The XX Factor: What women really think.

These Kids Today

We are, it seems, the only species who has this protracted adolescence—even apes get to dodge it. Is this the excuse we've all been looking for to justify our collective obsession with teen culture? ... (Read more in DoubleX.)

At Least Tweens Have Rihanna's Back

After reading Dayo's disheartening post on Friday about teenagers' reactions to Rihanna and to domestic abuse in general, I was wondering why female adolescents were so quick to blame the victim. I haven't come up with a particularly good answer but did hear something positive that complicates the matter. I was talking to a social worker friend who works with urban fourth and fifth graders, and she said that Chris Brown and Rihanna came up in class. "They were unanimous in thinking that Rihanna should not have gone back to Chris Brown," my friend said. She asked them if they would think differently had Rihanna hit Brown first, and they said no, because you should never hit a girl. "They all think that men have an obligation not to hit women," she said.

My friend conceded that there might have been a bit of group think going on—that the loudest kids came out against Chris Brown and the quieter ones followed—and that it's possible that they were just parroting what their teachers and moms had told them. But still, being "very very dismayed" at the idea that Rihanna would get back with Brown after he hit her, as the middle schoolers were, is a huge difference from saying "I would have punched her around too," as some high schoolers have been. Do puberty-related hormones make your thinking that fuzzy? Does all self-esteem go out the window between the ages of 10 and 14? At the risk of sounding like an old codger, what is going on with teens today?!

Is Your Daughter Safe At Work? Watch PBS on Friday To Find Out.

Many people think "sexual harassment" refers to aggressive flirting or sexual horseplay on the job. But to get into court, harassment has to be intrusive, aggressive, and nearly endless—predatory or nearly so. And few teens (girls or boys) know what to do when a supervisor begins to talk ceaselessly and intimately about their bodies and lives, discussing sex acts in detail, propositioning mercilessly, pinning them in a car or stockroom, and groping, grabbing, stalking, threatening, or sexually assaulting them.

The collaboration grows out of research I did a few years ago, which resulted in a Good Housekeeping article with this blog post's title. Maria Hinojosa, PBS NOW senior correspondent, takes that research and runs with it, talking to young women who were unprepared for what they faced at work. The show tracks these young women's legal journeys, and examines how sexual harassment affects an estimated hundreds of thousands of teens across the country—many of whom don't know how to report workplace abuse, or even how to recognize when their bosses cross the line.

I hope you all will watch ... and we can discuss. (Especially you, Susannah, since you and I had an exchange about the subject back in January. I would love to know what you think.)

Rule Britannia

According to an article published in the London Times today, we Brits are now the most promiscuous nation in the world (of the western industrial nations, that is). In terms of one-night stands, total number of partners, and our "relaxed" attitude to casual sex, we beat Australia, the United States, Italy, and France. France! Where having extra-marital affairs is a favorite national pastime! If nothing else, at least now we might lose our reputation for being frigid and repressed.

In all seriousness though, Britain has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Europe as well as the highest teen STD infection rate in Europe (although both are significantly lower than here in the United States, where abstinence-only sex education doesn't seem to be helping much). Premature sex education in British schools (it can be taught to children as young as 4) has long been blamed for the epidemic, along with the inappropriate sexualization of children by toy manufacturers and the media. But here's a thought. In Britain, we also drink more than any other country in Europe (apart from Ireland and Finland, bizarrely), and our alcohol-related death rate has doubled since 1991. We've also, according to this reasonably insulting story in the New York Times, been causing havoc on summer vacations with our abhorrent, booze-soaked behavior. Could there be a correlation somewhere between the beer goggles and the newfound sluttiness?

No Adults Allowed

News from the trial of Lori Drew, the mother whose MySpace hoax allegedly led her 13-year-old daughter's friend Megan Meier to commit suicide: Drew was convicted of three misdemeanor charges of accessing computers without authorization but not the more serious charge of conspiracy.

Drew apparently set up the fictional "Josh" profile that became a conduit through which her daughter, a teenage employee, and others sent cruel messages to Megan, including one that said, "The world would be a better place without you." That final message, which apparently directly preceded Megan's suicide, is said to have been typed by Drew's employee Ashley Grills.

I'm not familiar enough with the laws to know whether this trial should have happened in the first place or ended appropriately—though it does seem like a slightly overreaching attempt to wring justice out of a heartbreaking scenario. But Drew is without a doubt guilty of stupendous, mind-boggling stupidity and poor judgment. She was apparently inspired to set up the profile out of a desire to protect her daughter, who had a sometimes-friend, sometimes-enemy relationship with Megan. Though it contradicts the morals of the innumerable trend articles, news segments, and cautionary Law & Order: SVU story lines, maybe it's best to leave the Wild West of social networking to the kids. Obviously, some controls on kids' Internet use are important. But attempting to co-opt their means of communication and socializing without understanding the rules and the potential for abuse can be disastrous. Drew gave her daughter, her daughter's friends, and Grills the means to torture a depressed girl. They could've done it without Drew (I'm sure "Josh" isn't the first fake profile ever set up to toy with targeted girl's emotions), but having a mother involved legitimized behavior that most kids try to hide from the parental units.

I am eternally grateful that the pinnacle of Internet communication was IMing when I was in high school.