SuitabookHow to be a girl
Anita Naik
- Reading
- Use it selectively by topic rather than rushing through it: pause after sensitive sections, check what the reader thinks, and add trustworthy factual guidance where the book’s advice is brief.
- Themes
- Beauty ideals and body image: The book examines appearance worries, body hair, dieting, eating disorders, cosmetic surgery and pressure towards a supposed beauty ideal. It clearly challenges perfection-based appearance standards and frames self-acceptance and personal agency as preferable.
- Sexism and gender expectations: The book considers female stereotypes, intelligence, double standards, discrimination and language used to describe girls and boys. It presents sexism and restrictive expectations as problems to recognise and challenge, within an explicitly feminist framework.
- Media, relationships and sexualisation: The book addresses media portrayal, objectification of women, sexualisation of girls, online pornography, dating and sexual harassment. Objectification and sexualisation are framed as issues requiring awareness, while the book encourages readers to make choices according to their own agenda.
- Worth knowing
- Consider reading together if topics such as dieting, eating disorders, cosmetic surgery, online pornography, dating or sexual harassment need careful context and space for questions.