The point of creativity is to express and challenge yourself, to make meaning, to embrace your life. Peggy Orenstein More Quotes by Peggy Orenstein More Quotes From Peggy Orenstein Not that long ago, the idea of feeding your kid with organic fruit and vegetables or paying attention to sustainability or any of that - that was very fringy. And I guess some people will argue it still is to a degree, but it's kind of mainstream fringy now. Peggy Orenstein long kids people There is a way hook ups are serving young women. And it was important for me to always talk about how behaviours were serving girls, not just making them the victims. Peggy Orenstein behaviour girl important I'm watching my own daughter grow up. I see this overt sexual culture coming at her like a Mack truck. She's in seventh grade. Peggy Orenstein growing-up daughter culture Parents tend to name all of baby boys' body parts, but with girls they go from belly button to knees with this void in the middle. That doesn't change as kids go into puberty. Peggy Orenstein girl baby kids Sexualization is the performance of sexuality, the performance of sexiness. Girls are super good at that now. Peggy Orenstein sexiness sexuality girl The anesthetizing against caring really threw me for a loop. I was seeing it with 15-year-olds. It was how they were starting their intimate lives. It alarmed me. Peggy Orenstein intimate caring years I had a lot of girls ask me whether it was weird that they didn't make a lot of noise during sex. I would get so irritated that they had learned this. Peggy Orenstein girl noise sex It's particularly important as parents in our conversations with our daughters and our sons to consider ideas intimate justice when we talk about and set them going on their early formative experience. Peggy Orenstein daughter ideas son Intimate justice touches on ideas of gender inequity, violence, bodily integrity, physical and mental health. I don't expect a 15-year-old girl to have that figured out; it's hard enough to have it figured out when you're 50. Peggy Orenstein girl integrity years A lot of what happens in consensual encounters and in the way we talk to both girls and boys about sex creates a medium in which assault flourishes. Peggy Orenstein girl boys sex My kind of nightmare quote is from Deborah Tolman, who does research on girls and desire and is, I think, brilliant. She told me that by the time girls are teenagers, when she asks them how sexual experience made them feel, they respond by how they think they looked; they think that how they look is how they feel. Peggy Orenstein teenager girl thinking Saying "yes" [to sexual activity] is a pretty low baseline for sexual experience and I wanted to write about what was happening to girls after "yes." Peggy Orenstein saying-yes girl writing While I completely disagree with the "purity" concept, it was the only place I saw fathers talking to girls about their expectations and attitudes to sex and expressing love and support. I didn't see liberal dads having similar conversations with their daughters. Peggy Orenstein daughter girl sex Mothers are doing a better job talking about risk, danger, reproduction, consent, unwanted pregnancy. We're not talking about how to balance the risks and joys and we're really not talking about the joys. Peggy Orenstein mother pregnancy jobs There is only one princess in the Disney tales, one girl who gets to be exalted. Princesses may confide in a sympathetic mouse or teacup, but they do not have girlfriends. God forbid Snow White should give Sleeping Beauty a little support. Let's review: princesses avoid female bonding. Their goals are to be saved by a prince, get married, and be taken care of the rest of their lives. Peggy Orenstein princess girl taken The notion is called wabi-sabi life, like the cherry blossom, it is beautiful because of its impermanence, not in spite of it, more exquisite for the inevitability of loss. Peggy Orenstein cherries loss beautiful Effectively, it makes the greasepaint permanent, blurring the lines not only between public and private but also between the authentic and contrived self. If all the world was once a stage, it has now become a reality TV show: we mere players are not just aware of the camera; we mug for it. Peggy Orenstein player self reality But it is Bella, not the supernaturals she falls in with, who is the true horror show here, at least as a female role model. Peggy Orenstein female-role-models roles fall I never expected, when I had a daughter, that one of my most important jobs would be to protect her childhood from becoming a marketers' land grab. Peggy Orenstein daughter land jobs Girls are learning at the youngest ages that their value comes from how they look, and the definition of attractive is very narrowly defined as being sexy or sassy (for the younger girls), sexuality is imposed upon them inappropriately, and they are encouraged to define their bodies -- not by how their bodies feel to themselves, but by how they look to others. This creates vulnerabilities for girls to the pitfalls we worry about -- distorted body image, eating disorders, depression and unhealthy sexual behavior. Peggy Orenstein living
