On the way to womanhood, what does a girl give up? For five years, Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan, asking this question, listened to one hundred girls who were negotiating the rough terrain of adolescence. This book invites us to listen, too, and to hear in these girls' voices what is rarely spoken, often ignored, and generally misunderstood: how the passage out of girlhood is a journey into silence, disconnection, and dissembling, a troubled crossing that our culture has plotted with dead ends and detours. In the course of their research, Brown and Gilligan developed a Listener's Guide - a method of following the pathways of girls' thoughts and feelings, of distinguishing what girls are saying by the way they say it. We witness the struggle girls undergo as they enter adolescence only to find that what they feel and think and know can no longer be said directly. We see them at a cultural impasse, and listen as they make the painful, necessary adjustments, outspokenness giving way to circumspection, self-knowledge to uncertainty, authority to compliance. These changes mark the edge of adolescence as a watershed in women's psychological development, a time of wrenching disjunctions between body and psyche, voice and desire, self and relationship. Brown and Gilligan open their method to us and share their discoveries as they encourage girls at different ages to speak about themselves in conversation with women. They follow some of these girls over time, listening to changes in their distinct voices from one year to the next, addressing their successes and failures as they confront one barrier after another. This groundbreaking work offers major new insights into girls' development and women's psychology. But perhaps more importantly, it provides women with the means of meeting girls at the critical crossroads of adolescence, of harkening to the voices of girlhood and sustaining their sell-affirming notes.

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.

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.