Book-It 'o11! Book #21
The Fifty Books Challenge, year three! (Years one and two, just in case you're curious.) This was a library request.
Title: Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale, an Activist Finds Her Calling and Heals Herself by Rachel Lloyd
Details: Copyright 2011, HarperCollins Publishers
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "A deeply moving story by a survivor of the commercial sex industry who has devoted her career to activism and halping other young girls escape "The Life".
At thirteen, Rachel Lloyd found herself caught up in a world of pain and abuse, struggling to survive as a child with no responsible adults to support her. Vulnerable yet tough, she eventually ended up a victim of commercial sexual exploitation. It took time and incredible resilience, but finally, with the help of a local church community, she broke free of her pimp and her past.
Three years later, Lloyd arrived in the United States to work with adult women in the sex industry and soon founded her own nonprofit - GEMS, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services - to meet the needs of other girls with her history. She also earned her GED and won full scholarships to college and a graduate program. Today Lloyd is executive director of GEMS in New York City and has turned it into one of the nation's most groundbreaking nonprofit organizations.
In Girls Like Us, Lloyd reveals the dark, secretive world of her past in stunning cinematic detail. And, with great humanity, she lovingly shares the stories of the girls whose lives she has helped - small victories that have healed her wounds and made her whole. Revelatory, authentic, and brave, Girls Like Us is an unforgettable memoir. "
Why I Wanted to Read It: Feministing gave this a positive review and my interest was stoked.
How I Liked It: I admit, it was the more lurid aspects to this memoir that initially hooked me: a teenage prostitute? While I was more or less aware of the greater horror and abuse that lies in sexual exploitation, a shadow of the "call girl" mystique the mass media is so fond of was hard to shake. But thankfully, it was shaken hard, even by someone that likes to think I've got a fairly good grip on my perceptions.
Of course, Girls Like Us isn't just a memoir, it's a call to action, although the details she gives of her life are horrifying enough to prompt one into some sort of activism. Lloyd aims for the heart of the problem, something bigger than lawmakers, judges, or perps: our perception. She notes the glorification of pimp culture that extends from Hollywood into our legal system (many if not most laws target the prostitute, regardless of age, more than the pimp) and the dual dismissal of prostitution: either the call girl mystique ala the wake of the Eliot Spitzer scandal, or the fact that those involved in sex work, even the abused sexually exploited youth the author helps, are not really human beings (in her years working to educate law enforcement, Lloyd learns that the term "NHI" (no humans involved) is a code for cases involving homeless people, addicts, drug dealers... and rapes and murders of young women and girls in the sex industry. Speaking at a conference, a cop comes up to her at a break and offers that he's heard the job of apprehending prostitutes referred to as "the trash run") and therefore do not deserve the same rights, such as to be a legitimate and blameless victim of rape, abuse, and even murder. She notes that a large amount of the Green River Killer's victims were under eighteen, but due to the fact they were prostitutes, he isn't regarded as a child-murderer.
It's not just our perception of pimps and prostitutes that Lloyd suggests. It's our perceptions of race (the oversexed stereotype of Hispanic and black girls grievously affects the victims from media coverage down to sentencing of the perps), class (in one of many horrifying statistics, nearly all sexually exploited youth in America come from the foster care system and/or are homeless), and our old pal, sexism (the "blame-the-victim" mentality runs high in sexual exploitation: if these girls were really abused by this pimp, why didn't they run away or try to escape?).
Possibly why this book is so effective is the fact that it isn't a straight-up manifesta or book of activism, it's also a compelling story-- not just the author's, but of all the girls she comes in contact with. Lloyd makes their plight horrifically accessible, painting unnervingly vivid scenes of pain, injustice, inspiration, and healing.
In a perfect world, all those whose interest is piqued (as mine was) by the idea of the memoir of a teenage prostitute (or by the idea of a teenage prostitute) would pick up this book and read it. Ideally, this book would then hit all of those people (and there would be many) hard enough for them to take action and for culture to shift and our laws to improve. Ideally this book would be a fantastically effective bait-and-switch.
We don't live in a perfect world, but hopefully we live in one where enough people will read this staggering book and be moved to action.
Notable: A few off-beats are Lloyd's somewhat contrived-sounding narratives as herself as a girl's girl in New York City, a slightly more human version of equal parts Cosmo and (appropriately enough) Sex in the City. In a book condemning of racism, sexism, and classism, the following passage is all the more curious:
“Like almost every woman in New York, I've had my share of bad dates. The guy who took me to a nice restaurant only to discover at the end of the meal that he'd left his wallet at home. The guy who decided during lunch at his house that I'd be interested in his photo album of all his ex-girlfriends, including the pictures of them naked. The blind date who was clearly gay and kept asking me all night why everyone thought he was gay. ” (pg 110)
How would he be "clearly gay"? To be crass, did she see any dicks in his mouth? And ONLY dicks? Why are racism, sexism, and classicism wrong, but heterosexism okay?
Title: Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale, an Activist Finds Her Calling and Heals Herself by Rachel Lloyd
Details: Copyright 2011, HarperCollins Publishers
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "A deeply moving story by a survivor of the commercial sex industry who has devoted her career to activism and halping other young girls escape "The Life".
At thirteen, Rachel Lloyd found herself caught up in a world of pain and abuse, struggling to survive as a child with no responsible adults to support her. Vulnerable yet tough, she eventually ended up a victim of commercial sexual exploitation. It took time and incredible resilience, but finally, with the help of a local church community, she broke free of her pimp and her past.
Three years later, Lloyd arrived in the United States to work with adult women in the sex industry and soon founded her own nonprofit - GEMS, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services - to meet the needs of other girls with her history. She also earned her GED and won full scholarships to college and a graduate program. Today Lloyd is executive director of GEMS in New York City and has turned it into one of the nation's most groundbreaking nonprofit organizations.
In Girls Like Us, Lloyd reveals the dark, secretive world of her past in stunning cinematic detail. And, with great humanity, she lovingly shares the stories of the girls whose lives she has helped - small victories that have healed her wounds and made her whole. Revelatory, authentic, and brave, Girls Like Us is an unforgettable memoir. "
Why I Wanted to Read It: Feministing gave this a positive review and my interest was stoked.
How I Liked It: I admit, it was the more lurid aspects to this memoir that initially hooked me: a teenage prostitute? While I was more or less aware of the greater horror and abuse that lies in sexual exploitation, a shadow of the "call girl" mystique the mass media is so fond of was hard to shake. But thankfully, it was shaken hard, even by someone that likes to think I've got a fairly good grip on my perceptions.
Of course, Girls Like Us isn't just a memoir, it's a call to action, although the details she gives of her life are horrifying enough to prompt one into some sort of activism. Lloyd aims for the heart of the problem, something bigger than lawmakers, judges, or perps: our perception. She notes the glorification of pimp culture that extends from Hollywood into our legal system (many if not most laws target the prostitute, regardless of age, more than the pimp) and the dual dismissal of prostitution: either the call girl mystique ala the wake of the Eliot Spitzer scandal, or the fact that those involved in sex work, even the abused sexually exploited youth the author helps, are not really human beings (in her years working to educate law enforcement, Lloyd learns that the term "NHI" (no humans involved) is a code for cases involving homeless people, addicts, drug dealers... and rapes and murders of young women and girls in the sex industry. Speaking at a conference, a cop comes up to her at a break and offers that he's heard the job of apprehending prostitutes referred to as "the trash run") and therefore do not deserve the same rights, such as to be a legitimate and blameless victim of rape, abuse, and even murder. She notes that a large amount of the Green River Killer's victims were under eighteen, but due to the fact they were prostitutes, he isn't regarded as a child-murderer.
It's not just our perception of pimps and prostitutes that Lloyd suggests. It's our perceptions of race (the oversexed stereotype of Hispanic and black girls grievously affects the victims from media coverage down to sentencing of the perps), class (in one of many horrifying statistics, nearly all sexually exploited youth in America come from the foster care system and/or are homeless), and our old pal, sexism (the "blame-the-victim" mentality runs high in sexual exploitation: if these girls were really abused by this pimp, why didn't they run away or try to escape?).
Possibly why this book is so effective is the fact that it isn't a straight-up manifesta or book of activism, it's also a compelling story-- not just the author's, but of all the girls she comes in contact with. Lloyd makes their plight horrifically accessible, painting unnervingly vivid scenes of pain, injustice, inspiration, and healing.
In a perfect world, all those whose interest is piqued (as mine was) by the idea of the memoir of a teenage prostitute (or by the idea of a teenage prostitute) would pick up this book and read it. Ideally, this book would then hit all of those people (and there would be many) hard enough for them to take action and for culture to shift and our laws to improve. Ideally this book would be a fantastically effective bait-and-switch.
We don't live in a perfect world, but hopefully we live in one where enough people will read this staggering book and be moved to action.
Notable: A few off-beats are Lloyd's somewhat contrived-sounding narratives as herself as a girl's girl in New York City, a slightly more human version of equal parts Cosmo and (appropriately enough) Sex in the City. In a book condemning of racism, sexism, and classism, the following passage is all the more curious:
“Like almost every woman in New York, I've had my share of bad dates. The guy who took me to a nice restaurant only to discover at the end of the meal that he'd left his wallet at home. The guy who decided during lunch at his house that I'd be interested in his photo album of all his ex-girlfriends, including the pictures of them naked. The blind date who was clearly gay and kept asking me all night why everyone thought he was gay. ” (pg 110)
How would he be "clearly gay"? To be crass, did she see any dicks in his mouth? And ONLY dicks? Why are racism, sexism, and classicism wrong, but heterosexism okay?