Those who challenged ‘girlie’ hyper-femininities, by rejecting the notion that girls exist solely for the objecti cation and pleasure of boys, seemed only to be successful, however, when they were accompanied by competent heterosexual performances and relationships. Interestingly, there was no simple powerful/powerless binary divide in the boyfriend/girlfriend positions, but the sexual double standard, however, remained in the contradictory and arbitrary discourses of ‘tarty’ and ‘tart’. Moreover, the disclosures of sexual harassment and feelings of anxiety and despair for those girls whose femininity pivoted on heterosexual desirability and the securing of boyfriends illustrate the persistence of age-old sexual inequalities.itrary discourses of ‘tarty’ and ‘tart’