Amy A. (DarkWoodsSanctuary) -
Helpful Score: 1
You know, Ive had this book for a LONG time, yeabad me. I really wanted to read this, but something else always seemed to be coming up that NEEDED to be read, and so it kept getting put off. I also really wanted to like and be moved by this book, but something about it just wasnt very compelling. I agree with much of what the White says, but I think because as she says herself, she as a fascination with the H.S. Slut (as a person and as a cultural image) but no direct experience with it, this reads more like an uninvolved and very shallow examination of this phenomenon. At the end, I felt like she has said the same exact thing over and over and never really made any serious examination of the subject beyond shallow voyeurism on her part. Its not badly written, I dont think shes reached inaccurate conclusionsbut at the same time I felt like she didnt really take this vary far, that she really only gives a surface picture of the subject and never really gets down to the meat of it, never really gets herself dirty with it or makes any personal connection with it beyond a mild fascination with the subject and I thing that really shines through more than anything else about the book.
Calling a young woman a slut may be a new way of shutting her down, but Emily White opens up the term until it turns into a magical hall of mirrors, revealing all the ways in which fear of female power still shapes our culture. Ranking with the ground-breaking work of the Second Wave, much fiercer than most of what passes for feminist writing now, Fast Girls takes the discussion of the politics of sex to the next level.
