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Fast Girls
with Emily White
Author
Thursday, March 28, 2002; 1 p.m. EST
"Slut." Starting with a whisper, or a joke, a rumor emerges that makes a girl a permanent outsider -- with no defense against charges and who will carry emotional damage for the rest of her life because of them. In "Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut" author Emily White investigates our society's views towards women and sexuality and the painful effects of teenage alienation.
White was online Thursday, March 28 at 1 p.m. EST, to discuss her new book, the origins of the "slut" stereotype and the tribal world of teenagers.
White interviewed over 100 women for "Fast Girls," all of whom had been branded as a "slut" during their high school years. White is a freelance writer and was the editor of The Seattle Stranger, an alternative weekly newspaper. She has also been a contributing editor to Web site OpenLetters.net and a Stegner fellow in the fiction program at Stanford University. Her work has appeared in Spin Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Village Voice and L.A. Weekly.
A transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Emily White: Hi all,
I'm here and answering questions for the next hour. I hope my answers are illuminating. One thing to know about my book: this is not a book about statistics, and it's not a scientific study which says "80 percent of girls felt this way and 20 percent felt that way." It's a book which, if anything, reads more like a novel. I'll leave the science to the scientists! OK, let's go...
Fairfax, Va.:
Emily,
I read the excerpt from your book--it was fascinating.
Do you recommend your book for young girls to read? I feel that my daughter should read this book when she gets older, but at what age?
Emily White: I think there are ways this book is a little too adult for high school age girls, but then again I know 13 year olds often raid their parents bookshelves and understand what they find there. I definitely think the ideas discussed in the book would be great to discuss with teenagers, particularly the notion of the "slut" being like an urban myth, or a ghost story. As far as when your daughter should read it...that depends...maybe 18?
Washington, D.C.:
On what criteria did you choose female interviewees?
Were they of varied economic backgrounds?
Was economic level or social class more of a constant than race/ethnic background?
Emily White: I chose girls who were actually ostracized and called names; not girls who merely "felt" like they behaved badly. I was interested in the slut experience as a public phenomenon, a ritual of ostracism that takes place in the high school hallway. So that's how I narrowed it down.
As far as economic backgrounds, they were quite varied, although suburbia was an overwhelming constant. Class often played a role in a girl's developing reputation. A poor girl in a rich school might be singled out because of her class difference. Most of the girls who responded with recognition to the phrase "high school slut" were white girls--Latino girls I spoke with gave me a host of other words "puta, skank," and black girls more often used "ho." I have a chapter called "Race and the Slut Story," where I investigate the way these girls destabilized my generalizations. They made me realize that the "slut" phenomenon is in many ways about white suburban girls, and the ostracism these girls undergo is related to a Puritan history.
Washington, D.C.:
How universal is labeling a girl a "slut"? Did you find any high schools where girls were not labeled this way?
What can parents, teachers, and friends do to help end this abuse?
Emily White: I did find plenty of people who told me this did not happen in their school, or at least not so dramatically. I think when rumors get out of control and girls are ostracized, it has alot to do with the culture of the school, and good teachers and counselors can make a huge difference. Many girls I interviewed felt they couldn't go to counselors or teachers, that these adults believed the rumors just as absolutely as the kids did. One teacher I interviewed told me about a day when he saw a rumor written on a desk. He asked the teacher who occupied the class room-- "don't you think we should erase that?" and the teacher answered "well, it's true, isn't it?"
Parents, teachers, and friends can help by talking, by getting the whole story, not only the good parts of the story. Many girls felt ashamed about what was happening and felt it would crush parents if they knew.
Washington, D.C.:
Though maybe not as numerous, and perhaps not as pervasive, would you or wouldn't you agree that alienation issues apply to young men as well?
Emily White: Oh yes, I absolutely agree that alienation issues happen to men, to all people in some degree. One comparable experience for boys is that of being labeled the "fag." This resembles what happens to girls called the "slut" because it is a sexual label, a term which evokes stories about things a person must be doing in private, in the dark. About the right and wrong way to be a sexual person. Sexual alienation like this is different from ordinary teenage alienation, brought on by restlessness and hormones. Sexual alienation impacts one's sense of privacy in a really deep way, it gets under the skin.
Virginia:
I haven't read your book - yet - the intro has me fascinated, but instead I'm responding to your previous answer about the age one should read this. Isn't 18 a little old? Your subtitle leads me to believe that it is about the experiences of girls IN high school, a time I personally remember as one of the cruelest periods of my life, and my own daughter's experience was just a little better. Perhaps this could "arm" the ones victimized, or educate the ones that don't realize how harmful their behavior is. It could be enlightening for HS girls to read.
Emily White: Maybe 18 is a little old. It's hard for me to gauge. I would love for young girls to read it, but there is some stuff about pornography, excerpts from an interview with a porn star, etc. which some parents might get spooked by. Personally, I would let my teenager read it, but then I'm biased! And "arming" girls in high school now is exactly what I hope happens, as consciousness is raised about these issues.
Washington, D.C.:
I think the use of words like "ho" and "skank", etc prove that labelling of this sort is a cultural phenomenon and is not restricted to one race or class. Having graduated from high school not that long ago, I feel strongly that names of this sort stem from teenage girls (and boys) feeling incredibly insecure about their physical appearance and sexuality. Girls feel like they have to compete with each other, for attention, etc. Remember the insecure bully who beats kids up and calls them names? It's the same thing. It happens across gender, class and race. This is not a uniquely white, puritan experience.
Emily White: Yes, I agree there are many ways this is a universal experience, and as I talk to reading audiences this becomes more and more apparent. But I also think white writers need to be very careful when making generalizations about "all" experience. I think the issues the slut story evokes: name calling, the fight for identity, are issues that are inherently different for nonwhite girls.
Silver Spring, Md.:
From the excerpts, it seems more like a book about rumors and how, whether they are true or untrue, can change a person's life.
Would this be an accurate assessment?
Emily White: Yes it is definitely a book about the power of rumor, and how rumors bring people together in a collective goal: ostracize this girl. What's fascinating is the way the SAME RUMORS live across time and geography, the most prevalent being the girls who "did the whole football team."
Takoma Park, Md.:
Ms. White --
Did any of the girls labeled "slut" have defenders in high school? Any male or female friends who told the truth and tried to quash rumors? What about teachers? Could the "slut" label ever be erased? If so, how?
How did these girls get over their trauma? Did college provide an escape?
Thank you for having this discussion.
Emily White: Some girls did find defenders, particularly boys. Often, boys came out looking kinder than girls in these stories. Girls who successfully stopped rumors were, by definition, not girls who I used in my study--they were the lucky ones who took control before things got out of their hands. Often girls would deny rumors but this would only make them look "guilty." The fervent denial was interpreted as a reflection of her actual guilt. Girls got over it in many different ways: by talking about it, by filling their lives with people who understood them, by growing older and getting past it in time. Many, many girls, though, did not feel like they were over it. This was part of the reason I felt compelled to write the book--it still seemed to urgent to them, even in adulthood--
Takoma Park, Md.:
Did any of these girls sue their school for sexual harassment (hostile environment)? If the teachers knew about the problems and did nothing about it, I think they'd put the school in jeopardy.
Emily White: None of them did, but that's a fascinating and relatively new phenomenon, the lawsuit against the school. Many of them who were adults now wished they had thought of that option at the time.
Washington, D.C.:
I hope I can phrase this well...Did you find that the girls who were labeled as "sluts" by their classmates were also the ones who admitted that they went as far as they did with guys in order to get the guys to like them or be accepted by them? Perhaps a catch-22?
Emily White: I think what you're asking is did some girls "deserve" this label. I don't think any girl deserves this label, or deserves to have her privacy invaded. And, for what it's worth, no girl had ever done the entire football team!
Rockville, Md.:
How prevalent was childhood sexual abuse among the "sluts"? Some people have theorized that sexual victimization in childhood can create an "aura" around the victim, making it more likely that they will be victimized again.
Emily White: It was quite prevalent, and your notion of an "aura" was something which came up in my interviews with girls who experienced it. Girls who'd been molested as kids, finding themselves in the midst of the rumors, often felt on some level they deserved what was happening-- it was the logical outcome of their sexualized childhood. They felt like sexual freaks from an early age. This was by far the most troubling finding, not by any means universal to all the girls I interviewed, but common enough that I devoted a chapter to it, called "Basement Histories."
Alexandria, Va.:
I developed very early - at age 10 - and was the object of whispers and pointed fingers from that time forward. As the physical development became larger than most, the rumors were added. I've always felt dirty and "less than" - for no reason other than my physical appearance. My posture - several decades later - reflects years of trying to conceal my front. I couldn't stand up straight now if I tried.
Emily White: Your experience sounds very familiar to me. Many girls I interviewed developed early--wearing a bra when other girls were still flat chested, and this caused them to be singled out. In the book I speculate on the weird adolecent logic that might cause this: kids see a girl who looks like a woman, and assume she has been doing the things women do. One girl told me "big boobs meant you were having sex!" I hope it's some consolation that you're not alone in your memory of this.
Austin, Tex.:
Why do you think that sexually adventurous girls or women still meet with so much derision these days? Feminism was supposed to erase that double standard. Impressionable young women, likewise, read magazines such as Glamour and judging from the material therein might think that having, say, multiple partners is permissible and even desirable -- but in real life outside of a glossy magazine that behavior will get her branded a bed-hopper/slut instantaneously.
Emily White: I think there are ways the slut phenomenon is a very ancient phenomenon, maybe as old as the Salem witch trials, maybe older. In this way, our modern progress and the sexual revolutions of the 70s etc. still cannot uproot something that has been around so long. It's something that still persists in the cultural unconscious, despite the "consciousness raising" of feminism. My basic point: there is still work to be done!
Baltimore, Md.:
Emily,
How often did you see the "slut" label become a self-fulfilling prophecy in the sense that they weren't intially like this - yet decided later, what the heck? If I'm going to be labeled in this manner, I might as well seek affirmation from these men etc.
Emily White: Many girls and women did feel the strange freedom you describe--since what they say about me is so outrageous, I can do anything I want. Girls who were not particularly sexually active before the rumors often became much wilder after the rumors took hold.
Washington, D.C.:
To echo a previous comment - when the term slut was used by classmates, how often was it used on promiscuous girls vs girls who were not? Not that anyone deserves it, but is the word mostly used to describe a real behavior? Or is it used to just spread rumors?
Emily White: It totally varied. Sometimes girls were promiscuous, some girls I interviewed were still virgins into their 20s. What did hold constant, no matter what a girl had actually done, was that the story the kids told never matched up to her reality. The kids were trafficking in myths, telling stories all high school kids tell about sluts ("she gives blow jobs for cigarettes"), and they had no sense of her individual experience.
Somewhere, USA:
I'm so glad you wrote this book; I intend to go right out and purchase it for my 18 year old granddaughter, who was labeled "slut" during her junior year. The verbal abuse was so awful that she began skipping school, avoiding all social events, dropped out of extracurricular events and eventually dropped out of school altogether. Towards the end of her senior year, she finally broke down and told us she had been date raped. She thought it was her fault. She told her best "friend" who promptly told everyone else and the gossip and abuse began. She has her GED now and is taking courses in Cosmetology. It just breaks my heart. BEfore becoming labeled slut, this lovely talented and bright young lady had high hopes of going to college and becoming a nurse. She maintained all As and was a cheerleader. Now, HER self esteem is virtually nil and she says she'll never trust anyone ever again except me. She and her little sister adore me and we spend many weekends together. Besides getting your book, how can I help her raise her esteem and go to college. She's too bright to cut hair for a living.
Emily White: Besides reading the book, I would definitely help her confront these memories any way she can. The girls who had stared their memories in the face seemed better off and stronger than the girls who had tried to avoid them. Good luck!!! It sounds so much like the stories I heard.
Washington, D.C. again:
No, I wasn't asking if any of the girls "deserved" the label. No one does.
We know girls sometimes let guys go further than they themselves would like, but afaid to say NO at any point for fear that the guy won't like them. It's part of the acceptance everybody wants to feel, high school or not.
But, did guys 'turn' on these same girls for NOT saying no - hence the catch-22??
Emily White: Some girls did get the reputation after making out or going all the way with someone. Also, sometimes a boy would feel spurned by a girl who DIDN'T put out, and then he'd spread rumors. It really varied. But there was definitely the sense of people turning on her, deciding she was bad news.
Catch-22:
Regarding Washington's question, I'd venture to guess that what girls "did" had only some effect on what their reputations were. As a sexually active high school girl in the early 80s, I did not have a reputation as a slut, perhaps because of my bookish appearance. (No, it wasn't about wanting to be liked.)
Did you find any like patterns, of women/girls who were unjustly suspected of having sex while the ones who actually did flew under the radar by looking innocent? Or were you interested in that?
Emily White: Yes I was definitely interested in the ways some girls, no matter what they did, were never labeled. I interviewed a girl who remembers being very sexually active, but she was a blonde, popular girls with many friends, and she could do no wrong. She recalled the girl they ostracized, and was mystified by it in retrospect.
Alexandria, Va.:
Emily,
I just read an excerpt from your book and I intend to buy it on my way home from work today. I was a "slut" in college. I went to a small, private college, so in many ways, it was just like highschool. When I think about it now, it's funny because I'm really such a prude--very shy about my body, sexuality, etc. I was so ashamed for so long for no reason and I'm just now beginning to regain my confidence and a healthy self-image. When I graudated, in '98, it felt like being released from prison. It's nice to know that there are others out there, who got this "reputation", through no fault of their own.
I wonder, did any of the girls you interviewed fight back or defend themselves against the slut rumor? Were they successful?
Thank you for bringing this taboo subject to light.
Emily White: Yes, while for many girls college was an escape, and small, hothouse environment can give way to this kind of stuff. I've been getting emails from people who remember this happening in the office--the appeal of rumors doesn't die out, although they must of necessity become more sophisticated. Rumors about women who go "too far" are an important part of a sexist culture. They're part of the mechanism of what feminists have called a "culture of containment". RE: fighting back, I can tell you many of the girls I interviewed were tough as nails. They were compelled to become tough. And while they seemed scarred and angry at times, they often seemed strong, too.
Maryland:
Did you had the same experiences when you were younger in school?
Emily White: Actually, no. I was an invisible girl. But I remember vividly spreading rumors about one girl, and the spell the rumors cast. We did not question them, even though we were at a period of questioning so many other things. I write about this in the book, also in an essay for the "Lives" page of The New York Times Magazine, which you can probably find in the archives.
New York, N.Y.:
I haven't had a chance to read your book, and just a bit of the extract. Just curious, is there anything these girls can do to take matters into their own hands? From my recollection (I'm 26), highschool kids take one minor infraction and run with it. For example, when I was in junior high, I kissed someone other than my boyfriend. I was devastated by the wild rumors about sex and blow jobs and everything else that ensued. The same sort of thing tended to happen to girls who dressed a little differently, etc. If you showed the slightest bit of cleavage, you were branded. It's unfair, but it seems silly to make yourself miserable -- in high school no less -- on principle alone. That is, I wonder if some of these girls started dressing like nuns, the rumors would subside. I certainly never cheated on my boyfriend again!
Also, from what I've read, I think this book sounds entirely appropriate for high school girls.
Emily White: It's hard to say what they can do to control the situation, since it is such an irrational atmosphere. But I hope by learning about these things, that is a form of control. You're right about kids "running with it." That's exactly what they do. Kids can't wait to pass the rumor on, that's the whole point of it. For many girls the idea of "dressing like a nun" crossed their minds, but often even if they started hiding in tent dresses, it was too late. One girl wore a turtleneck to school and the kids said she was hiding all her hickeys!
Emily White: OK folks, I must go. Hopefully those whose questions I couldn't get to found some answers in my replies. Thanks!
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