Rachel Hills is my new heroine

We clearly needed an Australian to debunk some of the overrought hysteria of Female Chauvinist Pigs. She makes a pretty spot-on analogy that teenagers are the modern-day Hester Prynnes, and boldly gives them enough credit to (gasp) think for themsleves! Because teenagers never do that, right? I really liked this because she highlights the good parts of Levy's thesis while attacking the negativity and pessimism (not to mention condescension, blame and judgment) inherent in her argument.

Today's young women, they say, are lewd, crude and overly forward. Their clothes are too short and too tight. Like Alanis Morissette, they go down on boys in theatres and on buses on the way to bar mitzvahs.

Where Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hester Prynne wore a scarlet letter "A" for "adultery", today's teenagers have been branded with a scarlet "S". But it's not that modern lasses have gone all wild and wanton on us, it's just that the poor things don't know any better.

"Raunch too hot to be true," by Rachel Hills, The Sydney Morning Herald

They may dress up as Paris Hilton for a party or sing along with Jessica Simpson, but that doesn't mean they're making amateur porn videos or throwing themselves over cars in string bikinis.

That's not to say that we shouldn't be concerned when 14-year-olds have sex in drunken, semi-consenting stupors, or are coerced into performing oral sex in cinemas, and that such events aren't just the stuff of urban legends. It's not to say that it isn't a problem that so many girls and women see "hotness" as an integral part of their value and power.

But the way to deal with it isn't by clicking our tongues and grounding the girls until they're 30. It's to have adult conversations and ensure they have the knowledge to make decisions that aren't based on low self-esteem or misinformation. Read the whole thing