Party Girl Research Articles

Party Girls and Predators: A Chronotope of Female Risk

Party Girls and Predators: A Chronotope of Female Risk

Loveless Frump as Hip and Sexy Party Girl: A Reevaluation of the Old-Maid Stereotype

As computer technology prompts educators and practitioners within Library and Information Science (LIS) to redefine their profession, the old-maid stereotype has yet again become a topic of debate. Previous analyses of the old-maid stereotype have failed to expose how stereotypes work to create meaning at both the point of production and consumption. Without such an understanding, attempts at overcoming the stereotype by willing it away, renaming, or ignoring it will remain futile. Recent poststructural theories, though, allow librarians to understand both the durability and inherent discursive weaknesses in the stereotype and, hence, provide the basis of a more informed strategy for overcoming it. Moreover, the shriveled-prune representation may be part of the fun of being a librarian. This stereotype allows knowledge workers and information managers the opportunity to retain a distinct identity as librarians.

Tailhook and the Construction of Sexual Harassment in the Media

By examining the reporting of the Tailhook incident in the mainstream media, from the event itself through the conclusion of military and congressional debates about its meaning 5 years later, this article demonstrates that the media construct representations that are in accordance with the dominant gender ideology. The military's interpretation of Tailhook—“boys will be boys” with “party girls”—was contested by the women who were harassed and assaulted. Although the military's cover-up of the incident was interrupted by the intervention of powerful women in the Senate, media coverage reinforced the dominant view of sexual harassment.

Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus.

This book on gang rape in fraternities tells explicitly about sexual practices on university campuses. The evidence shows how gang rape occurs with regularity in fraternities, in athletic dorms, and in other exclusively male enclaves. Male bonding, pornography, what culture teaches adolescents about sex, and the will be boys attitude of authorities all contribute, according to the author, to an atmosphere which leads to sexual harassment, to date rape, to gang rape. Beginning with one incident at one fraternity when, after a Thursday night party, one woman - all accounts agree - had sex with five or six fraternity brothers, the book explores what happened through interviews with the victim, the participants, onlookers, and university administrators. Professor Sanday reconstructs the daily life in the fraternity, showing the role played by pornography, male bonding, degrading jokes, and ritual dances in shaping the fraternities' attitude toward women and toward sexuality. Two fraternity brothers were willing to share details of the humiliating initiation rituals they were compelled to undergo, and they are presented here. According to the research, gang rape occurs widely on college campuses. The evidence suggests a common pattern, in which the brothers seek out a party girl, a vulnerable young woman, one who is seeking acceptance, or is high on alcohol - sometimes her drinks have been deliberately spiked - and then take her to a room. She may or may not agree to have sex with one man. She then generally passes out and a train of men have sex with her. Party invitations may even suggest the possibility of a train. Incidents of this sort are rarely prosecuted or even labeled rape, part of an institutional attitude which privileges men and sanctions sexual power. This sobering view of sexual life among America's youth is one which some may, despite all evidence, choose to disbelieve. Yet what cannot be denied or ignored is the struggle by college-aged men and women to define their sexuality in the terms society offers them. Taught to deny the feminine and embrace sexual power, as this view suggests, men can see it their natural right to degrade and to assault women. And women - the unwilling victims - through their own lack of self esteem or sense of power, may seek social status by attaching themselves to men in power, in this case, the fraternity brothers.

A typology of office harlots: Mistresses, party girls, and career climbers

This paper is a descriptive study of a sample of women (N=24) who have used sex as a way of moving up within an organization. All were in positions in which they did very little work, received high wages, and attributed these circumstances to either a sexual affair(s) with a boss or bosses and/or clients of the company. A typology of office sex is developed from this study: mistress, party girl, and career climber. The data gathered were all obtained in interviews with these women. The authors used two key informants for gaining access to the sample. The theoretical implication of adding the office harlot to the other forms of prostitution are discussed.