Bad Girls: Young Women, Sex, and Rebellion before the Sixties

by Amanda H. Littauer

Overview

In this innovative and revealing study of midcentury American sex and culture, Amanda Littauer traces the origins of the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s. She argues that sexual liberation was much more than a reaction to 1950s repression because it largely involved the mainstreaming of a counterculture already on the rise among girls and young women decades earlier. From World War II–era "victory girls" to teen lesbians in the 1940s and 1950s, these nonconforming women and girls navigated and resisted intense social and interpersonal pressures to fit existing mores, using the upheavals of the era to pursue new sexual freedoms.

Building on a new generation of research on postwar society, Littauer tells the history of diverse young women who stood at the center of major cultural change and helped transform a society bound by conservative sexual morality into one more open to individualism, plurality, and pleasure in modern sexual life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469623795
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	07/17/2015
Series:	Gender and American Culture
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	280
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Amanda H. Littauer is assistant professor of history and women's, gender, and sexuality studies at Northern Illinois University.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Amanda Littauer challenges the image of the sexually repressed 1950s, narrating the volatile stories of young women who found their voices and defied conventional morality. A much-needed and compelling exploration of the sexualized rebellion that catalyzed change in the years before the highly touted 'sexual revolution' of the 1960s.—Elizabeth Fraterrigo, Loyola University Chicago



From victory girls and wartime prostitutes to teenage girls petting and going steady, American women in the mid-twentieth century challenged conceptions of sexual respectability. In a fresh and compelling book, Amanda Littauer reconsiders the roots of the transformation of U.S. sexual culture in the 1960s.—Leila J. Rupp, University of California, Santa Barbara

Editorial Reviews

A well-crafted, deeply researched contribution to the field, this work will be eagerly read and digested by scholars of this understudied period in the history of gender and sexuality in America.—Library Journal



Thorough and engaging, and it provides a useful addition to historical understanding of twentieth-century sexuality from female perspectives.—Journal of American History



Provides a new challenge to the 'waves' model entrenched in U.S. women's history. . . . Contributes to a growing body of interdisciplinary work on girls' and women's studies.—Choice



Clearly demonstrates that women and girls – across demographics of race, class, and sexuality – found ways to reinterpret, circumvent, and challenge normative sexual mores and control.—Labour/Le Travil



A significant contribution to understanding the sexual landscape of the twentieth century and the impact of average Americans in shaping the beliefs and behaviors of a nation.—Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth



In this lasting contribution to the history of women, sexuality, and girlhood, Littauer maps a 'somewhere' where other historians are sure to follow.—Journal of the History of Sexuality

From the Publisher

08/01/2015
At the intersection of women's history, the history of sexuality and gender, and the emerging field of girls and girlhood studies, Littauer's (history, Northern Illinois Univ.) first book probes the sexual agency of young women of the 1940s and 1950s. The author marshals an impressive range of sources, including government surveys, letters written to sexologist Alfred Kinsey, and oral histories, to revise our understanding of wartime and postwar sexual daring. From "victory girls" to "B-girls" and women who unabashedly pursued same-sex desires before the era of gay liberation, this analysis challenges our collective memory of the mid-20th century as one of unremitting conformity and sexual repression. While remaining attentive to the marginalizing effects of race and class as well as gender and sexual identity, Littauer shows how young women of the period asserted their sexual agency even as girls' and women's sexual autonomy was undeniably constrained by social censure and legal force. VERDICT A well-crafted, deeply researched contribution to the field, this work will be eagerly read and digested by scholars of this understudied period in the history of gender and sexuality in America.—Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Massachusetts Historical Soc. Lib., Boston

Library Journal