Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self Esteem, and the Confidence Gap

This book was published in 1994, but every bit of it is still relevant to today's young women. I was actually expecting something else, but the book has exceeded my expectations. While reading it you can't help but mentally take yourself back in time to your own life back when you were in middle school and even high school. There are so many infuriating moments, and "Aha!" moments you will have with yourself if you are a woman reading this book. You will tell yourself, "Well, no wonder I turned out this way," or such similar things. It has helped me understand myself more and how we as young girls grow up in such a different yet similar environment to those around us. There are also moments while reading when you're disgusted, or the "WTF?" moments. It makes you want to stand for change in the growth of young girls from all walks of life. I apologize for possibly being all over the place in my review, but it has evoked so many strong emotions and feelings that it is difficult to express them how I want and all at the same time. I am just a single, white female, I do not have children of my own yet, but think that every man, woman and child should read or be aware of this book.

Though this book is now decades old, the insight that it gives is still so relevant. Girls are experiencing so many gender related challenges during adolescence and those challenges need to be recognized if teachers want to help all students succeed. I’m an education major and I bought this book for a class, but I feel it is a genuinely fascinating read. I think everyone aspiring to be an educator should read this book.

My mom's group read this book and here are my thoughts. I was really looking for advice on how to work with my tween. Or some discussions about what teens go through to help me understand what my own tween was experiencing. Let's face it, 2017 is a lot different than when I was a tween in the 1980s. Maybe some stories that I can relate to that would enable me to transfer that to my own experience with my tween. This is not that book.This book essentially shadows a couple of teens in two schools; one affluent and one more poor. It's a great slice of life book. But holds no advice or guidance in dealing with your teens. It's basically a biography of a couple of teenagers. Some of it sad some of it happy. But it does not offer any sort of guidance in traversing anything that you will be dealing with regarding your own child.

Interesting stuff but being that the study was conducted in the early 1990's, I wonder if everything is very relevant today. In many ways, I hope not. Internet and social media issues are not touched upon at all since the book was written before these issues were a part of the teenage landscape. I found a lot of how girls viewed themselves and others rather disturbing and looking back to how my own Midwestern 1980's teenage years were, either I had incredible confidence, my part of the country I grew up in was just different or the middle-class girls in this study were particularly lacking. I just don't recall it being as bad as it was portrayed in the book. It would be interesting to do a follow-up with the participants to see how they all fared as adults and what they are doing to raise their own daughters to be strong and confident.

I had to read this book for one of my college courses and I'm very glad I did. Even though this book is 25 years old, the women in my life have confirmed that most of the issues addressed in Orenstein's book still exist today. It's truly eye-opening.

Although this book was written based on a study done in the early 90s, it has so much relevance to teaching today. The book focuses on many of the same issues that students and teachers are dealing with now, and it really brings light to how the classroom really is a place to learn so much more than the subject matter. I would recommend this book to any future teacher, parents of young adults and teenagers, and for the young adults and teenagers as well. The notes on the studies done were very extensively detailed which made looking up the references very easy. Overall I thought it was an insightful and thought-provoking book!

Surprising and sad. That is the world of young women today who seem to be under so much pressure to conform to boy's expectations of them and struggle with their self-esteem. I loved this book which pulled the cover back on a world few of us know about. How do these young women survive to healthy adulthood? It is a mystery, given what you learn in this book. But they do.

Although this book was written over a decade ago, I still see the same attitudes and behaviors towards our nation's young women in the classroom. Enlightenment on the issue helps produce change and this book provides it in spades.