Unwed white girls who became pregnant in the postwar years were considered psychologically disturbed but treatable, whereas their black counterparts were presumed to be biologically hypersexual and deviant. Historian Rickie Solinger demonstrates that in the...

What drives abortion bans and restrictions? The belief that women who have sex for pleasure rather than procreation are sluts.

Intercourse was now forbidden to everyone but married people; bundling disappeared. In its place young courting couples engaged in “petting”–which, interpreted broadly, meant that they were could do anything sexual short of intercourse. Women were...

Nice tits” to his mother? His sister? His daughter?) And although I should know better, I, too, equate my body with my soul and the result, at least sometimes, is a deep shame of both....

In comparison, young unmarried women in America were fortunate: They had a certain measure of sexual freedom. Eighteenth-century parents allowed their daughters to spend tie with suitors unsupervised, and courting couples openly engaged in “bundling,”...

Abstaining from sex, hitting the books, and wearing loose-fitting clothes are common ways that girls try to molt their “slutty” image. But more often their shame leads them to self-destructive behavior. They become willing to...

I couldn’t stand being identified by my sexuality, I retaliated by insisting that people regard me for my intellectual worth. My intellect became a form of damage control.

When my reputation was at its height, classmates insulted me right to my face as I walked down the hall. When a teacher called on me, boys snickered and girls rolled their eyes. My body...

If I had been armed with a feminist understanding that no girl deserves to be called a slut, perhaps I would have fought back by reporting the harassment to my school’s headmistress or another school...

Three out of ten women in the United States have an abortion by the time they are forty-five years old. And women who need abortions get abortions, whether or not the procedure is legal or...

Although drinking to the point of becoming incapacitated is unwise and risky for anyone, the blame for rape must be put on the rapist who preys on a drunk woman, not a drunk woman who...

Indeed, girls can be so in need of social approval that they confuse harassment for acceptance–thinking that any attention is better than none. Since many girls as well as boys buy the idea that sexual...