Saint or Sinner: The Middle Ground

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http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/03/mean-girls-meaner-adults-heidi-broecking/

No more than 75 years ago, girls were placed into two categories: Saint or Sinner. You were one or the other. Today that continuum is much more fluid, yet remnants of the old way are still valued. Even though more people have sex before marriage than waiting, it seems the word "whore" has not lost its power. If it's more acceptable to satisfy one's sexual desires, why does it still have a taboo attachment of whore once this information is public? As girls are taught to wait for the right one and until marriage with great emphasis, while boys are barely confronted on the subject, are we also teaching and implementing the whore word? And with this word comes it usage. Bullying and isolation, depleted self-esteem and depression, and sometimes suicide are always next. Is there not a middle ground where you can be sexually active without being labelled a whore by your peers, especially girls? And what makes girls so hard on each other? Is this a way to keep them inferior to males by teaching them to focus on each other rather than what's important in this patriarchal society? Or is it necessary to point out who is a saint and who is a sinner?

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