Women I Admire: Wendy Shalit

Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com

I heard the precocious, witty Wendy Shalit speak some years ago at Commentary's annual dinner.  Impressed, I dashed out, bought and read what ranks now as one of my most favorite books to share, the very funny, poignant A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue. 

So I was extremely pleased to see this year's Independent Women's Forum  "Women Who Make the World Better" award go to Ms. Shalit.  Ms. Shalit's new book, Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Good has unleashed another round of vitriol so often directed at these brave young women reasserting their dignity against the "equality is sameness"  legacy still pathetically peddled by the kinky-graying radical feminists of my generation.  "Shalit . . . quotes a feminist lawyer barking: 'I am very suspicious of telling girls they need to be morally good—that’s sexism right there!'” (Read full review) 

What a perverse generational reversal these young women have suffered - losing perhaps for the first time in human history, the protective maternal care of older women in favor of further social experimentation the seniors crave for validation.  As Ms. Shalit points out in her interview with IWF:

So there's a very interesting tension now, where the older generation, they're the ones organizing the co-ed sleepovers; they're the ones renting the hotel rooms for the prom; they're the ones buying the skanky clothing for their "prostitots."

And increasingly it's the younger generation that's saying: You know what? No, we don't want this; this is too much, and we want something more than this. I think that's encouraging; it's really encouraging.

I think it's encouraging too.  Increasingly, I find the women I admire in my daughter's generation.  You go, girls - don't let the old biddies fool you!