Customer Reviews

Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I read both the book, and the other reviews. One reviewer mentioned he'd lived across the hall from some 'sluts' he knew, who were "nice people". His attitude is actually half of the problem, but that's by the by. Onto the book.

Emily White has given us an exercise in pinpointing the dangerous clique society that engulfs our schools and encourages seperatism and prejudice. The mentality behind labelling girls as "sluts" is fairly well discussed, and the author did actually hit a raw nerve with me, as I was one of those girls was *was* labelled. With that in mind, this review is admittedly biased.

I did appreciate the conversations with other "sluts", and I would love to see this book as required reading in schools everywhere. Perhaps the most startling thing about this book though, was the author's actual attitude towards these "sluts". On one hand it was sympathetic, and justifiably defensive of the whole stigma, but on the other hand, all too often it appeared that White was actually part of the problem, in her use of labels. Maybe I misinterpreted it. Regardless, it's an important book that's very accessible to a wide audience, and would be a great addition to any teacher's bookshelf. We can all learn something here.

You know, I've had this book for a LONG time, yea...bad me. I really wanted to read this, but something else always seemed to be coming up that NEEDED to be read, and so it kept getting put off. I also really wanted to like and be moved by this book, but something about it just wasn't very compelling.

I agree with much of what the White says, but I think because as she says herself, she as a fascination with the H.S. Slut (as a person and as a cultural image) but no direct experience with it, this reads more like an uninvolved and very shallow examination of this phenomenon.

At the end, I felt like she has said the same exact thing over and over and never really made any serious examination of the subject beyond shallow voyeurism on her part. It's not badly written and I don't think she's reached inaccurate conclusions...but at the same time I felt like she didn't really take this very far, that she really only gives a surface picture of the subject and never really gets down to the meat of it, never really "gets herself dirty with it" or makes any personal connection with it beyond a mild "fascination" with the subject and I thing that really shines through more than anything else about the book.

This book really scared me. I guess it's about bullying per se, but it is also about violence against girls AS WOMEN, just for their sexuality, for the threat of it. In one story a girl is taken outside and tied to a tree and spat on! Girls really opened up to White as an interviewer, and her writing between the interviews is the hightlight.

I couldn't put this book down. Reading it I felt as if I had entered an intense, urgent world--this is how White writes, with urgency. It is NOT a book which relies on statistics about "promiscuous girls" at all. The author seems mistrustful of data and pseudo science, and more power to her. It is also not a book which attempts to explain everything. Rather White is interested in exploring the deep mystery of why we as a culture want to talk about girls who are sluts, why we want to punish them. Highly recommended, groundbreaking work.

Recently I feel as if there have been a lot of "interview and ponder" books out there where an author gets an idea, interviews a bunch of people, and writes about the interviewees' and the author's thoughts on the matter. White does this while discussing "high school sluts" but goes one step further by using history, entertainment media, mythology, and social psychology to discuss the myth or archetype of the slut story. Through her interviews White found that almost every high school had/has a recognized slut, and that that girl is ostracized by both male and female students. She also learned, through interviews with "identified sluts" that there are certain things most of these girls have in common: "early puberty, early childhood sexual abuse, a tendency toward extroversion, (and) a rumor that will not die about doing the entire football team" (171). White also found that most of the "identified sluts" were White girls from suburban areas. Although the book is well written, I feel as if it's too short and incomplete. When writing a book like this I feel like an author should bring us through a while cycle of genesis of the problem, discussion of the current problem as it is, and finally how we can change it. I feel as if White's book is lacking slightly in the last area, but at the same time I'm well aware of the question, "But how do you change an archetype that's pervaded our whole culture?"

Since I didn't go to school in suburbia I didn't see this in high school but there would was girls in the neighborhood that were talked about this way. It seems sad that a young woman who is outgoing and prematurely has a woman's body gets treated so badly. Then again, in high school lots of people get stuck with labels. You either have to get over it or live the life others try to give you.

I think if woman who were stuck with this cruel label read this book, they would see they are not alone and that could help them get over their undeserved reputation.

...that a whole book could be filled up just talking about sluts. This was a very interesting book. I love books that interview lots of people and include their thoughts so that the book isn't from just one person's point of view but from many. From the interviews, I learned that a lot of girls that are called sluts are nothing of the sort, and that those that are promiscious, aren't usually as bad as the rumours set them up to be. There seems to be a correlation between sexual abuse as a child and either promiscuity or people thinking you are promiscious. Almost all the "high school sluts" White interviewed had been sexually abused. The book also brings to the light this question: What is wrong with being sexual? When people call other people names, whether true or not, they usually do so because either they are jealous of that person or they are scared or ignorant about that person. Teens see big-breasted girls, girls who dress to show off their body or girls who have sex and they either wish they were her or they wish they were with her or they think that sex is a bad thing. I don't mean that I think teens should have sex. You will have to read the book to understand what I mean furthur.