Letters to the Editor
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Agree: give young women some credit
At the bottom of the Flanagan's column, it says she is working on a book about the emotional lives of pubescent girls. I think that explains this column perfectly. Expect more of the same flimsily constructed arguments which will reveal more about HER emotional reaction to the emotional lives of pubescent girls. And as to the central question of her essay?
...Now we have to ask ourselves this question: Does the full enfranchisement of girls depend on their being sexually liberated? And if it does, can we somehow change or diminish among the very young the trauma of pregnancy, the occasional result of even safe sex?
I have no idea what WE are supposed to do with any of this -- Ummm, no, you're right; they should be fully enfranchised and sexually repressed if they want to be, is that what you're saying? Anyway, I'm not sure what you're suggesting, but we need to get on it; someone form a committee. A committee to study a way to... what is it again that we are trying to accomplish? Protect women, as the Victorians did (when scandal and trauma were unknown) so that they can be fully enfranchised for the first time in history with boys, or at the very least diminish the trauma of unwanted pregnancy by, I guess her logic is, making boys share more of the stigma? But what's the point of that since, "the brutally unfair outcome that adolescent sexuality can produce will never change."
It's all very confused and poorly written. If it was brought to me by a student, I'd view it as first-draft material. It's certainly not NYT worthy. And her final anecdote about the word "Please" etched into the metal sanitary napkin box? Gag! Gahhh! Writing doesn't get more wretched than that. "Please" Etched letter by painful letter on hall pass breaks! ("If I can only finish the first 'E' I might get through the day without going insane," Sally thought as she raised her hand to get Mrs. Flanagan's attention.)
Oh my God! That paragraph is just the worst of the worst. That wild extrapolation, built from nothing, is Flanagan's final indictment of the horrors of being young and female? Please! The girl probably was trying to write "Please tell the school office if you take the last napkin."