Hw 42: Book Research and further thinking

In the book Reviving Ophilia, the author Mary Pipher brings up a valid issue that effects the behaviors of teenage girls; puberty.
According to Freud, there is a phase called the Latency period where girls are confronted with the issue of sexuality, but not yet burdened with the hormonal effects the hit after their prepubescent years. In this time, children tend to put all that repressed energy into asexual activities like sports, music and same sex friendships. According to the research David B. Stevenson did on Freud's theory, untitled Freud's Psycho-sexual Stages of Development:
The resolution of the phallic stage leads to the latency period, which is not a psychosexual stage of development, but a period in which the sexual drive lies dormant. Freud saw latency as a period of unparalleled repression of sexual desires and erogenous impulses.

So when those hormones start raging, their confusion and need for a sexual identity dominate their mind body and spirits, turning them into different people. Freud called this the genital stage; "As the child's energy once again focuses on his genitals, interest turns to heterosexual relationships. The less energy the child has left invested in unresolved psychosexual developments, the greater his capacity will be to develop normal relationships with the opposite sex."
Their curiosity is curved from books and nature to the opposite sex (or rather desired sex) and physicality. If they do not meet the definition of what society defines as "desierable" they obsess to meet such social norms. Girls slave away hours at the gym just to be the right pants size, spend hundreds of dollars on products and puts an enormous amount of effort into pleasing people who are just as desperate as they are. They begin to care more about social norms and sexual expectations rather then intellectual ambitions. Their attitudes change towards their parents and siblings as they transform into rude, confused and frustrated teenagers.

This plays into their performance in school, because what they once found intriguing and interesting no longer appeals or is significant to their other priorities; sex. It becomes significantly more difficult from then on to keep motivations in school and extra curricular since they have the burden of trying to keep up a social life on top of that. Of course this doesn't apply to all teenagers, but has been a reoccurring pattern in the age group.

In Full Frontal Feminism, Jessica Valenti  focuses a nice portion of her book to how crucial it is for girls to receive a proper education, especially in countries that refuse schooling for girls.
Another book that has been fervently pushing the importance of education in order to have less oppression and better opportunities was Half the Sky, written by a New York Times columnist.

Valentti also highlights the constant double standard that exists in comparing girls to boys. Boys are naturally destined to go farther, make more money and run all the major corporations that make up American consumerism. Even though women have made tremendous progress in the professional frield, we still only make 77 cents to every dollar a man makes.
A lot of her arguments play into the attitudes people have against girls in school. Girls who have reformed style, square attitudes and a respectable demeanor would naturally have good grades and a bright future, whereas those who are more in touch with their sexuality and freedomn of expression (or rebellion) are seen as disobedient and mischievous, with bad grades. This striked a thought for where personal expression can fit into the structured lessons in school. What if a student doens't agree with the tactics of a project of the facts in a history presentation. Why must we be forced to participate in subjects we don't relate to and topics that don't interest us. Why is sex always associated with our value? If girls aren't ashamed of their sexuality, their trouble makers. If they're prude, their more obedient and therefore better to control. Why aren't guys seperated to these sex classes as well?