...so you're probably right that no one on the D.U. has read its actual text.
However, since the book is based on the study, and every single review of the book focuses about campus class hierarchies, and specifically noting that poorer women who are less, or not at all, sexually experimental, are accused of being "sluts", while rich young white women, are not (often while being more experimental), it's an inescapable conclusion that the study finds that "slut shaming" is simply a way for the children of the privileged to exclude girls who don't have the same means.
In short: the fraternity/sorority system is part of why colleges are impeding meritocracy.
In typical frat parties, Armstrong and Hamilton see much that is wrong with college education today. Such parties allow daughters of the affluent to flaunt their social advantages while exposing the vulnerabilities of female students from less-privileged backgrounds. Unfortunately, the authors find such parties well established in the 'party pathway' through the university. Focusing on female students, the authors find from campus observations and interviews ample evidence that four years on the party pathway will open doors of power for the elite while stranding the wannabes with mountains of student-loan debt and few employment options for paying off that debt...A provocative exposé of socially polarizing trends in higher education--certain to spark debate.
Edit: Let me add the actual synopsis from the study itself (probably should have done this originally)
Women’s participation in slut shaming is often viewed as internalized oppression: they apply disadvantageous sexual double standards established by men. This perspective grants women little agency and neglects their simultaneous location in other social structures. In this article we synthesize insights from social psychology, gender, and culture to argue that undergraduate women use slut stigma to draw boundaries around status groups linked to social class—while also regulating sexual behavior and gender performance. High-status women employ slut discourse to assert class advantage, defining themselves as classy rather than trashy, while low-status women express class resentment—deriding rich, bitchy sluts for their exclusivity. Slut discourse enables, rather than constrains, sexual experimentation for the high-status women whose definitions prevail in the dominant social scene. This is a form of sexual privilege. In contrast, low-status women risk public shaming when they attempt to enter dominant social worlds.
- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community
= new reply since forum marked as read