young women reclaim self-respect and find its not bad to be good
Shalit, Wendy
2007
Examines the impact of the proliferation of sexual images and messages in the media, stores, and schools on young girls, discussing the pressure girls feel to behave sexually and arguing that this prevalence prevents them from developing an authentic sense of their own sexuality and ultimately makes sex unfulfilling.
Emma, a self-assured young lady in Regency England, attempts to arrange her life and the lives of those around her into a pattern dictated by her romantic fancy.
Daisy Creed, at the onset of World War II, rejects her life as the daughter of a Church of England rector and enlists in the Women's Land Army, opening herself up to infinite possibilities.
Nanzeen, married off to an older man, moves from her Bangladeshi village to live with him in London in the 1980s and 1990s, where she raises a family, learns to love her husband, and comes to a realization that she has a voice in her own life.
Argues that instead of advancing women's social and professional empowerment, popular culture trends in the United States appear to be backsliding into the blatant sexual exploitation of women at younger and younger ages and describes many ways in which young girls are increasingly taught to go to outrageous lengths in seeking male attention.
The lives of plump, straitlaced, thirty-year-old attorney Rose Feller and her gorgeous, fun-loving, but scattered younger sister, Maggie, change when Maggie comes to live with Rose after yet another eviction.
Twenty-three-year-old Carrie Bell, engaged to her high school sweetheart, is ready to make a break from a life that has become suffocating in its sameness, but her decision is complicated when her fiancee is paralyzed in a diving accident and everyone expects her to stay and care for him.
