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Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence
Penguin
September 2009
On Sale: August 25, 2009
288 pages
ISBN: 1594202184
EAN: 9781594202186
Hardcover
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Self-Help
Bestselling author of Odd Girl Out, Rachel Simmons exposes
the myth of the Good Girl, freeing girls from its impossible
standards and encouraging them to embrace their real selves In The Curse of the Good Girl, bestselling author Rachel
Simmons argues that in lionizing the Good Girl we are
teaching girls to embrace a version of selfhood that sharply
curtails their power and potential. Unerringly nice, polite,
modest, and selfless, the Good Girl is a paradigm so
narrowly defined that it's unachievable. When girls
inevitably fail to live up-experiencing conflicts with
peers, making mistakes in the classroom or on the playing
field-they are paralyzed by self-criticism, stunting the
growth of vital skills and habits. Simmons traces the
poisonous impact of Good Girl pressure on development and
provides a strategy to reverse the tide. At once expository
and prescriptive, The Curse of the Good Girl is a call to
arms from a new front in female empowerment. Looking to the stories shared by the women and girls who
attend her workshops, Simmons shows that Good Girl pressure
from parents, teachers, coaches, media, and peers erects a
psychological glass ceiling that begins to enforce its
confines in girlhood and extends across the female lifespan.
The curse of the Good Girl erodes girls' ability to know,
express, and manage a complete range of feelings. It expects
girls to be selfless, limiting the expression of their
needs. It requires modesty, depriving the permission to
articulate their strengths and goals. It diminishes
assertive body language, quieting voices and weakening
handshakes. It touches all areas of girls' lives and follows
many into adulthood, limiting their personal and
professional potential. Since the popularization of the Ophelia phenomenon, we have
lamented the loss of self-esteem in adolescent girls,
recognizing that while the doors of opportunity are open to
twenty-first-century American girls, many lack the
confidence to walk through them. In The Curse of the Good
Girl, Simmons provides a catalog of tangible lessons in
bolstering the self and silencing the curse of the Good
Girl. At the core of Simmons's radical argument is her
belief that the most critical freedom we can win for our
daughters is the liberty not only to listen to their inner
voice but also to act on it.
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