Recommended Parenting Read: Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape by Peggy Orenstein (2016)

Photo credit: Amazon.com

If there's one name that's synonymous with careful examination of the issues that girls & young women face, it's Peggy Orenstein. Orenstein changed the way many teachers thought about issues of gender equality in the classroom with her book  SchoolGirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap  (1994) and went on to write acclaimed works such as Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Kids, Love and Life in a Half-Changed World  (2001) and  Cinderella Ate My Daughter  (2011). In Girls & Sex (2016), Orenstein examines the effects of social media culture, university fraternities, and religion on young women's sexuality and overall well-being.  To write this book, Ms. Orenstein interviewed 70 young women between the ages of 15-20 from upper middle-class backgrounds- as she wanted to talk to those who felt they had all options open to them. She combines content from these interviews with findings from the most highly-regarded research studies available to present a compelling look at the complicated- and at times disturbing- landscape of young women's sexuality. We have a copy of this book in the parenting section of our library. If you are pressed for time, you could view her 17-minute TED talk from April 2107 or her 45 minute talk at Google. 

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