Everyday Sexism in a 'Post-Feminist' World

Everyday Sexism in a ‘Post-Feminist’ World

Pop culture tells girls they can do anything, but the messages they experience in the classroom tell a different story.

For the past two decades, “girl power” has become a popular way of describing the success of girls in American culture. Widespread reports of “alpha girls”—girls who can do it all, find popularity, escape gender stereotypes, excel in school and walk away with the Homecoming Queen prize—have, according to all kinds of media reports, pioneered a gender takeover. In 2007, The Nation reported that girls can do everything boys can—and better. A New York Times story that same year documented what the author described as “amazing girls”—girls who are high-achieving and confident and engaged and “have grown up learning they can do anything a boy can do, which is anything they want to.” Business Week in 2003 described girls as “building a kind of scholastic Roman Empire alongside boys’ languishing Greece.”

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