For the past several years, child advocates, parents, and educators have expressed concern over the sexualization of girls. Has the cultural sexual objectification of girls and women increased? Are younger and younger girls sold a "sexed-up" version of femininity, and are adult women sold a girlish sexuality?
The Sexualization of Girls and Girlhood: Causes, Consequences, and Resistance includes the best empirical research, theory, and practice stemming from the report of the American Psychological Association's Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. Contributors discuss evidence for this phenomenon from media and marketing, to interpersonal interaction, to girls' own efforts to fashion themselves after sexualized role models around them. A variety of consequences of the sexualization of girls and girlhood--for girls themselves, for others, and for society at large--are presented. Individual chapters cover topics such as athletics as a solution and problem for the sexualization of girls, sexual harassment by peers, gendered violence, body image, adolescent girls' sexual development, and healthy sexuality for girls and young women. Importantly, positive alternatives and suggestions are included so that those who care for girls can address this troubling cultural trend and help counter the significant risk to girls' wellbeing that it represents. This volume is a valuable resource for child advocates, parents, and educators and useful for undergraduate and graduate courses that address gender across disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, education, communication, media studies, and women's, and sexuality studies.

This timely and thought-provoking collection explores the ways in which psychological science interacts with and addresses gender across varied subdisciplines in the field, from a feminist viewpoint. A particular aim of this volume is to move the conversation of gender in psychology beyond a difference-only paradigm. Veteran and emerging feminist scholars survey the handling of sex and gender issues across psychology, and describe how feminist perspectives and methodologies can and should be applied to enhance the field itself, but also in the service of social justice in the various cultures of corporations, academia, and the global stage. Contributions span theoretical advances, latest empirical findings, and real-world advocacy, with instructive and illuminating first-person accounts detailing challenges and rewards of feminist scholarship and practice in psychology. Throughout the volume, chapters document a dynamic field in its evolution from the traditional, two-dimensional study of gender-based differences to concerted multidisciplinary approaches, to cutting edge feminist theoretical and methodological advances such as intersectionality to understand gender in context. The volume is divided into three distinct sections. The first covers current theory and research in psychological science that considers gender beyond a difference-only paradigm. Then, leading feminist scholars reflect upon their own experiences in their respective subdisciplines. Finally, the third section explores innovative best practices and applications for feminist psychological science. Highlights of the coverage: * Beyond difference: Gender as a quality of social settings. * Adventures in feminist health psychology: Teaching about and conducting feminist psychological science. * Mind the thigh gap? Bringing feminist psychological science to the masses. * Feminist psychologists and institutional change in universities. With its stimulating compilation of theories, research, and applications, Feminist Perspectives On Building A Better Psychological Science of Gender is one of the most forward-thinking and innovative treatments of the field in recent years. It is a significant and important text for all psychologists, women's and gender studies specialists, social science researchers, and all those interested in using evidence-based psychological science to create a more just and equitable world.

This timely and thought-provoking collection explores the ways in which psychological science interacts with and addresses gender across varied subdisciplines in the field, from a feminist viewpoint. A particular aim of this volume is to move the conversation of gender in psychology beyond a difference-only paradigm. Veteran and emerging feminist scholars survey the handling of sex and gender issues across psychology, and describe how feminist perspectives and methodologies can and should be applied to enhance the field itself, but also in the service of social justice in the various cultures of corporations, academia, and the global stage. Contributions span theoretical advances, latest empirical findings, and real-world advocacy, with instructive and illuminating first-person accounts detailing challenges and rewards of feminist scholarship and practice in psychology. Throughout the volume, chapters document a dynamic field in its evolution from the traditional, two-dimensional study of gender-based differences to concerted multidisciplinary approaches, to cutting edge feminist theoretical and methodological advances such as intersectionality to understand gender in context. The volume is divided into three distinct sections. The first covers current theory and research in psychological science that considers gender beyond a difference-only paradigm. Then, leading feminist scholars reflect upon their own experiences in their respective subdisciplines. Finally, the third section explores innovative best practices and applications for feminist psychological science. Highlights of the coverage: * Beyond difference: Gender as a quality of social settings. * Adventures in feminist health psychology: Teaching about and conducting feminist psychological science. * Mind the thigh gap? Bringing feminist psychological science to the masses. * Feminist psychologists and institutional change in universities. With its stimulating compilation of theories, research, and applications, Feminist Perspectives On Building A Better Psychological Science of Gender is one of the most forward-thinking and innovative treatments of the field in recent years. It is a significant and important text for all psychologists, women's and gender studies specialists, social science researchers, and all those interested in using evidence-based psychological science to create a more just and equitable world.

This open access handbook, the first of its kind, provides a comprehensive and carefully curated multidisciplinary and genre-spanning view of the state of the field of Critical Menstruation Studies, opening up new directions in research and advocacy. It is animated by the central question: '"what new lines of inquiry are possible when we center our attention on menstrual health and politics across the life course?" The chapters-diverse in content, form and perspective-establish Critical Menstruation Studies as a potent lens that reveals, complicates and unpacks inequalities across biological, social, cultural and historical dimensions. This handbook is an unmatched resource for researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and activists new to and already familiar with the field as it rapidly develops and expands.

This open access handbook, the first of its kind, provides a comprehensive and carefully curated multidisciplinary and genre-spanning view of the state of the field of Critical Menstruation Studies, opening up new directions in research and advocacy. It is animated by the central question: '"what new lines of inquiry are possible when we center our attention on menstrual health and politics across the life course?" The chapters-diverse in content, form and perspective-establish Critical Menstruation Studies as a potent lens that reveals, complicates and unpacks inequalities across biological, social, cultural and historical dimensions. This handbook is an unmatched resource for researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and activists new to and already familiar with the field as it rapidly develops and expands.