Meeting at the Crossroads: Women’s Psychology and Girls’ Development

by Lyn Mikel Brown, Carol Gilligan

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 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.

Genres: Psychology, Feminism, Nonfiction, Womens, Education, Sociology, Gender

258 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I got out of this book is that I have been profoundly out of relationship with virtually everyone in my life since I have been a young adolescent. No wonder I have always been profoundly lonely. When you hide yourself for the sake of "relationship" you end up with a false relationship, not a real one. I learned to do that at a very young age, hiding from my mother and then everyone else. For me, it became a way of being in the world to keep myself safe.

While it helps to see the process of how that happens, as this book reveals, it does not mean suddenly one can go out and make all false relationships into real ones. But with the power to influence younger women, I will be more aware of this and hopefully help encourage them to stay with what they feel and what they know, no matter who it pisses off.

[Robin Tobin (On the back porch reading) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughtful, informative, insightful....

[Rindala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brown and Gilligan so beautifully articulate that turning point in adolescence, where girls start to silence themselves as they transition into womanhood. The stories of resistance to the patriarchal ideas of womanhood and femininity gave me the chills. By far one of my favorite books on women's development -- truly revolutionary.

[Rachel Simmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of my bibles - and it's the seminal text in girls' psychology. Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan are two of the foremothers of girls' psychology. Don't work with or write about girls without reading this book!

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book talks about how women's voices get silenced during the transition into adulthood. The authors suggest that the archetype of the "perfect girl" and the "perfect woman" stifle girls' real development into mature women. I thought the book was interesting, well written, and worth reading, but I didn't think it was very helpful in terms of what can be done about regaining women's voices in society or stopping the loss of voice from happening in the first place. The last chapter details a few ideas, including bringing women and girls together and ensuring that open authentic women can serve as role models, but the issue is far more complex than that. I'm glad I read this book and I would definitely recommend it to any women who struggle to really acknowledge and stay with what they know/believe.

[Ebra E · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great relation based perspective to young women’s experiences. As a researcher I am deeply impressed and guided by the methodology

[Abbey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, along with Reviving Ophelia, gives new insights into how girls and women think, as well as possible causes for trends found in adolescent girls. Very informative, highly recommend to those interested in adolescent psychology and developmental behavior.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important information on girl's development in our culture and how friendships affect us. Used this for my graduate thesis.

[Carrie]

child psychology