View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"This book opens discussion related to the female gender role and the socialization of girls in many different, thought provoking ways, and serves as a timely critique of the current societal messages directed toward girls."
--"Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy"

"Brown declares that to change the patterns of female animosity we must address the social environment as well as the individual."
--"Women's Review of Books"

"Brown's book, however, is a clear departure from the film [Mean Girls] stereotypes about dumb, mean, backstabbing girls."
--"Waterville, Sunday Morning Sentinel"

""Girlfighting" is a serious and intelligent analysis of the cruelty and meanness involved in girls' relationships at each stage of development."
--"Pyschiatric Services"

aLyn Brown gives us a wider, different, and eye-opening view of the problem. . . This is the smartest book on mean girls around.a
--Sharon Lamb, author of "The Secret Lives of Girls"

aWhen it comes to girlsa issues, there arenat many people more expert than Lyn Mikel Brown.a
--"Daughters magazine"

"Brown provides an excellent resource, thorough and readable. Women can find their history in this book."
--"VOYA"

aThe book is a good contribution to the discussion...a
--Metapsychology

.,."Brown does an excellent job of continually casting girls' struggles in the larger frame of social and cultural disadvantages and the narrow role possibilities that supress their authenticity."
--"Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal"

For some time, reality TV, talk shows, soap-operas, and sitcoms have turned their spotlights on women andgirls who thrive on competition and nastiness. Few fairytales lack the evil stepmother, wicked witch, or jealous sister. Even cartoons feature mean and sassy girls who only become sweet and innocent when adults appear. And recently, popular books and magazines have turned their gaze away from ways of positively influencing girls' independence and self-esteem and towards the topic of girls' meanness to other girls. What does this say about the way our culture views girlhood? How much do these portrayals affect the way girls view themselves?

In Girlfighting, psychologist and educator Lyn Mikel Brown scrutinizes the way our culture nurtures and reinforces this sort of meanness in girls. She argues that the old adage "girls will be girls"--gossipy, competitive, cliquish, backstabbing-- and the idea that fighting is part of a developmental stage or a rite-of-passage, are not acceptable explanations. Instead, she asserts, girls are discouraged from expressing strong feelings and are pressured to fulfill unrealistic expectations, to be popular, and struggle to find their way in a society that still reinforces gender stereotypes and places greater value on boys. Under such pressure, in their frustration and anger, girls (often unconsciously) find it less risky to take out their fears and anxieties on other girls instead of challenging the ways boys treat them, the way the media represents them, or the way the culture at large supports sexist practices.

Girlfighting traces the changes in girls' thoughts, actions and feelings from childhood into young adulthood, providing the developmental understanding and theoretical explanation often lacking in other conversations. Through interviewswith over 400 girls of diverse racial, economic, and geographic backgrounds, Brown chronicles the labyrinthine journey girls take from direct and outspoken children who like and trust other girls, to distrusting and competitive young women. She argues that this familiar pathway can and should be interrupted and provides ways to move beyond girlfighting to build girl allies and to support coalitions among girls.

By allowing the voices of girls to be heard, Brown demonstrates the complex and often contradictory realities girls face, helping us to better understand and critique the socializing forces in their lives and challenging us to rethink the messages we send them.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"This book opens discussion related to the female gender role and the socialization of girls in many different, thought provoking ways, and serves as a timely critique of the current societal messages directed toward girls."
--"Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy"

"Brown declares that to change the patterns of female animosity we must address the social environment as well as the individual."
--"Women's Review of Books"

"Brown's book, however, is a clear departure from the film [Mean Girls] stereotypes about dumb, mean, backstabbing girls."
--"Waterville, Sunday Morning Sentinel"

""Girlfighting" is a serious and intelligent analysis of the cruelty and meanness involved in girls' relationships at each stage of development."
--"Pyschiatric Services"

aLyn Brown gives us a wider, different, and eye-opening view of the problem. . . This is the smartest book on mean girls around.a
--Sharon Lamb, author of "The Secret Lives of Girls"

aWhen it comes to girlsa issues, there arenat many people more expert than Lyn Mikel Brown.a
--"Daughters magazine"

"Brown provides an excellent resource, thorough and readable. Women can find their history in this book."
--"VOYA"

aThe book is a good contribution to the discussion...a
--Metapsychology

.,."Brown does an excellent job of continually casting girls' struggles in the larger frame of social and cultural disadvantages and the narrow role possibilities that supress their authenticity."
--"Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal"

For some time, reality TV, talk shows, soap-operas, and sitcoms have turned their spotlights on women andgirls who thrive on competition and nastiness. Few fairytales lack the evil stepmother, wicked witch, or jealous sister. Even cartoons feature mean and sassy girls who only become sweet and innocent when adults appear. And recently, popular books and magazines have turned their gaze away from ways of positively influencing girls' independence and self-esteem and towards the topic of girls' meanness to other girls. What does this say about the way our culture views girlhood? How much do these portrayals affect the way girls view themselves?

In Girlfighting, psychologist and educator Lyn Mikel Brown scrutinizes the way our culture nurtures and reinforces this sort of meanness in girls. She argues that the old adage "girls will be girls"--gossipy, competitive, cliquish, backstabbing-- and the idea that fighting is part of a developmental stage or a rite-of-passage, are not acceptable explanations. Instead, she asserts, girls are discouraged from expressing strong feelings and are pressured to fulfill unrealistic expectations, to be popular, and struggle to find their way in a society that still reinforces gender stereotypes and places greater value on boys. Under such pressure, in their frustration and anger, girls (often unconsciously) find it less risky to take out their fears and anxieties on other girls instead of challenging the ways boys treat them, the way the media represents them, or the way the culture at large supports sexist practices.

Girlfighting traces the changes in girls' thoughts, actions and feelings from childhood into young adulthood, providing the developmental understanding and theoretical explanation often lacking in other conversations. Through interviewswith over 400 girls of diverse racial, economic, and geographic backgrounds, Brown chronicles the labyrinthine journey girls take from direct and outspoken children who like and trust other girls, to distrusting and competitive young women. She argues that this familiar pathway can and should be interrupted and provides ways to move beyond girlfighting to build girl allies and to support coalitions among girls.

By allowing the voices of girls to be heard, Brown demonstrates the complex and often contradictory realities girls face, helping us to better understand and critique the socializing forces in their lives and challenging us to rethink the messages we send them.

Advance praise for "Packaging Girlhood"
"Be prepared to be shocked and saddened as you come to see the world of sex, shopping, media, body-fat, and self-esteem through the wide eyes of today's American girls. Be prepared, also, to find invaluable guidance and insight from authors Sharon Lamb and Lyn Brown who know our daughters from inside out. This is a must-read for parents and teachers who want to steer girls away from marketing schemes that distort female power and authority, and towards true self-acceptance and authentic empowerment."
-Polly Young-Eisendrath, author of "Women and Desire" and "The Resilient Spirit"
"Lyn Mikel Brown and Sharon Lamb have that rare gift of translating cutting edge research and analysis into strategies and information that every parent (and every girl) can use in daily life. In "Packaging Girlhood," they provide solid ways for families to help girls stay rooted in reality while buffeted by the powerful winds of commercialism. In the process, we parents learn more than a little about staying rooted in reality ourselves. This is the kind of guidance that families need, especially if they think they are immune from marketers' schemes."
-Joe Kelly, President, Dads and Daughters
"With compassion, insight, and humor, �Lamb and Brown� unravel and demystify the messages girls confront throughout their development, and they offer adults useful tools to help girls resist their powerful pull. "Packaging Girlhood" is filled with useful information and practical suggestions for adults wishing to help girls critique and rewrite consumer culture's narrow and toxic portrayals of girls. Never judgmental and always illuminating, "PackagingGirlhood" reflects Lamb and Brown's deep respect for girls and their first-hand understanding of the dilemmas of parenting."
-Lynn M. Phillips, Ph.D., Department of Communications, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
"A tour de force of excellent scholarship put in a very readable context and chock full of practical suggestions to parents for change! In "Packaging Girlhood, "Lamb and Brown expose the manner in which our daughters whom we believed had been newly reinforced with "girl power" actually remain enslaved in the gender straitjacket of a narrow and distorted set of messages about what being a "real girl "or young adult female is all about.
A must read for anyone who teaches, works with or wishes to support girls (from tots to teens) in our society and for every parent of a daughter who wants to give her child a legacy of meaningful possibilities instead of a prepackaged world of inhibiting stereotypes."
-William S. Pollack, Ph.D., author of "Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood"

Two fourteen-year-old girls, fed up with the "Hooters" shirts worn by their male classmates, design their own rooster logo: "Cocks: Nothing to crow about." Seventeen-year-old April Schuldt, unmarried, pregnant, and cheated out of her election as homecoming queen by squeamish school administrators, disrupts a pep rally with a protest that engages the whole school. Where are spirited girls like these in the popular accounts of teenage girlhood, that supposed wasteland of depression, low self-esteem, and passive victimhood? This book, filled with the voices of teenage girls, corrects the misperceptions that have crept into our picture of female adolescence. Based on the author's yearlong conversation with white junior-high and middle-school girls--from the working poor and the middle class--Raising Their Voices allows us to hear how girls adopt some expectations about gender but strenuously resist others, how they use traditionally feminine means to maintain their independence, and how they recognize and resist pressures to ignore their own needs and wishes. With a psychologist's sensitivity and an anthropologist's attention to cultural variations, Lyn Brown makes provocative observations about individual differences in the girls' experiences and attitudes, and shows how their voices are shaped and constrained by class--with working-class girls more willing to be openly angry than their middle-class peers, and yet more likely to denigrate themselves and attribute their failures to personal weakness. A compelling and timely corrective to conventional wisdom, this book attunes our hearing to the true voices of teenage girls: determined, confused, amusing, touching, feisty, and clear.