though her tone is accessible to general readers, White's book is a bit more academic than recent titles on similar subjects, such as Leora Tanenbaum's Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation and Naomi Wolf's Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood. The stories of White's interviewees paint a textured, harrowing picture of high school life, and readers will wish she had devoted more space to these powerful testimonies and less to the broader cultural analysis. Agent, Bill Clegg.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

These are both excellent sociological studies about girls, women, and sexuality. In The Secret Lives of Girls, Lamb (psychology, St. Michael's Coll.) explores the idea (the myth?) of the "good girl." Many girls and young women, she attests, lead double lives, acting sweet and well behaved in public but sexual and aggressive and guilt-ridden in private. Using more than 125 interviews with girls and women of all races in 25 states, Lamb compellingly argues that girls are neither inherently "good" nor the passive victims whom some psychologists (e.g., Mary Pipher) have made them out to be. Teens and women often conceal their sexual desire and hunger for power via diaries and other secret means. Yet as little girls, they played healthy sexual games like catch-and-kiss and naked Barbies (though that finding pertains only to white America; Lamb found that African American girls rarely play sexual games with one other). Girls feel powerful (translation: good!) when they engage in mischief, swear, and successfully dominate siblings. Aside from revealing a misconception, this intriguing and significant book includes two chapters for parents, "Raising Sexual Girls" and "Raising Aggressive Girls." Highly recommended for social science and child-rearing collections. White, a freelance writer, reports on the high school slut. Who is she? Why is she so universal? What happens to her ten or 20 years after high school? White finds that girls seen as sluts always disagree with what the crowd claims they did, that the "slut" flourishes in a suburban landscape, and that, like anorexics, sluts are usually white. White's perspective is different from Naomi Wolf's in Promiscuities; Wolf concluded that "we" are all sluts, all "bad" girls, and that it's OK. Not so, says White. A deep chasm exists between "good" girls and girls perceived as sluts; it's "us" vs. "them," with girls as girls' worst enemies. While Wolf intertwined personal narrative with cultural history, White bases her conclusions on over 100 interviews with white, black, Latino, and Asian women with solid results. An excerpt of Fast Girls appeared in the New York Times Magazine; for social science collections. Linda Beck, Indian Valley P.L., Telford, PA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; First Printing edition (March 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684867400
• ISBN-13: 978-0684867403
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,741,642 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a wonderful treatment of the collective nightmare, April 12, 2002

By 

sasha mcmahon (virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut (Hardcover)

wow. emily white has really put together a provocative book on this facet of the collective high school nightmare. after speaking with over 150 self-selected high school girls, white attempts to show that many of these girls came from similar backgrounds and suggests that there is an essential [jungian] archetype of the easy girl. while her theory has a few holes, she revives the feel of adolescence so vividly that her analytical transgressions are forgiven.

few of the questions white raises about the power of myth are original, but her pursuit of the real effect that this power has on individual lives is a refreshing change from statistics or rhetorical blather. the true stories are even more fascinating than the rumors that circulated earlier about these women, and white's storytelling is entrancing.

all in all, this is a page-turner that will give you a lot to think about. i hope i've learned a something about how it felt to be the most infamous girl in school, as well as a little lesson in tolerance and the aftermath of intolerance.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Critical and Compassionate, April 2, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut (Hardcover)

This book is beautifully written, lyrical in style and fiercely analytical in content. It tells the stories, sad and profound, of individual girls and women while pulling from those stories the threads of ancient myths and fears that keep us all enmeshed in the myth of the slut. Reading Fast Girls has the complex effect of making us squirm with discomfort while empowering us with the knowledge that the myth of the slut is greater than ourselves. Like Foucault's Discipline and Punish (but a much better read)the author shows how we are all victims of language and culture. Yet, this book doesn't force us to see past the wall of letters SLUT, it shows us the cracks, compellingly and deliberately, until what's revealed is what we already know in our hearts to be true. In a lesser writer's hands this might make us all breath a sigh of relief that it's okay then, not our fault. Yet Fast Girls manages to communicate the possiblity of a better way. The writer is a kind of poet-journalist, provocative without being strident, sensitive without pulling punches. Everyone should read this book (despite its weighty subject matter, it's a page turner!) AND it should be required reading for all preteen boys and girls. It could just change the world.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, July 10, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut (Hardcover)

I was frankly disappointed in this book. I felt it may have tried too hard to be "novel"ish as opposed to research-oriented or academic, and it sounded contrived sometimes in the process. I, too, thought the author was too enthralled with the slut stories and didn't delve deep enough into the possible link between the "slut" archetype and past sexual abuse. I also wanted to delve deeper into exactly what the "slut" stereotype says about our 21st century view on women's sexuality.

I discussed this topic with several men, and it's clear: Women are viewed as sluts whenever they sleep with several men, or even have any sort of love/sex relationship with several men over the course of years. But when men do the same with women, no stereotype, no archetype ensues. Why is this? I was hoping this book would explore this, but it didn't. Disappointing.