Abstract
Why did (white) girlhood sexual behaviors and identities become the focus of intense national debate in the United States from 1980 to 2010? Charlie Jeffries’s interesting research question in Teenage Dreams: Girlhood Sexualities in the U.S. Culture Wars follows varied groups, from conservative and liberal politicians to “rebellious” teens. Whereas these groups often voice differences of opinion about teen sexuality, intriguingly, their rhetoric converges and aligns at other times, even as their political orientations remain starkly oppositional. Jeffries delves into the intricacies and idiosyncrasies in these national debates, exposing the larger societal ideologies and the economic and political climates (read: sexism, racism, ageism, heterosexism, and classism). These debates thus use teens for larger moral and political battles and become part of the “culture wars.”
With the book following clear chronological organization, the first chapter begins in the 1980s, with the onset of laws that emerged from ideas on teenage sexuality and abortion from the late 1970s which, in turn, were attempts to uphold conservative ideas of class, race, and gender and the New Right’s backlash to 1960s social movements. These laws were easier to pass than those focusing on adults, thus resulting in the harshest repercussions for young girls of color. Throughout the 1980s in the United States, President Ronald Reagan advanced a robust, fiscally conservative agenda of unrestricted free market capitalism that funneled money to the wealthy and spent little on social programs. This was the backdrop to some of the debates that focused on sexual education, abortion, and parental control, which occurred not only between monolithic conservative and liberal groups, but also between subgroups. Essentially, underlying the rhetoric against certain types of teenage sexuality in these decades was the idea of protecting the purity of white, teenage girls.
Drawing on past organizing by women of color, by the 1990s intersectional theory was making more headway. More discussions about gender and race, and recognition of differences in struggles, were being heard and had among third-wave feminists. In addition, there were more discussions of teenage sexuality, yet these discussions were ultimately shut down by conservatives/Republicans and even by liberals/Democrats—such as then-President Bill Clinton —to forward their political careers. Once again intertwined with fiscal conservativism, Clinton’s welfare reform and abstinence sexual education bills discussed teen sexuality unfavorably and promulgated racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism. These policies contained somewhat implicit—or in other words, somewhat explicit—suggestions that the sexuality of young women of color was to blame for the United States’ larger economic and social problems.
By the 2000s, the Bush administration’s sexual politics turned its gaze to a greater extent to a transnational focus. These policies promoted a more entrenched abstinence-only ideology in both the United States and globally, which still contained sexist, racist, classist, and heterosexist underpinnings, which, like earlier decades, also mirrored similar rhetoric among both liberal and conservative groups. Moreover, the Bush administration removed reputable research institutes and replaced them with their own “researchers” who changed the ways that “successful” abstinence programs were measured. As a matter of course, there was also agency and resistance from already established and new activist groups, including some Black churches, with many engaging in on-the-ground actions to help communities.
From looking at the references, Jeffries collected and presented the aforementioned information from a multitude of primary and secondary sources from many esteemed archives and libraries, drawing from popular culture to policy sources such as articles, magazines, websites, government and organization reports, books, newspaper articles, and less mainstream publications such as zines. As a sociologist with little archival research background, I find the idea of archival research interesting. Coming from feminist and critical race studies, the current push in sociology is to have more methodological transparency and researcher reflexivity about how we go about finding our data and evidence, so much so that many books now have methods appendixes. As such, historical research leaves me curious about how certain sources were discovered, chosen, or pursued, and which sources were omitted or remained more hidden. This is a more general note about historical research and not about Jeffries’s work per se, as this author does an impressive job of weaving together a coherent story that makes important points.
Although Jeffries’s timespan of study was from 1980 to 2010, I appreciated her epilogue outlining the relevance of her findings to today’s ideas of teen sexuality in the United States. Jeffries asserts that teen sexuality has currently become more normative, and thus those defending “conservative” ideals have shifted their focus to transgender children and teenagers, utilizing the same underlying “logics” of protecting white, teenage girls, such as outlining the dangers of “predators” using the little (white, innocent) girl’s room (my words, the author’s sentiment). Jeffries notes that these trans rights attacks should be closely monitored, regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican is president, because the history that she uncovered revealed that both liberals and conservatives alike have not moved many progressive agendas forward on issues of gender and sexuality. This is a very true and disappointing reality. I also believe, however, that with the book’s federal-level scope of analysis the reader is not apprised of the vast ideological and policy differences among the states over the years. To follow the thread of the anti-trans example, as I write this review, there is a bombardment of anti-trans legislation at some state levels and not others, despite the existence or nonexistence of federal-level policies.
I recognize that state-level policy may have been outside of the scope of the book. Nonetheless, Jeffries cautions us to use this history to provide lessons and warns us to employ more informed critical thinking skills as we approach issues of race, sexuality, and gender, particularly in legislation aimed at teens. As such, I believe this book would be a good addition for upper-level undergraduate or graduate-level courses in history, gender and sexuality studies, sociology, and public policy, as it presents interesting findings and lends itself to great discussion points about the past and our potential future.