Sounds Like Titanic

by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman

When you are twelve years old, a book titled Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls becomes a national best-seller. The author, Mary Pipher, writes, “Something dramatic happens to girls in early adolescence. Just as planes and ships disappear mysteriously into the Bermuda Triangle, so do the selves of girls go down in droves.” Pipher argues that while adolescence has always been a difficult transition for boys and girls alike, there is something in the cultural air of the early 1990s that has spawned an epidemic of depression, self-mutilation, and eating disorders. What’s curious about this epidemic is that its adolescent female victims are middle class. They come from stable, loving households and have attentive parents. Even stranger is that, as people say in the 1990s, It’s the nineties!, meaning, “women are equal now.” A teacher tells your class, “You can be anything you want if you work hard enough,” and then adds, “This is true for girls now, too.” What no one ever says during your entire upbringing is that there has been a cultural price to pay for equality, a counterattack aiming its weapons at your fast-developing female body.