(The bill also limits sex education in general.) Even as children are starting puberty earlier, legislation currently advancing in the Republican-controlled House in Florida would effectively ban girls from even discussing their periods, according to the bill’s sponsor, until middle school. “It’s worse than the ’80s,” when the author’s work was first targeted, “because of the way it’s coming from government ,” Judy Blume said.Īn era in which girls and women were held in an information vacuum - about their own bodies! - seems dangerously close to being resurrected. The weightier issues it reflects, which had seemingly receded, are back at the forefront: overt antisemitism, the widespread curtailing of women’s reproductive rights, and a resurgence of book banning and censorship. This 53-year-old story is landing in theaters squarely in the middle of today’s culture wars. The God Margaret confides in is nondenominational as a preteen, she has agency and choice. But Margaret’s exploration of religion - her Jewish father and Christian mother encourage her to decide for herself - also drew the ire of the religious right. In the popular imagination, the book is mostly concerned with the changing body and the rites of puberty, and that’s what made it controversial.
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