Horror, scandal and moral panic! The popular fascination with the moral decline of young women has permeated society for over a hundred years. Be it flappers, beat girls, dolly birds or ladettes, public outrage at girls' perceived permissiveness has been a mass-media staple with each changing generation.
Eminent social historian Carol Dyhouse examines what it really means and has meant to be a girl growing up in the swirl of twentieth-century social change in this detailed, factual and empathetic history. Dyhouse uses studies, interviews, articles and news items to piece together the story of girlhood, clearly demonstrating the value of feminism and other liberating cultural shifts in expanding girls' aspirations and opportunities, in spite of the negative press that has accompanied these freedoms.
This is a sparkling, panoramic account of the ever-evolving opportunities and challenges for girls, the new ways they have able to present and speak up for themselves, and the popular hysteria that has frequently accompanied their progress.
Girl Trouble: Panic and Progress in the History of Young Women
Carol Dyhouse ½ 0 CHARACTERS
Really good read, lets you see the patterns of moral panics over time about women's behaviour. I hope it insulates me against feeling moralistic about things in the future: https://blogendorff.com/2019/02/03/bo... English So very good, such an amazing mass of research so engagingly written, such important debunking of pervasive popular preconceptions and nostalgic visions. English As other reviewers have said, the best thing about this book is how it takes some difficulty and complex theories and turns them into easily understandable ideas - it's not a difficult read at all. What is difficult is the depressing truths within and seeing how little has changed in some aspects... English This was a really interesting and pretty intense look at the changing lives of young women in (mainly) the united kingdom and the united states. It looks at all aspects of their lives, from the changing attitudes towards marriage and education, to the public responses to what they saw as wild young women. From flappers to ladettes, this book shows how the public perception of young women often differed from reality, double standards between the sexes were rife and young women had to fight every step of the way. Really well put together and well written. English An amazing amount of well-balanced information is packed into an eminently readable and enjoyable history of British attitudes toward and obsessions with girls and young women and their behavior from the Victorian era to the present. I appreciate any history book that can cause me to laugh out loud. Includes lots of examples from popular culture--headlines, books, films--and puts current panics about young women into perspective. There are occasional references to North America, but the focus is on England. My only wish would have been a bit more comparison with how boys were depicted and treated in the same eras; there were probably parallels in some instances and stark contrasts in others. Thanks to our friend Michael, who gave it to me as a Christmas gift. Recommended! English
A well researched yet brief overview of Britain's (although heavily weighted towards England) social perceptions of women since the Victorian period. This is an engaging, interesting read and a lot of effort has clearly gone into challenging stereotypes about women.
It could've been less descriptive and more thought-provoking/critical but it didn't quite take that leap. It also didn't pay much attention to how events like the 1960s America civil rights movement or the Irish 'Troubles' affected Britain's feminist movement which I think could have made an interesting approach if done in Dyhouse's style. If anyone can recommend any feminist history that does focus on the reaction and changes to women as a consequence of political events like that then please do so as I'm quite curious about it!
This book was also quite restricted in that it mainly focused on what mainstream English media had to say about women which meant it didn't give much of a voice at all to women belonging to minority groups e.g. migrant women, gay women, women belonging to ethnic minorities, etc. This seems like a big oversight but considering the intersectionalist approach many 21st century British feminists have nowadays it could just be yet another marker of how feminism has changed since the book's been published to be more inclusive.
On a similar note, it was also irritating that Britain was taken as a whole with no regard to regional differences between feminist movements and female stereotyping. A few times when reading I found myself wondering (as a woman from North East England) how this applied regionally and how different the book would read if this was taken into account.
Still, 'Girl Trouble' was a good introductory read into feminist history and its broad sweep from the Victorians to the early 2000's put the continuities and changes of how women have been stereotyped and represented in the media in an interesting light. Dyhouse also included many references to other feminist works throughout this period and often compared them which acts as a helpful guide for what to read next and the context in which different works were written. English This was a really interesting and pretty intense look at the changing lives of young women in (mainly) the United Kingdom and the United States.
It looks at all aspects of their lives, from the changing attitudes towards marriage and education, to the public responses to what they saw as wild young women.
From flappers to ladettes, this book shows how the public perception of young women often differed from reality, how rife double standards between the sexes have been and young women have had to fight every step of the way.
Really well put together and well written.
Grace English More thorough review to come maybe? This was the oldest book on my TBR, and I'm so happy to have finally read it but I do wish I had read it closer to the 7 or 8 years ago I initially spotted it. I wish this had been more critical maybe or dove deeper into specific moments. It covered a lot of ground and therefore most of what was brought up felt so brief. That being said, I think it was an interesting intro to the history of girlhood, moral panic, etc. (with regards to primarily white middle/working class British women) A quick read if it's something you're interested in, glad I read it, but wish I had picked it up years ago English Excellent, as expected of Dyhouse. It's difficult to describe her prose without sounding like I'm damning it with faint praise: it's so lucid and economical and effortlessly enjoyable to read it's too easy to overlook the truly impressive scholarship and research behind every sensible, balanced sentence. This is a great overview/introduction to these themes, though having read her Glamour: Women, History, Feminism and Girls Growing Up in Late Victorian and Edwardian England, many elements (and some of the funniest bits of Victorian pseudoscience) were familiar to me; a very necessary corrective to much of the CURRENT pseudoscience (and panic) about girls and women in the media. English This is a thoroughly researched and well written insight into the changing (and not changing) attitudes of women, primarily in the UK but with references to the USA. This book shows how far women have come in some areas and how little has changed in others, particularly how the media and society as a whole responds when women act how they want to and not how they are told to (very familiar with this...). Dyhouse manages to keep much of her writing a little light-hearted given the subject matter and the implications of some of the continued attitudes that are found throughout society regarding women and our rights to self-determination in every aspect of our lives. My only criticism of this is that the chapters are rather long and there are no breaks within these, which would've made the reading of this a bit easier and more flexible. This book shows that while we (women and men together) have come far, there is still a long way to go before real equality is established, particularly in the media where guys can 'get away with' a lot than us girls cannot. English