Abstract
In Girl Up, Laura Bates offers us a modern survival guide for young women to utilize for coping with the daily challenges stemming from overt and covert sexism. Bates provides frank discussions of body image, gender stereotypes and bullying, workplace and job market discrimination focusing on assertive communication skills, sexual double standards and characteristics of healthy and unhealthy relationships, sexual harassment and sex discrimination, sexism in the media and advertising industries, and pornography and the normalization of sexual harm. Additionally, Bates addresses myths and misinformation related to understanding one’s body, genitalia, and sexual ability. Despite the predominance and regularity of sexism and misogyny, Bates’ discussion encourages readers to cultivate an approach toward understanding such sexist behaviors as unacceptable. After altering their perceptions, Bates provides strategies to combat sexism on individualistic, organizational, and societal levels.
Girl Up could serve as an effective tool in sexual assault prevention programing and curricula. The book contains several topics recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for primary prevention programing for sexual assault, including discussions of dating violence, gender stereotyping, conflict management skills, relationship boundaries, and bystander intervention. Unfortunately, one of the book’s strengths of accessible prose could be problematic for inclusion in a school- or youth-based curriculum. As a popular nonfiction work, Bates writes using the language of her young adult readers, which includes vulgarity, slang, and provocative illustrations (including tap dancing vulvas). While Bates’ writing and sexually infused examples surely entertain, they are likely to ruffle the feathers of more conservative parents and educators.
When considering Girl Up for inclusion in social work curricula, I critically examined Bates’ use of intersectionality and feminist discourse, given that the publisher classifies it as “feminist theory.” Any feminist text should provide a thorough discussion of intersectionality when introducing feminist theories to audiences. In her preface, Bates highlights inclusivity as foundational to the text. While she notes the importance of “involving a diverse group of people in campaigns and decisions” and “aim[ing] for a wide range of representation” (p. 308), Girl Up does not always meet these standards. Bates’ inclusion of intersectional identities too often serves as incidental mention or a metaphoric nod to particular groups rather than substantive representation. Furthermore, she provides only a brief explanation of intersectional feminism and not until nearly the end of the book. Rather than inclusion, I would describe Bates’ use of intersectionality as intersectional tokenism, providing symbolic representation rather than the full inclusion the preface promises.
For example, when discussing body image, Bates focuses her discussion on the thin ideal but does not discuss compounding oppressions and additional pressures placed on women who are not white. Similarly, in her discussion of dress codes, Bates focuses on sexist standards such as hemlines, formfitting clothing, and baring skin. Her engagement of sexist dress codes glosses over other identities, save for the occasional sentence to employ symbolic inclusion. For some Muslim women, sexist and xenophobic dress codes banning the hijab or traditional headscarves may hold greater personal relevance than bans on short skirts or bared skin. By having a conversation about these other dress codes, Bates could provide a higher level of inclusion.
While Bates may not be able to include a full examination of every identity, Bates’ positioning of Girl Up as a centrally intersectional text ultimately fails to deliver. To address this issue, subsequent editions of the book might meaningfully discuss compounding oppressions throughout her book. These substantive modifications would make the book more useful for social work courses on the necessity of feminist thought and intersectional theory in practice and policy related to women’s issues.