A Girl's Place
is in the Universe

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“Girl-Next-Door”

The final voice is the “girl-next-door.” These girls fill the classrooms, soccer teams, and scout troops, but as individuals, they are rarely actually seen. While obedient and helpful, the girl-next-door does not call attention to herself by answering questions, she waits in lunch lines patiently, reads or draws silently. She is unknown to most teachers because she does not share herself with others. Her identity is nascent and she does not yet know how to express her wants and needs.

“Dana,” with her braided hair and colorful dresses, hovered on the fringes of the group. She was a silent participant for many months, but gradually she became more active. After Girls’ Group had discussions to identify bias and women in stereotypically passive roles, she began to seek out books with more active female protagonists, broadening from her previous devotion to Grimm’s fairy tales. Eventually she was assertive enough to proclaim to the group that she liked her pink Keds®. She looked around the circle at the most critical girls, afraid of scorn toward such a “girlish” attachment, but no one said anything negative. Since the group had become so accepting, Dana’s emerging voice was not silenced. Dana also benefited from conversations about the value of being a girl. Instead of withdrawing in defense from her more assertive Girls’ Group peers, Dana was strengthened by the girls’ unconditional support. In addition, Dana helped other girls in the group be more balanced. The group began to redefine “girl” into a person who can like or do anything. They tried to break out of labels. It was okay for Dana to be a girl who liked pink shoes, and it was okay for Dana to say how she felt.

The girl-next-door struggles as she finds her voice and she desperately needs support to do so. Silent girls “have little awareness of their intellectual capabilities. They live— selfless and voiceless— at the behest of those around them” (Belenky et al, 1986, p.134). Finding a voice begins with listening to her own feelings. If a girl fails to acknowledge her own feelings, she furthers the development of a “false self”(Hancock, 1989, p. 39), or a mask that hides her “true self”. Sadly, many girls get stuck with these masks, and their relationships are built on falsehoods. A girl’s sense of having a voice “is central to girls’ experience of having authentic relationship” (Brown and Gilligan, 1992, p.21). Girls’ Group helped these girls listen and create relationships based on their true feelings and ideas. There is “generosity and openness...when [girls] create spaces for their own and others’ voices” (Brown and Gilligan, 1992, p. 167). In addition, the process of balancing between asserting inner feelings and accommodating outside expectations also affects moral development (Sadker and Sadker, 1994). Thus, Dana and her compatriots may be the ones who most need a place like Girls’ Group; a place where their voices are heard.

 

Implications

There are lessons from Girls’ Group that apply to teachers and to society in general. In the group, girls expressed that they liked participating because they felt valued and important. Since the content of discussion was about them and their relationships, it was easier for them to break the habits of self-silencing. Perhaps if more curriculum was directly related to the students’ reality, they would engage more actively.

It would also be valuable to study populations with different socio-economic levels, cultural backgrounds, ethnicity, and the male gender. Is this research relevant to boy’s adolescent development? Do boys have similar voices such as “brother,” “critic,” “whistle-blower,” “boy-next-door”?

Another lesson also comes from what the girls seemed to like about the group, and that is about feeling valued and valuing others. They wanted to be valued for their unique attributes and have a place which feels important. Presumably boys would feel the same way; in fact, most of the lessons of Girls’ Group seem equally valuable for both genders. The Girls’ Group participants worked on learning to value different qualities in people. Even in a relatively homogenous single sex group, there was a large range of valuable qualities. The girls were able to appreciate something in everyone. Perhaps they also could see that to create more equity for women, they must open a larger dialogue with the whole culture. Through this discussion of mutual acceptance and support, people can make positive change.

Patricia Freedman taught a multiage 5th/6th class at Christa McAuliffe in Cupertino, CA. She wrote her Masters Thesis on gender equity and girls' self-esteem.