728x90
my iParenting
From Our Sponsors
e-newsletters
Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters

new terms of use
new privacy policy
award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Home › Articles › General › Beginning Our Search

Beginning Our Search

A New Logic of Girls' Lives

An excerpt from the book The Wonder of Girls: Understanding the Hidden Nature of Our Daughters

By Michael Gurian

Pages:  1  2  3  4  

This incident occurred many years ago. It was one of the times in my life that I've felt dissatisfied, as a parent, by what our present, conventional conversation about girls has taught me about "gender stereotypes," "girls' self-esteem drops," "girls in crisis." A number of catchphrases dominate our dialogue about girls, but our girls actually live far beyond the words. That morning, I went home and began a list of these phrases, as well as some of the theories that indoctrinate me nearly every day – in some form in our media and pop culture – to see girls in a way that allows very little for the subtleties in which girls really live their lives.

I told Gail about my observation. As she does so often, she smiled at me, a little bemused. Quite often she sees things more clearly and much earlier than I do, but just doesn't tell me about it. "Mike, hardly anyone anymore really looks under the surface of girls' lives," she said. "Feminism used to do it 20, 30 years ago. It was deep. But now it's skidding on the surface." It was during the rest of that day that Gail and I talked about this, talked about my writing this book, and acknowledged something we, brought up in the feminist tradition, had avoided dealing with.

The great ocean of girls' lives actually lies beneath the surface of the simple formulas we are now taught about "girl power" and girls' self-esteem. Feminism is, we realized, no longer the best theory to care for many of our girls.


Pages:  1  2  3  4  


Want to see more?