teenage girls under massive pressure to do anal :(

Yup. Instead of yet another commemoration of war and all the men who died, why not a celebration of women and all the life they have brought into this world?

I can add female achievement is abundant historically we have just downplayed/ignored it.

Let's face it there has been pressure about anal sex for a long while going back to the 70s from Led Zepplin with Whole Lot of Love to Deep Purple's Knockin' at Your Back Door. Frankie in the 80s with Relax to Toni Basil with Hey Mickey. Then the Back Street Boys I want it that way.... There are songs that have really quite heavy on pushing the message.

Plus obviously the Christians who are saddlebacking, wonder how long that has been going on? Just because the name is recent doesn't mean the concept is.

As people have said it is about education and consent, I had an ex who was a deep purple fan and kept trying to get his own way. Never forced himself on me though so not sure what that says. Guess everyone has a different story but we have to realise the issue goes back years. Just that with social media and the internet in general it is much easier to talk about things with people you would never normal even see.

So for a start:

-Significant and well written aspirational fictional characters.
-A celebration of female achievements both historically and present day.

Might I add encouraging contributions from girls in educational settings? There has to be a feeling that thoughts/feelings are of consequence growing up.

I also remember as a fairly young child hearing the "Hilary" climbed Mount Everest and thinking "Oh at last a woman that's done something famous!" The disappointment I felt when I heard it was Edmund Hilary was awful - even at that young age I thought "where are all the women?" It's hard to overstate the impact that has on young girls - never seeing any woman doing anything, or being celebrated for anything other than their looks.

That's all that's necessary Dervel, for men to finally listen and stop believing that they have exclusive access to reality. The whole self esteem thing is extremely complicated though and so many things would have to change for it to get any better. I distinctly remember as a child noticing that girls in stories didn't do anything. Then I picked up that actually girls' power was in how she looked and I got the message that women could manipulate men with their "feminine wiles." Then I realised those feminine wiles weren't anything real at all - men just ignored women when they wanted to or attacked them and blamed the "feminine wiles" for it. So I knew pretty quickly I was hemmed in on all sides. How to combat that? How to expect girls to have any sense of self when they are never given any power at all?

cali well I am very keen to listen and to learn. I hope you feel I am supportive of your position on this issue. I realise that's not an awful lot in the grand scheme of things, but you have it nonetheless.

Agreed. But that is definitely not the case for women.

Also I'm not so sure female self esteem should be some complicated mountain to climb that needs to be earned. Self esteem should come as bog standard for all young people.

Dervel on this very thread we have a man (DWH) saying what we as women have experienced is "bullshite." That's what men do all the time, they hear what we have to say and then dismiss it and claim that their experience is the truth, despite the fact that they are not women and have never actually experienced what we're talking about at all. And they then expect that to be listened to, and it is. So men get to dictate what women feel and think.

"Bullshite and condacending disempowerment. This was not the lived reality of my daughters lives. They had their insecurities, as sons would have their own, but my daughters did not outsource their self esteem, they climbed the hill to claim it for themselves, nor were they alone in doing it."

I am very pleased that your daughters' experience was so much more positive than many of their contemporaries' . Why do you think that is?

Don't be baffled Dervel. Any time women try to say they have a problem with something they are ignored. It's part of the partriarchal society we live in. It is not new or different, it is something we experience all the fucking time.

Can I confess I am more than a little baffled as to how this discussion seems to be stuck in the phase where we even lack consensus of this even being a problem.

The pornification of women, particularly young women is a definite thing. I can't quite fathom how this isn't obvious with even a cursory examination of society as it stands.

Kudos to anyone who has suggested better education, and tackling the problem head on. We don't tolerate sexually predatory behaviour from adults to children. I am not sure we should be tolerating it from within adolescent circles either.

Young women need to grow up feeling society is on their side and that their safety and well being is a priority. If we're not constantly reaffirming that message where else are they going to get it from?

It is very telling DWH that you see fit to dismiss women's lived experience entirely. Disagree with it, certainly, but calling it "bullshite" as though we can't understand our own experiences betrays a staggering amount of male privilege on your part.

DadWasHere, do you think a man who doesn't work with young girls has more to say about girls' confidence than women who were young girls at one point and who now work with young girls? Really?

Presumably the same pressure to engage in anal sex is prevalent amongst gay boys too, as it also is quite common in their porn.

Following on from qumquat, I don't think it is "Bullshite and condacending disempowerment" to name a problem. I also don't think it is unreasonable for children's self-esteem to be tied in with social approval.

dadwashere I'm genuinely pleased your daughters don't tie their self esteem to social approval, but, as a teacher in a girls secondary school, my experience is that they are in the minority.

Yes Blackrider, the girls are at more physical risk, but I think the boys are also at emotional and psychological risk.
I only have girls, but it strikes me that the boys aren't in a good place either.