Invisible Girls
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Our Bodies, Ourselves, new edition, by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. Probably the most complete book on teen sexuality. The teen version of the revolutionary feminist classic, including invaluable information on bodies and sexuality with plenty of diagrams.
Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image, edited by Ophira Edut. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2003. Vignettes from young women writing about body image, some from a feminist perspective. This book gives girls an alternative to the standard measurements of beauty.
The Girl’s Guide to Taking Over the World: Writings from the Girl Zine Revolution, edited by Karen Green and Tristan Taormino. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997. This collection, like the zines themselves, gives voice to real opinions from young women.
Ophelia Speaks: Adolescent Girls Write About Their Search for Self, edited by Sara Shandler. New York: HarperPerennial, 1999. Sara Shandler edited this when she was eighteen years old. It includes short vignettes written by teen girls on topics like sexuality, eating disorders, depression, and sexual abuse.
Books on Teen Dating Violence
Here are some books that I encourage parents to read along with their daughters.
Dating Violence: Young Women in Danger, by Barrie Levy. Seattle: Seal Press, 1991. Features twenty brief but powerful first-person accounts from abused teens and their mothers.
In Love and Danger: A Teen’s Guide to Breaking Free of Abusive Relationships, by Barrie Levy. Seattle: Seal Press, 1997. This book, directed to teenagers, includes teens’ stories and advice from Levy. Helpful topics include sexual abuse and relationship abuse.
Saving Beauty from the Beast: How to Protect Your Daughter from an Unhealthy Relationship, by Vicki Crompton and Ellen Zelda Kessner. Boston: Little, Brown, 2003. This is aimed at parents of teenage daughters.
A Girl’s Life Online, by Katherine Tarbox. New York: Plume, 2004. Terrifying true story of a girl assaulted by a man she met in an Internet chat room. A warning for girls and parents.
Novels and Memoirs of Survivors
There are many novels and memoirs that can help to heal. Here are a few to consider reading. Although these authors are adult women, they are writing in the voice of a teen girl who has survived sex abuse.
Bastard Out of Carolina, by Dorothy Allison. New York: Plume, 1993. Beautifully told story of Bone, a young girl growing up in the rural South amid violence and sexual abuse with a heartbreaking mother-daughter relationship.
Fifth Born, by Zelda Lockhart. New York: Atria Books, 2003. Novel about a young African American girl dealing with family violence and abuse in 1970s Missouri and Mississippi.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou. New York: Random House, 2002. A classic. This is a beautiful novel about growing up, and part of its focus is on incest with the heroine’s uncle.
Feminism
Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, by Susan Brownmiller. New York: Fawcett Columbian, 1993. This is one of the most important books on rape and injustice to women.
The Feminist Mystique, by Betty Friedan. New York: Norton, 1963. This is the groundbreaking book that awakened the world to feminism. Totally relevant today.
Breaking Down the Wall of Silence: The Liberating Experience of Facing Painful Truth, by Alice Miller. New York: Meridian, 1997. Alice Miller, a German psychoanalyst and child advocate, tries to bring out the truth about the abuse of and injustice to all children.
My Life on the Road, by Gloria Steinem. New York: Random House, 2015. Gloria Steinem’s life, legacy, travels, philosophy, history of fighting for gender equality, and her glorious feminism.
Feminist Fight Club: A Survival Manual for the Sexist Workplace, by Jessica Bennett. New York: Harper Wave, 2017. Excellent book with strength and a sense of humor for young women entering the workplace.
Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters, by Jessica Valenti. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press, 2007. Brings back feminism as forward looking, young, and kick ass.
Many of these books also have websites.
Podcasts
Teen Life from a Real Teen Girl
Teens talk about real-life struggles and pressures.
Feminist Current
Canada’s leading feminist podcast, run by Meghan Murphy, dealing with sexuality, violence against women, and current events.
Beyond Surviving with Rachel Grant
A young woman covers many topics, including conversations about trauma, healing, and reclaiming your voice. There are guests talking with Rachel about many topics.
The Rookie Podcast
This podcast is quite upbeat and covers a lot of pop culture when you want a break from the heavier stuff!
For Teen Boys and Men
Men Can Stop Rape, Inc. (MCSR)
www.mencanstoprape.org
Founded in 1997 and still the cutting-edge organization dedicated to ending men’s violence against women with the goal to mobilize men through training programs to create cultures free of violence against girls and women.
Men Stopping Violence
www.menstoppingviolence.org
Men Stopping Violence works locally, nationally, and internationally to dismantle belief systems, social structures, and institutional practices that oppress women and children. They conduct training and social justice work in the areas of race, class, gender, age, and sexual orientation, because are all critical to ending violence against women.
White Ribbon
www.whiteribbon.ca
Founded in 1991, their motto is, “Our future has no violence against women and girls.” White Ribbon reaches out internationally through media, education, and brands to stop violence against women and girls.
Films
There are few films that portray sexual abuse of teen girls in a clear way with a hopeful outcome. So many films portray pedophiles in a sympathetic way. You won’t find those here! Here are a few films that deal with the subject in a respectful way. Some are classic oldies but goodies.
Bastard Out of Carolina (1996). Based on the autobiographical novel written by Dorothy Allison, this is a heart-wrenching film in which a mother rejects her daughter for her abusive husband. Directed by a woman.
Loyalties (1999). A Canadian film made by a woman filmmaker. Very supportive to women, with extraordinary scenes of a mother and her fifteen-year-old daughter. Directed by a woman.
Monsoon Wedding (2001). An all-around beautiful film that includes one of the most wonderful examples of family support around incest. Directed by a woman.
Nuts (1987). Barbra Streisand stars in this amazing film about incest. Although the story is told from the point of view of an adult, it is about her girlhood and contains insights into the incest mother and father.
Hard Candy (2005). A very powerful revenge film against pedophiles. A driven teenage girl exposes a man she suspects is a pedophile.
All About Nina (2018). A powerful depiction of an incest survivor who becomes a brash stand-up comic—a great portrait of a thirty-year-old woman who did not disclose her abuse and her struggles as a result (explicit language and sex, not recommended for under 18).
ENDNOTES
Chapter 7: The Deepest Wound: Father-Daughter Incest
1. From a January 2000 interview with Kay Jackson, a psychologist who specializes in treating pedophiles.
Chapter 11: Rape Always Hurts: Stranger Rape/Date Rape/Gang Rape
1. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Criminal Victimization Survey, 2016.
2. Allen J. Ottens and Kathy Hotelling, Sexual Violence on Campus: Policies, Programs, and Perspectives, Springer Series on Family Violence (New York: Springer, 2001); Our Bodies Ourselves, www.ourbodiesourselves.org, “Preventing Sexual Assault on Campus,” 2018.
3. S. Humphrey and A. Kahn, “Fraternities, Athletic Teams and Rape: Importance of Identification with a Risky Group,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence (2000), as cited in Rana Simpson, A
cquaintance Rape of College Students, Problem-Oriented Guides for Police, Problem-Specific Guides Series no. 17 (US Department of Justice Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services, 2000) 2016.
4. Three percent as cited by the Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice and Bureau of Justice Statistics, Report on the Sexual Victimization of College Women (2001); 25 percent as reported by B. Fisher and J. Sloan III, Campus Crime: Legal, Social and Policy Perspectives (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1995). According to National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC), www.nsvrc.org, 2018.
5. According to Ms. magazine online, Summer 2004: “India, Malaysia, Tonga, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Guatemala, and Uruguay exempt men from penalty for rape—if they subsequently marry their victims.” Once they are married, there is, from a legal standpoint, no such thing as rape.
6. According to Robin Warshaw, I Never Called It Rape (New York: Harper Perennial, 1994), 75 percent of the men, and 55 percent of the women involved in date rape had been drinking or taking drugs before the attack occurred.
7. According to Fisher and Sloan, Campus Crime, fewer than 5 percent of college women who are victims of rape or attempted rape report it to police. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, only 39 percent of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to law-enforcement officials—about one in every three. This strikes me as a very high estimate. According to RAINN Rape and Incest National Network, Criminal Justice System: Statistics, out of 1,000 rapes 994 perpetrators walk free (2018).
8. According to the National Center for Policy Analysis, probability statistics compiled from US Department of Justice Statistics suggest that only one out of sixteen rapists will ever spend a day in jail.
9. From http://www.nd.edu/~ucc/ucc_sexualvictimhospital.html.
10. Equality Now, Sex Trafficking Fact Sheet, https://www.equalitynow.org/sex-trafficking-fact-sheet.
11. Melissa Farley, Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress (New York: Haworth Maltreatment and Trauma Press, 2003).
INDEX
Abelson, Jenn, 198
acquaintance abuse and acquaintance rape
abuse by brothers of friends, 188–192
blaming the survivors, 325–326
date rape and, 222–232
defining, 25, 204–205, 223
girls’ confusion and ambivalence over, 176–178
girls’ need to “fit in,” 178–184, 186
host fathers abusing students, 320–321
by mothers’ boyfriends, 252–254
parents’ lack of support for survivors of, 193–194
rape by a friend’s father, 276–279
repeated experiences by different friends, 325–330
reporting and pressing charges, 264
survivors’ lives after abuse, 298
survivors reading other survivors’ stories, 309
survivors taking the blame for, 187–188
addiction. See drug and alcohol use
adolescence
controlling eating, 229–231
families failing to protect and educate daughters, 55–56
incest survivors, 285–286
loss of trust, 45–46
mentor abuse, 153
the myth of girls’ attraction to older men, 169–170
myths about girls’ sexuality, 172–175
self-consciousness and fear, 342–343
sibling incest, 135
statistics on sexual abuse, 44–45
adopted children, 278
“affair,” mentor abuse as, 166–169
After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back (Raine), 197
age
of disclosure, 58–59
mentor abuse, 155
statistics on adolescence and sexual abuse, 44–45
See also adolescence
alcohol use. See drug and alcohol use
Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Was Sexually Abused as a Child (Davis), 69
Amos, Tori, 197, 292
anger
adolescent girls’ difficulty expressing, 46–47
finding outlets for, 59–67
over sibling incest, 137–138
at unsupportive parents, 183–184
women’s anger at husbands who molest their daughters, 280–283
anorexia/bulimia, 228–232
anxiety: survivor traits, 37–38
Aquilina, Rosemarie, 150
Armstrong, Louise, 7
arousal, sexual
myth of adolescent girls’ sexuality, 173
sibling incest, 135–136, 139–140
survivors’ confusion over feeling, 22–23, 190
survivors overcoming the guilt of, 65, 305–306
survivors reading other survivors’ stories, 310–311
babysitting, 28
Bass, Ellen, 7
Beastie Boys, 293
beauty, seeing after abuse, 344–346
Biden, Joe, 196, 222
blackouts, alcoholic, 206–207
blaming the survivors
“boys will be boys” attitude, 5–6, 293–294
cousin incest, 143–144
criminalization of prostitutes, 242–243
date rape, 206
for date rape, 221–222
emotionally unsupportive families, 53–54
extended family’s response to disclosure of incest, 287–289
families failing their children, 50–51
father-daughter incest, 95–108
finding your support posse, 291–292, 294–295
forgiving the abuser, 268–270
molestation by male relatives, 86–87
overcoming guilt, 64–66
pedophilia and, 21–22
pointers for avoiding date rape, 235
sexual enjoyment, 22–23
sibling incest, 130
socialization of adolescent girls, 47–48
women blaming women, 203–204
blow jobs. See oral sex
body image, 38, 225, 244
bondage: father-daughter rape, 116–117, 120–121
boundaries, setting
after repeated abuse, 191–192
during disclosure, 57–59
families’ role in helping adolescent girls with, 175–176
fathers discussing sex with their daughters, 96
mentor abuse, 155
ongoing trauma after childhood abuse, 220–221
parents setting boundaries to protect their children, 54
pointers for avoiding date rape, 235
sex after abuse, 69
boyfriends
after sibling incest, 136
challenging the rape culture, 293–294
history of emotional abuse affecting adult relationships, 214–215
manipulation and rape by, 325–328
pimps as “boyfriends,” 255–256
rape by, 205
supporting survivors’ healing, 192–193, 331–333
toxic relationships, 343–344
See also date rape
“boys will be boys” attitude, 5–6, 293–294
brother-sister incest
defining and characterizing, 128–130
drugs and alcohol, 131
reflecting on other survivors’ experiences, 302–304
reporting and healing, 137–138
survivors reading other survivors’ stories, 308
Brown, Grace, 8
Brown, Lyn Mikel, 46
Brown University, 196
Butler, Sandra, 7
Caillat, Colbie, 292
“Carrying the Weight Together” movement, 196–197
children
abused girls’ protective feelings towards, 139
cousin incest, 141–147
parents’ failure to believe, 150–151
playing doctor, 42
protecting younger siblings from molestation, 38–39
sex-trafficked wome
n and girls, 238
survivors’ fears of passing abuse onto, 27–28
survivors’ lives after abuse, 297–299
survivors marrying abusers, 10
See also pedophilia
Children of the Night, 248–249
chosen families of survivors, 270
clergy abuse
abusers gaining parents’ trust, 154–155
families’ failure to support survivors, 159–163
girls’ vulnerability to, 152
Lolita complex, 153–154
myths and questions about, 155–157
questioning behavior, 153
survivors’ lives after abuse, 298
clubbing, 215–216
coaches, abuse by. See mentors and coaches
Colao, Flora, 195
college campuses
date rape, 205, 207, 215–222, 231–232, 325–328
date rape statistics, 199–200
drugs and alcohol involvement in date rape, 205
frat house culture, 247–248
rape culture, 201–203
Take Back the Night demonstrations, 248–249
Columbia University, 196–197
commodification of women and girls, 233–234
concentration loss in PTSD in survivors, 36–37
condom use
contracting STDs through oral sex, 25
during father-daughter rape, 103
confidentiality, survivors’ right to, 273–274
confronting the abuser, 266–268, 274
Conspiracy of Silence (Butler), 7
coping mechanisms and survival strategies
cutting as, 186
dissociation resulting from physical abuse, 35–36
multiple personality disorder in incest survivors, 34–35
See also dissociation; drug and alcohol use
The Courage to Heal (Davis), 7
cousin incest, 22–23, 85–90, 94, 141–147
criminal justice system
protecting abusers, 265–266
survivor’s life after abuse, 297
See also legal issues; police; reporting
criminalization of sexual assault, 6
cultural denial, 4
“boys will be boys,” 5–6, 293–294
cultivating change, 291–295
families failing to protect their daughters, 55
the myth of girls’ attraction to older men, 169–170