Description
Book SynopsisPart ethnography, part cultural study, this text examines the lives of teenage girls from the world of the Long Island, New York, middle school in order to explore how standards of normalcy define gender, exercise power, and reinforce the cultural practices of whiteness.
Trade ReviewThis book makes a significant contribution to the literature on the social construction of whiteness and to work on U.S. popular culture. It will be of widespread interest. -- Kamala Visweswaran * author of Fictions of Feminist Ethnography *
A deeply troubling, memorable account of teen girls learning the ways of whiteness, Kenny's ethnography helps us to see how a white norm is produced and maintained in suburbia and lets us eavesdrop as the girls police themselves and are policed by the media. -- Maureen Reddy * author of Crossing the Color Line: Race, Parenting, and Culture *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: Truth or Dare
Raising Teenage Girls: Suburban Landscapes and the Culture of Privilege
My Story: Learning to Love the Unlovable
Amy Fisher Justify My Love: The Heterosexuality of Teenage Girlhood
Among Friends: Stories That Make a Normal Life Possible
I Was a Teenage White Supremacist
Learning to Tell White Lies: Living with the Other in the Anti-Other America
Conclusion: Listening to White Girls' Stories
Epilogue: On Writing Behind Girls' Backs
Notes
Bibliography
Index
