Peggy Orenstein

A lot of what happens in consensual encounters and in the way we talk to both girls and boys about sex creates…

— Peggy Orenstein

Parents tend to name all of baby boys' body parts, but with girls they go from belly button to knees with this…

— Peggy Orenstein

Mothers are doing a better job talking about risk, danger, reproduction, consent, unwanted pregnancy. We're not talking about how to balance the…

— Peggy Orenstein

There is only one princess in the Disney tales, one girl who gets to be exalted. Princesses may confide in a sympathetic…

— Peggy Orenstein

Saying "yes" [to sexual activity] is a pretty low baseline for sexual experience and I wanted to write about what was happening…

— Peggy Orenstein

All girls over age 14 remove pubic hair. The only touching is to remove hair. That's grim.

— Peggy Orenstein

But it is Bella, not the supernaturals she falls in with, who is the true horror show here, at least as a…

— Peggy Orenstein

Sex-ed courses look at girl's internal parts: for boys it's about ejaculation, erection and wet dreams; for girls, it's periods and unwanted…

— Peggy Orenstein

For years we've used the bases analogy - with intercourse being the "ultimate sex" even though that's probably not going to feel…

— Peggy Orenstein

“Identify, I've learned, can be sliced many ways and there is gain with every loss.”

— Peggy Orenstein

“The beauty was just mind-boggling for this English girl...It was like being in your own national park, but without the signs telling…

— Peggy Orenstein

“That said, pointing out inaccurate or unrealistic portrayals of women to younger grade school children-ages five to eight-does seem to be effective,…

— Peggy Orenstein

American Psychological Association, the girlie-girl culture’s emphasis on beauty and play-sexiness can increase girls’ vulnerability to the pitfalls that most concern parents:…

— Peggy Orenstein

“To bring home the point, she compared New Years resolutions of girls at the end of the nineteenth centyry with those at…

— Peggy Orenstein

“Maybe it was just one of those days when you hear an old question a new way, that quite suddenly shifts your…

— Peggy Orenstein

The anesthetizing against caring really threw me for a loop. I was seeing it with 15-year-olds. It was how they were starting…

— Peggy Orenstein

“But I want to leave Denison there, with a boy, because making change has to include them as well. It’s no longer…

— Peggy Orenstein

We continue to think of virginity as first intercourse. That ends up minimizing and marginalizing other things kids are engaged in, like…

— Peggy Orenstein

“They too struggle with the expectation to look sexy but not to feel sexual, to provoke desire in others without experience it…

— Peggy Orenstein

Girls would say: "I have a boyfriend for that." So in addition to putting their pleasure literally into someone else's hands -…

— Peggy Orenstein

The point of creativity is to express and challenge yourself, to make meaning, to embrace your life.

— Peggy Orenstein

I talked to a junior in college, and she was fed up. She said, "I'm not doing other girls any favours by…

— Peggy Orenstein

“If toting the standard equipment is not what male or female, exactly what does? well, duh, its barrettes. At least thats what…

— Peggy Orenstein

“Rather than freedom from traditional constraints, then, girls were free to "choose" them. Yet, the line between "get to" and "have to"…

— Peggy Orenstein

The notion is called wabi-sabi life, like the cherry blossom, it is beautiful because of its impermanence, not in spite of it,…

— Peggy Orenstein