Most Popular Books by Peggy Orenstein

Peggy Orenstein, acclaimed author of the groundbreaking New York Times bestsellers Girls & Sex and Schoolgirls, offers a radical, timely wake-up call for parents, revealing the dark side of a pretty and pink culture confronting girls at every turn as they grow into adults. Sweet and sassy or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as the source of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages. But how dangerous is pink and pretty, anyway? Being a princess is just make-believe; eventually they grow out of it . . . or do they? In search of answers, Peggy Orenstein visited Disneyland, trolled American Girl Place, and met parents of beauty-pageant preschoolers tricked out like Vegas showgirls. The stakes turn out to be higher than she ever imagined. From premature sexualization to the risk of depression to rising rates of narcissism, the potential negative impact of this new girlie-girl culture is undeniable—yet armed with awareness and recognition, parents can effectively counterbalance its influence in their daughters' lives.

A generation gap has emerged between parents and their girls. The mothers and fathers of tomorrow’s women have little idea what their daughters are up to sexually or how they feel about it. Drawing on in-depth interviews with more than seventy young women and a wide range of psychologists, academics, and experts, renowned journalist Peggy Orenstein goes where most others fear to tread, pulling back the curtain on the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important possibilities of girls’ sex lives in the modern world.

Peggy tak ingin menimang seorang bayi. Pernikahan dengan pria yang dicintainya pun tak membuatnya berubah pikiran. Pada usia tiga puluh dua, dengan karier jurnalis-penulis yang berada di pundak, menjadi ibu tak ada dalam daftarnya. Peggy ketakutan melihat satu per satu temannya memiliki anak dan melepaskan pekejaan mereka demi keluarga. Oh, tidak dia tak akan mampu. Tetapi ternyata jauh di dalam hatinya, Peggy masih menyimpan ragu. Naluri kewanitaannya menyeruak pelan, menggoyahkan prinsipnya. Sampai ketika berusia tiga puluh lima, duka akibat kehilangan beberapa orang dekat membuat Peggy berubah pikiran, dia memutuskan untuk menyumbangkan kehidupan kepada dunia ini. Peggy ingin memiliki seorang bayi. Tetapi impian itu koyak. Semua harapannya runtuh seketika, saat Peggy divonis menderita kanker payudara. Dia marah, menangis, menyesali nasib, dan hatinya terus bertanya-tanya, apakah ini hukuman Tuhan? Detik-detik umurnya berllau cepat, tetapi sang buah hati tak kunjung tiba. Satu demi satu keguguran dilaluinya dengan sedih. Segala usaha dia lakukan, bahkan termasuk bayi tabung dan adopsi. Pada akhirnya, enam tahun penantian yang penuh perjuangan itu pun mengajarkan kepda Peggy apa arti dari sebuah karunia Tuhan. [Mizan, Hikmah, Inspirasi, Indonesia]

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Now in paperback—Peggy Orenstein, author of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller Girls & Sex, turns her focus to the sexual lives of young men. “Eye-opening…. Every few pages, the boy world cracks open a little bit…. Even in the most anxiety-provoking moments of Boys & Sex, it’s clear that Orenstein believes in the goodness of boys and the men they can become, and she believes in us, as parents, to raise them” (New York Times Book Review). Peggy Orenstein’s Girls & Sex broke ground, shattered taboos, and launched conversations about young women’s right to pleasure and agency in sexual encounters. It also had an unexpected effect on its author: Orenstein realized that talking about girls is only half the conversation. Boys are subject to the same cultural forces as girls—steeped in the same distorted media images and binary stereotypes of female sexiness and toxic masculinity—which equally affect how they navigate sexual and emotional relationships. In Boys & Sex, Peggy Orenstein dives back into the lives of young people to once again give voice to the unspoken, revealing how young men understand and negotiate the new rules of physical and emotional intimacy. Drawing on comprehensive interviews with young men, psychologists, academics, and experts in the field, Boys & Sex dissects so-called locker room talk; how the word “hilarious” robs boys of empathy; pornography as the new sex education; boys’ understanding of hookup culture and consent; and their experience as both victims and perpetrators of sexual violence. By surfacing young men’s experience in all its complexity, Orenstein is able to unravel the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important realities of young male sexuality in today’s world. The result is a provocative and paradigm-shifting work that offers a much-needed vision of how boys can truly move forward as better men.

The New York Times bestselling author of Girls & Sex and Cinderella Ate My Daughter delivers her first ever collection of essays—funny, poignant, deeply personal and sharply observed pieces, drawn from three decades of writing, which trace girls’ and women’s progress (or lack thereof) in what Orenstein once called a “half-changed world.” Named one of the “40 women who changed the media business in the last 40 years” by Columbia Journalism Review, Peggy Orenstein is one of the most prominent, unflinching feminist voices of our time. Her writing has broken ground and broken silences on topics as wide-ranging as miscarriage, motherhood, breast cancer, princess culture and the importance of girls’ sexual pleasure. Her unique blend of investigative reporting, personal revelation and unexpected humor has made her books bestselling classics. In Don’t Call Me Princess, Orenstein’s most resonant and important essays are available for the first time in collected form, updated with both an original introduction and personal reflections on each piece. Her takes on reproductive justice, the infertility industry, tensions between working and stay-at-home moms, pink ribbon fear-mongering and the complications of girl culture are not merely timeless—they have, like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, become more urgent in our contemporary political climate. Don’t Call Me Princess offers a crucial evaluation of where we stand today as women—in our work lives, sex lives, as mothers, as partners—illuminating both how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR When Peggy Orenstein's now-classic examination of young girls and self-esteem was first published, it set off a groundswell that continues to this day. Inspired by an American Association of University Women survey that showed a steep decline in confidence as girls reach adolescence, Orenstein set out to explore the obstacles girls face--in school, in the hoime, and in our culture. For this intimate, girls' eye view of the world, Orenstein spent months observing and interviewing eighth-graders from two ethnically disparate communities, seeking to discover what was causing girls to fall into traditional patterns of self-censorship and self-doubt. By taking us into the lives of real young women who are struggling with eating disorders, sexual harrassment, and declining academic achievement, Orenstein brings the disturbing statistics to life with the skill and flair of an experienced journalist. Uncovering the adolescent roots of issues that remain important to American women throughout their lives, this groundbreaking book challenges us to change the way we raise and educate girls.

Peggy Orenstein’s bestselling Schoolgirls is the classic study of teenage girls and self-esteem. Now Orenstein uses the same interviewing and reporting skills to examine the lives of women in their 20s, 30s and 40s. The advances of the women’s movement allow women to grow up with a sense of expanded possibilities. Yet traditional expectations have hardly changed. To discover how they are navigating this double burden personally and professionally, Orenstein interviewed hundreds of women and has blended their voices into a compelling narrative that gets deep inside their lives and choices. With unusual sensitivity, Orenstein offers insight and inspiration for every woman who is making important decisions of her own.

In a memoir with the power and resonance of The Year of Magical Thinking, and the quirky humor of Operating Instructions, one of the nation's preeminent writers on women's issues spins the astonishing story of her six-year journey to motherhood.

“Orenstein is such a breezy, funny writer, it’s easy to forget she’s an important thinker too.”—People In this lively, funny memoir, Peggy Orenstein sets out to make a sweater from scratch—shearing, spinning, dyeing wool—and in the process discovers how we find our deepest selves through craft. Orenstein spins a yarn that will appeal to everyone. The COVID pandemic propelled many people to change their lives in ways large and small. Some adopted puppies. Others stress-baked. Peggy Orenstein, a lifelong knitter, went just a little further. To keep herself engaged and cope with a series of seismic shifts in family life, she set out to make a garment from the ground up: learning to shear sheep, spin and dye yarn, then knitting herself a sweater. Orenstein hoped the project would help her process not just wool but her grief over the recent death of her mother and the decline of her dad, the impending departure of her college-bound daughter, and other thorny issues of aging as a woman in a culture that by turns ignores and disdains them. What she didn’t expect was a journey into some of the major issues of our time: climate anxiety, racial justice, women’s rights, the impact of technology, sustainability, and, ultimately, the meaning of home. With her wry voice, sharp intelligence, and exuberant honesty, Orenstein shares her year-long journey as daughter, wife, mother, writer, and maker—and teaches us all something about creativity and connection.

If parents don't talk, and children don't talk, does it mean that nothing bad will happen? The TED speech video has been viewed 4 million times, the most in line with contemporary sex education guidelines! Unless both parties explicitly agree to sexual contact, it is considered disagreement. But what happens after saying OK? If you feel uncomfortable, can you still say no? How to refuse if you don't want to have a relationship? In order to find out, the author of this book, Peggy Orenstein, began to talk to many young girls aged 15 to 20, and also communicated with experts such as psychologists, doctors, educators, and sociologists.

For the first time, a generation of women is growing up for whom sex discrimination has always been illegal; who have always had access to contraception; and who have entered the workforce with the knowledge that they can hold any job a man can. On the surface, feminism has achieved a revolution for women. But often the choices young women seem to make freely are painful decisions forced on them, compromises in which their whole self cannot be expressed. This is the conflict that Peggy Orenstein's unique study, based on interviews with a wide range of women from 25-40 explores.

Garotas & sexo é um retrato desconcertante do contexto sexual que as mulheres enfrentam hoje em dia na passagem da adolescência para a vida adulta. Referência no tema juventude e sexualidade nos Estados Unidos, a jornalista e escritora Peggy Orenstein entrevistou dezenas de garotas (de diferentes origens e orientações sexuais) no ensino médio e na faculdade, além de psicólogas, educadoras e especialistas. As conversas, sempre francas e reveladoras, apresentam um quadro perturbador que a autora discute sem moralismos - dando voz às garotas, refletindo sobre o seu empoderamento e invocando a sensibilidade masculina. Desfazendo mitos e preconceitos, Orenstein aborda temas difíceis e muitas vezes silenciados como cultura do estupro, machismo, virgindade, pornografia e falta de informação sobre o prazer feminino. E faz um chamado urgente para a necessidade de dialogarmos, esquecermos preconceitos e nos educarmos - tanto adultos quanto jovens. Um livro indispensável para mulheres, homens, garotas, garotos, mães, pais, professores e responsáveis.