“Boys will be boys and girls will be sluts”: Leora Tanenbaum on defeating slut-shaming in the age of
“Boys will be boys and girls will be sluts”: Leora Tanenbaum on defeating slut-shaming in the age of the Internet“I Am Not a Slut” author tells Salon that girls have the tools to fight back – but adults need to take the lead“Leora Tanenbaum is not a slut. That didn’t stop her from being labeled as such during her years in school, nor did it stop her from being bullied for her sexuality — just like countless other young women across the country. As a result of her own “slut-bashing,” a term she coined in her first book, “Slut! Growing Up Female With a Bad Reputation,” Tanenbaum decided to dedicate herself to researching the word “slut” and the ways its prolific use harms girls and young women.Fifteen years after the release of “Slut!,” Tanenbaum’s second book — “I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet” — follows the rise of online slut-shaming and the methods by which virtually all young women have been labeled sluts on social media. The book, which came out last week, relies on individual women’s narratives to illustrate the pervasiveness of gendered bullying online — and how Tanenbaum thinks it can be stopped.It’s a multilayered project, which the author — who also works for Planned Parenthood’s communications department — believes can be accomplished through advocacy online and off. Her employer, she says, offers a good example of what the fight against slut stigma looks like in the real world. “I genuinely believe that what Planned Parenthood does best, which is providing comprehensive sex education and abortion without judgment and birth control without interference from bosses and politicians, is so important for chipping away at slut-shaming,” Tanenbaum told me when we spoke by phone last Tuesday. “Because what that does is destigmatize female sexuality, and that means that we are chipping away at a sexual double standard, this whole idea that boys will be boys and girls will be sluts.”Read the interview with Leora Tenenbaum here -- source link
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