Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 08:57:57 -0500 From: Siobhan Perricone Subject: Ever so Humble: The mixed messages we send girls (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Ever so Humble: The mixed messages we send girls By Linda Weltner, 02/13/97 It's tough to grow up female in this culture. Every Tuesday I take my 5-year-old granddaughter to gymnastics. When we arrive, Jessie runs off to go through her paces - from warm-up to floor exercises to balance beam to parallel bars to vault to trampoline. As I watch from a chair at the side of the gym, this is what I notice about all the girls. They are loving being in their bodies. When they dismount from the bars, they lift their arms over their heads, grinning from ear to ear. When they bounce on the trampoline from sitting to standing, they radiate satisfaction. As they walk along the beam, heads held high, they not only look good, you can see they're feeling good about themselves. They concentrate, they really try, they take risks, they accomplish something new, and they're proud of themselves. They return to their caretakers, riding a natural high. I credit the teachers. They've broken this whole procedure into manageable parts so that the girls make progress in every class. They motivate through praise and not criticism. They downplay competition so that the only achievements Jessie is measuring are her own. She feels graceful. She knows she has a good sense of balance. She's pleased that her arms and legs are getting stronger. She reminds me of myself when I was a girl. I was a competitive swimmer and swam in the Nationals twice. I loved having a body that was strong and fast and reliable, and I was part of a team of female swimmers who felt the same way. Sisterhood should have offered me some protection from the cultural pressures waiting to choke the life out of me, but it didn't. I still remember the day my cousin informed me that his friends were laughing at me because I smelled of chlorine. His comment couldn't have hit me harder if it had worn boxing gloves. It marked the end of one period in my life and the beginning of another. I gave up swimming to compete for boys. I didn't know I was relinquishing myself. I thought the only girls who stayed on the team were so homely they had no chance of ever being popular. It seemed to me that social status, dates, and kisses, the prizes at the end of this new lane, were worth infinitely more than a box of medals. Without the slightest understanding that I was learning to pretend to be someone I wasn't, I sopped up the rules of the game - never admit you can do anything better than a guy, pay attention at all times to how you look, don't seem too smart, try to fit in, concentrate on what other people want. When I wasn't good at it, I experienced myself as a failure. My confidence disappeared along with my true self. In her book, ``Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Lives of Adolescent Girls,'' Mary Pipher explains that all adolescent girls are subject to such indoctrination, pressured by magazines, music, TV, advertisements, movies, and peers, all speaking with a single voice: Be beautiful, though beauty invites jealousy and contempt. Be sexy, but not sexual. Be honest, but always nice. Be independent, though always accommodating. Be smart, but not so smart that anyone is threatened. Think well of yourself as long as others approve of you. As Pipher puts it, we are training girls ``to be less than who they really are.'' In addition, if you haven't noticed, these goals are mutually exclusive and therefore unattainable. Is it any wonder so many teenage girls are moody, sullen, uncertain, angry, and withdrawn? In this room full of enthusiastic budding gymnasts, it's hard to imagine that all this energy could ever be channeled into a preoccupation with weight and makeup and attracting boys. How can we help these girls hold on to their faith in themselves? This is the good news. We are coming to understand that in many cases, parents, and mothers in particular, are not the primary source of their daughters' failure to thrive. ``When so many families have trouble,'' Pipher says, ``it's important to look at the cultural context. Rather than blame each family for the unhappiness of its daughters, we need to examine what it is in our culture that destroys the happiness of so many teenage girls.'' Mom and Dad, it turns out, are their child's best, and perhaps only, allies. I recommend that you read this book immediately. Pipher advocates ``awakening'' girls, that is, actively teaching girls to recognize propaganda for what it is so that they can make conscious choices, and it's never too soon to start. Jessie can already tell you that commercials try to trick you into buying things you don't want. You begin with a girl whose feelings and wishes have been respected since birth, a girl who's encouraged to dream. You begin with a parent who's willing to give up ``sugar and spice'' for bossy, strong-willed, and sometimes abrasive, but always ready to execute a graceful one-handed cartwheel. How does that slogan go? A girl is a terrible thing to waste. Linda Weltner is a free-lance writer. Her column appears each week in At Home. This story ran on page b16 of the Boston Globe on 02/13/97. End of FEMREL-L Digest - 13 Feb 1997 - Special issue ****************************************************