Neighbor Hugo Schwyzer knocks it out of the park again*: Girl talk, depression, and culturally conditioned rivalry. Excerpt:
“…because we inculcate in girls an absolutely impossible, unattainable ideal of physical and emotional perfection at such an early age, we set many young women up both for self-loathing and for hostility towards their female peers….[T]hose of us who care about young people need to be particularly attuned to the lack of resources that young girls have for safe and healthy opportunities to talk. Safe and healthy, by definition, means an uncompetitive environment, and it means providing them with understanding listeners whom these girls will not perceive as either judges or rivals.” (Link)
*If you didn’t see his post last month titled “Fat”, “Slut”, “Selfish”: a note on the three great fears, it’s also worth a read.
