Introduction: My Bratz Problem -- An
Ours (p. xv-xxv)
1. Wendy says that the “real crime” of the hypersexualization of
young girls today is that it removes “any mystery or power to sex -- it is
just expected that everything will be sexual, and so nothing is. There is
nothing to wait for or look forward to.” What does Wendy say is the reason
why many parents today don’t object to the clothes, music, and programs of
the bad-girl ideal?
a. Because they see it as a form of sex-education for their children.
b. Because they live immoral lives of their own.
c. Because they don’t see an alternative to it.
d. Because they don’t have any control over merchandisers.
Chapter One: “Hi Slut” (p. 3-20)
2. Which is NOT true?
a. Much of the sex teen girls have is unwanted.
b. Sexually active teenagers -- particularly girls -- are more likely to be
depressed and to attempt suicide.
c. Male and female students “hook up” primarily because of peer pressure,
not because they themselves are really comfortable with uncommitted sex.
d. Girls are better served by having sex for pleasure without emotional
attachment.
Chapter Two: The New Bad-Girl Script and Its Limitations (p. 21-40)
3. History has taught us that intimacy flourishes where there is
____. Having sex for its own sake, without waiting to integrate our deepest
emotions and hopes, at best becomes boring, fast. At worst, men and women
end up competing over how cruelly they can use one another.
a. restraint
b. experience
c. freedom
d. variety
4. The plain fact is that girls today are pressured to be ___ to fit in. Consider
how girls today need to be thin, available, and always sexy. At the same
time they are supposed to have no hopes, no messy feelings, no
vulnerability. They must be aggressive, yet somehow inviting.
a. smart
b. bad
c. popular
d. athletic
5. How did Lauren describe the influence her mother had on her good
behavior?
a. “My Mom put the fear of God into me.”
b. “My Mom warned me to stay a virgin.”
c. “My Mom raised me really well and I don‘t want to disappoint her.”
d. “My Mom was very strict.”
Chapter Three: It’s Midnight -- Do You Know Where Your Role Models Are?
(p. 51-77)
6. Which role model was NOT mentioned in this chapter?
a. Trudy Moore, the mother of pro-abstinence Taylor Moore (“Girl,
Interrupted”), who instilled in Taylor that God ordained sex for marriage.
b. Lakita Garth’s grandfather, who every morning walked two miles to the
cemetery to sit next to his wife’s headstone, his “best mate.” They were
married for almost seventy years and had 12 children.
c. Rashida Jolley’s father, who could have made a lot of money traveling as
a professional jazz guitarist, but who chose to work from home so he could
be a “good influence” on his five children. He let Rashida know that if she
got pregnant or had sex, period, and he found out about it, that he would
have to move to another planet.
d. The actor Denzel Washington, a deeply committed Christian, who once
declared that “God is my only real hero.” He begins every day with prayer
and Bible reading. He believes it’s important to try and lead a decent life
and to set a good example.
Things may get worse before they get better, but it’s clear that the
tide is turning. In a society where college bureaucrats pass out condoms
and parents cross-examine kids on whether they’ve gotten rid of their
virginity yet, young people seem to want to change course…People wonder
why the rate of virginity among teenagers has risen for the tenth
straight year when this is not at all what we see and hear about in the
media…Total exposure may be omnipresent on the screen, but the moment
you get a coed alone, she’ll confess that she wishes for more romance
and less explicitness. Sex may sell, but at our current degree of
saturation, mystery and honor will sell even more…We are hungry for
examples of uniquely human striving, to be reminded that we can still
experience genuine feeling and not just bodily contortions. -- p. 74-75
7. How does Wendy advise college students, whose roommates are kicking
them out in order to get drunk or have sex, to “Take Back Your Room”?
a. Call their local television station to see if they would like to do a
story on this violation of campus rules.
b. Put pressure on the administration to reinstate and enforce visiting
hours so students can study and get enough sleep.
c. Have all the students on their dormitory floor take a vote on whether or
not to enforce visiting hours.
d. Bring in a speaker who can enumerate the benefits of sexual abstinence.
Chapter Four: Against Repression (Continual Repression, That Is) p.
78-109)
8. Which best describes the advice that women’s magazines like ELLE,
SEVENTEEN, and COSMO are giving regarding having sex before marriage?
a. Men and women should have mutual regard for their different
expectations.
b. Women should lower their expectations and disconnect their emotions about
having anything more than a sexual encounter.
c. Men need to slow down and consider that women’s yearnings to marry and
have permanent relationships are quite normal and healthy.
d. Both men and women create emotional damage by engaging in sex outside of
a permanent commitment.
9. The Sexuality Information and Educational Council of the United States
(SIECUS) found from its studies that young women were “more likely to regret
their sexual experiences than boys, more likely to label the relationship
‘love’, less likely to report their sexual experiences as pleasurable, and
more likely to bear the brunt of negative outcomes than their male
counterparts.” SIECUS says that the reason why girls report such different
sexual experiences than boys is because
a. of persistent gender stereotyping.
b. the girls are afraid of telling the truth.
c. boys are not reporting how much their emotions are involved in their
pre-marital sexual encounter.
d. the girls are not sufficiently detaching their emotions from their
pre-marital sexual experiences.
10. Why is pornography getting worse, where horrific acts involving the
extreme sexual humiliation of women are now completely mainstream?
a. because a lack of laws regulating pornography on the Internet.
b. because women have given up the fight for modesty and abstinence.
c. because disengaging sex from morality and emotion results in
desensitization, where we pursue the physical for its own sake.
d. because pornography is big business.
11. Who admitted to her own adult daughter that “Sex with someone who
doesn’t love you is totally meaningless and it’s not pleasurable”?
a. the author’s mother
b. the author, Jane Austen
c. Erica Jong, whose 1973 novel The Fear of Flying
glamorized the concept of random, guilt-free sexual encounters between
strangers.
d. Sigmund Freud
Chapter Five: Excuse Me, Ma’am, Have You Seen My Friends”
12. According to a study by sociologists at Duke University in June 2006,
Americans have ____ close friends and confidants today than two decades ago.
a. one-fourth fewer
b. one-third fewer
c. one-fourth more
d. one-third more
An online community cannot substitute for friends in
real life -- p. 126
13. Women who get married often distance themselves from their
unmarried girlfriends because
a. they don’t trust single women around their husbands.
b. they have less time for friendship.
c. they are too busy blogging on the Internet.
d. they think they are now better than single women.
Chapter Six: Pure Fashion Divas (p. 138-169)
14. At age 11, Ella Gunderson wrote to the retail store Nordstrom to
ask them to carry more ___ clothing. In a subsequent interview, Pete
Nordstrom defended their selection by saying that Nordstrom was simply
“chasing the trends.” Ella told Wendy Shalit, “But if Nordstrom is providing
the clothes, then they are setting the trends!”
a. modest
b. comfortable
c. old-fashioned
d. colorful
Nowhere is the politicization of dress more evident than in our
deep-rooted wrong belief that a girl or woman who undresses for the
general public is “comfortable with her body”, whereas one who keeps her
body hidden is “ashamed of it”. -- p. 156
Anything that compartmentalizes girls and labels them according to
their body parts is negative. -- p. 157
15. Which is NOT true?
a. Certain clothing can turn a young woman into walking entertainment
for men, or it can do the opposite, and cause people to focus on her
internal qualities.
b. Generally, the more respect you want, the more modestly you should dress.
c. Many confident girls mysteriously develop eating disorders and
self-mutilating behaviors because of societal pressure to see their bodies
as their truest selves.
d. A scientific study showed that women who have had breast implants are
actually 21 percent LESS likely to commit suicide than women without
implants.
Chapter Seven: People-Pleasing Bad Girls and Rebellious Good Girls (p.
173-203)
16. What method did 16-year-old Brittany Hunsicker use to object to
having to read aloud for English class a sexually explicit novel?
a. She quit the class.
b. She published the names of the teachers who supported the book.
c. She wrote an editorial to her local newspaper denouncing the book.
d. She tried reading aloud portions of the novel at the school board
meeting.
Chapter Eight: Feminism’s (New) Fourth Wave (p. 204-238)
17. What happened after the Girlcotters met with representatives of
Abercrombie and Fitch to protest sexually suggestive T-shirts?
a. The company ignored the Girlcotters’ protest.
b. The company defended its shirts as “intelligent” and continued to sell
them.
c. The company sued the Girlcotters for libel.
d. The company quit selling the shirts and offered more tasteful slogans,
such as Cute and Classy.
18. Which is NOT characteristic of today’s young feminists, as
represented by the Girlcotters?
a. sexual liberation
b. wholesomeness
c. personal dignity
d. high sexual standards
Chapter Nine: From Diapers to Bitches -- and Back (p. 239-264)
19. Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith from the Harvard School of Public Health and
Dr. Howard Spivak, a Professor of Pediatrics and Community Health at Tufts
University School Medicine, found that the number one reason for “the
statistical increase in bullying and violence among young girls across the
country” is
a. the rising number of single-parent families.
b. the shift toward violence in the images of women and girls in the media.
c. the modeling of aggressive behavior in aggressive parents.
d. a significant increase in the use of alcohol.
20. Giving an example of how a young woman can impress others without
having to be mean or compromise her value system, Wendy ends this chapter
with
a. a list of the best shops that sell modest clothes to women.
b. a recommended reading list of wholesome books for young women.
c. her favorite apple pie recipe.
d. specific companies that young women can boycott.
