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Independent Women's Forum - Research Areas > Women Who Make the World Better

• NEW in the News
  

  Check out this Politicoprofile of Karin Agness.  Karin was a recipient of IWF's Women Who Make the World Better Award last summer.

• Women Who Make the World Better
  

  Wendy Shalit is IWF's latest member of that courageous band of women we call Women Who Make the World Better. Ms. Shalit had the courage to stand up and say some important things about the effects of the sexual revolution on young women. She knew a lot of people would think this wasn't cool. But she did it anyway. Her bestselling new book, Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Good, has been as controversial as her first, A Return to Modesty.  As a result of being fearless, Wendy is one of the coolest Women Who Makes the World Better we've ever met. She sat down with IWF at the Caribou Coffee near our office and talked about her new book, her website (ModestlyYours.net) and what inspired her, before flying home to Canada, where she now lives. We thank her for her public advocacy of a more humane attitude towards sexual behavior on campus.

  Check out our interview with Wendy here.

• Women Who Make the World Better: Wendy Shalit
  

  Wendy Shalit is IWF's latest member of that courageous band of women we call Women Who Make the World Better. Ms. Shalit had the courage to stand up and say some important things about the effects of the sexual revolution on young women. She knew a lot of people would think this wasn't cool. But she did it anyway. Her bestselling new book, Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Good, has been as controversial as her first, A Return to Modesty.  As a result of being fearless, Wendy is one of the coolest Women Who Makes the World Better we've ever met. She sat down with IWF at the Caribou Coffee near our office and talked about her new book, her website (ModestlyYours.net) and what inspired her, before flying home to Canada, where she now lives. We thank her for her public advocacy of a more humane attitude towards sexual behavior on campus.

  
  IWF: Our culture seems to encourage girls to be sexually active, whether they really want to or not. What has changed in our culture that makes it the norm for girls to behave in a fashion that once would have been considered "bad"?  

  SHALIT:Well, you know, in the '60s it was rebellious to be bad. There were always those who were "bad," and it was kind of counter-cultural. But now, these rebels of the '60s are in positions of authority, so the "badness" has become institutionalized, and it's coming from a lot of different places. It's coming from the college administrators, it's coming from the media, and it's coming, often, from parents who mean very well, but they associate happiness and maturity with racking up sexual experience and unfortunately, that's not usually the case.

  IWF: In your new book, you talk about cuddle parties. What are they? Are they good for young women?

  SHALIT: The cuddle party was one of the more interesting investigative things I did for the book. A cuddle party is a non-sexual environment where people can supposedly form bonds with others in a non-sexual way, and people pay admission to cuddle with strangers. And I was very suspicious that it was a non-sexual environment, but it really is not. I was expecting everyone to be very weird, to be honest, so what shocked me was how completely normal everyone was-with the exception of one guy I call "creepy married guy." Creepy married guy was just trying to cuddle everyone in ways that were perhaps more than friendly.

  But all the people there seemed like nice people who just were not finding emotional connection in their own life; they were not finding real friendship, and I found that tremendously sad. We formed a circle at the end where we were told that emotions might surface after this event. Well, we're never going to see any of these people again, so to hug them and then leave-I experienced it as a very alienating and my friend who came with me said the same thing.

  But to me the cuddle party represented something larger.   On the one hand, casual sexual relationships are the popular thing and it's fashionable to pretend we don't have feelings, but clearly, we still do and we've got to deal with them. What I propose in my book is instead of advocating the bitch as the ideal and this pose of "being mean to other women is cool" and "committing adultery is a feminist act because we're not oppressed by these rules anymore," instead of advocating all of this nonsense which alienates women from one another, let's bring back female solidarity. Let's bring back the idea that, out of respect for you, I'm not going to flirt with your boyfriend or with your husband because he's taken. 

  I just got an email from someone whose marriage of many years has been shattered because her best friend is now sleeping with her husband. And it happens, unfortunately, a lot. This is not a feminist thing, this is a tragedy. So we've taken off the scarlet A and put up the scarlet M for modesty, and the girls who have more traditional values are now stigmatized. But it has not helped us, it's caused tremendous pain. I'm not advocating going back to the scarlet A, but certainly, let's end the scarlet M and the stigma against reticence.  It makes a lot of sense to wait until you get to know someone before jumping into bed with him-and thinking twice before committing adultery for that matter. 

  IWF: Let's talk about repression. If you never repress anything sexually, don't you end up having to repress your emotions?

  SHALIT: Absolutely. That's a whole chapter in my book because I'm extremely concerned. We talk about sexual repression, but no one talks about emotional repression, and that's what's being advocated by a lot of these "positive sexuality" organizations. If you look at their literature, they often observe that if you don't care in the first place, then you can never be disappointed.  This is certainly true, and yet it's not a way to live life it seems to me-because it takes us away from our purpose as human beings. What they're advocating ends up becoming a jadedness contest, and for example they say that teens are "not ready" for sex until they've detached their emotions from sexuality.
  
  You know, I've gotten a lot of flak for speaking out about it because these people are very organized, and of course the pornography industry is right there behind them. And there's no organization backing me; I'm just a lone voice. But I think it's really important to speak out because this advice is extremely damaging and girls should not take this advice. Actually, no one should: emotions are a wonderful part of us, that's what makes sex passionate-that you care-and emotionless sex is not good.

  In fact, even the sex therapists are speaking out about this and they're admitting that if somebody doesn't give a hoot about you, they're not going to be giving you much attention in private either. Think about it, and it makes sense that casual sex should be so bad. That's why there's so much alcohol involved, because people are numbing their feelings. Show me a girl who says she's very happy with the hook-up scene; I challenge her to try it without alcohol and then get back to me.

  IWF: One of the most charming things in your new book is how to tell your boomer parents you've decided to remain a virgin. Talk a little about that and boomer parents in general.

  SHALIT: I think like all parents, they want the best for their daughters, and they've observed that those who are experienced "fit in more" since that's what's being promoted as our ideal of womanhood. They want their daughters to fit in, but unfortunately when parents say, "it's good to try the shoes on before you buy them," or they ask a daughter if she's a lesbian because she's still a virgin as a freshman in college-that's a lot of pressure. And the parents don't mean it that way, but that's unfortunately how the daughters experience it, that's what the daughters are telling me. 

  So there's a very interesting tension now, where the older generation, they're the ones organizing the co-ed sleepovers; they're the ones renting the hotel rooms for the prom; they're the ones buying the skanky clothing for their "prostitots."

  And increasingly it's the younger generation that's saying: You know what? No, we don't want this; this is too much, and we want something more than this. I think that's encouraging; it's really encouraging.

  IWF: Well, the name of your book is Girls Gone Mild. Is this because you detect that the tide is turning with the upcoming generation? 

  SHALIT: Oh, definitely.  But the problem is the most outspoken people are always the exhibitionists, the ones who say