Stephen Hinshaw wrote his new book, “The Triple Bind” (Ballantine, $25), to sound an alarm on the current crisis facing teen girls. But the message resonates with such force that parents of girls of any age may want to pick up a copy.
Hinshaw’s triple bind refers to three competing, and at times, contradictory, pressures that girls shoulder. One: Be good at “girl” stuff — relationships, bonding, empathy. Two: Be good at “guy” stuff — sports, fighting for spots at top colleges, preparing for a cutthroat job market. Three: Conform to a narrow, unrealistic set of standards — ultrafeminized and ultrasexualized — regardless of your ambitions. Want to be an athlete? Great! But you have to look like Maria Sharapova. A musician? Cool. Look like Beyonce. A politician? Watch your weight.
Another new book, “Supergirls Speak Out” (Touchstone, $15), by 20-year-old writer Liz Funk, raises a similar warning: Girls are plagued by the need to overachieve in every area of life, and falling short is not an option.
“It’s the best time in history to be a girl,” Hinshaw said in a recent phone interview. “It’s what these teens’ mothers and grandmothers fought for. And we certainly don’t want to take that away and go back to fewer choices.”
The problem, then? “Our culture’s new insistence that girls excel at everything: school, sports, relationships, looks,” writes Hinshaw, chair of the psychology department at University of California at Berkeley. In other words, these opportunities aren’t choices, they’re expectations — expectations that are fueling, he says, “crisis-level statistics for depression, self-mutilation, eating disorders, violence and suicide.”
Among girls who aren’t suffering clinical disorders, there are widespread feelings of confusion, despair and anxiety. And, above all, girls learn to view themselves as objects, responsible for meeting (or exceeding) the expectations of their coaches, teachers, parents, friends and boyfriends.
Hinshaw writes about a girl named Marisol who feels torn by the push to be nice, obedient and sensitive, yet tough, ambitious and competitive, all while looking thin and hot.
“To Marisol and so many other girls, ‘Who am I really?’ has almost no meaning,” he writes. “She has lived too long not as a person with needs and wishes and feelings, but rather as an object who tries to view herself from the outside in.”
Hinshaw says he completed the book with mixed emotions — discouraged by the mental health statistics, but optimistic that we can turn the crisis around.
“With girls’ real skills and real successes, some critical thinking and self-discovery, those kinds of things could make this triple bind into a triple opportunity,” he says.
“Supergirl’s” Funk says parents play a key role. “There are many things parents can do to not raise a Supergirl, and instead raise daughters who have a healthy amount of drive and are happy to be themselves.”
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How to help loosen the triple bind
Focus more on self-discovery, less on achievement. As college spots get harder to secure, teens look at extracurriculars as “resume padding,” says psychologist Stephen Hinshaw. Encourage them to explore pursuits that they enjoy and feel passionate about, and help them savor the experience, rather than viewing it as part of a checklist.
Let her play favorites. “If she’s really good at science and not so much at language arts, focus on science and let her not get straight A’s in language arts,” he says. “Girls are saying, ‘I can’t let up in any subject.'”
Show your pride. Of course they deserve praise for good grades and other achievements, but Funk says to also “give daughters validation for the things that matter, like having a great group of friends or being genuine.”
Broaden her world. Volunteering, helping others in need, joining a service organization or otherwise gaining a larger sense of purpose can show teens that the world is bigger than their corner. It also frees them from the “paralyzing rumination and self-hatred” that Hinshaw says afflicts many teen girls.
Let her be wrong. “One of the saddest comments I heard from a focus group was, ‘Do you think I would talk in class? If we don’t have the answer right the first time, we get marked down,'” he says. Teens need to try on different personas, hobbies, passions, and that means making some mistakes along the way.
Mind her role models. “Short of heading to the nearest cave, free of wireless,” Hinshaw jokes, it’s tough to shield girls from all negative images. But you can teach them to approach those images critically. Hinshaw suggests asking girls: “Are you being sold something? Does every girl need to look like that? What do you think about that doll/show/commercial?”
Call a professional. Girls who show signs of depression or other clinical disorders need immediate, competent, sensitive help.
— H.S.
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hstevens@tribune.com
