Opening from Emily Maguire’s ‘Your Skirt’s Too Short: Sex, Power, Choice’

[redqueen]

Has anyone read it? It's a toned-down version of her book Princesses and Porn Stars, edited for young adults.

“Does your boyfriend or brother spend a lot of money on skin and hair care products? Does your dad spend much time at the hairdresser or beautician?

In your city’s daily paper do most of the political news items feature women? Are most of the stories in the business section written by and about women? Is there a special ‘Men’s Section’ filled with celebrity gossip, fashion and beauty tips?

When you watch a big sporting event on TV, are the athletes usually women? When you watch female sporting teams are there hot guys in tiny outfits cheering for them on the sidelines?

Do girls you know talk openly about getting off while watching porn? Do they boast about their sexual conquests?

When you’re at the food court, do your female friends happily gobble down a large burger and fries combo while your male friends pick at a salad and sip diet coke?

Do the majority of the fathers you know spend most of their time at home washing, cleaning, cooking and taking care of their kids? Do you often hear mothers refer to looking after their own kids as ‘babysitting’? Have you heard women talk about earning brownie points for cleaning their own house and washing their own clothes? Are you sick of men going on about how hard it is to balance work and parenthood?

Are your male friends afraid to walk on their own at night? Do they avoid drinking too much in case they get raped? Do they dress to protect themselves from attack and always carry their keys poking through their knuckles? When they complain about all this do your female friends shrug and tell them that’s just how the world is?

If the answer to all of these questions was yes, wouldn’t that mean something was wrong? Is that still true if the genders are reversed? Does it matter?”

I think I will be buying this book.

[gollygee]

1. What age is this written for?

[redqueen]

2. Adolescents / teens nt

[cinnabonbon]

3. I like it. It's very easy to appreciate

even for people who haven't yet embraced feminism, I think.

That reminds me, there is a book out there that has the genders reversed like this. I can't remember the title, but we followed the teenage boy of the family suddenly encounter rape culture and it was very cleverly written, with dad staying at home and doing housework/grooming his beard to be pretty, while the mom was out doing women's work. And of course the daughter of the family was a wild one, because "girls will be girls". It really annoys me that I can't remember the title!