you’ve seen them here on campus. They put on their game faces when they step onto Locust Walk and they’re ready to take on the day. But don’t get in the way of these “alpha girls”, because They’re taking over. There are now even books dedicated to this new breed of independent women.
In his new book Alpha Girls, Dan Kindlon, author of Raising Cain, attempts to shed light on the psychology of what he calls this “new American
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| Alpha girl takeover? (pinellas.k12.fl.us) |
girl.” He depicts her as driven, accomplished, academically gifted, athletically talented and socially engaged, as well as confident in who she is and wants to be. Kindlon’s research, along with other contemporaries, portrays an aggressive girl who topples the traditional theories, such as Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia.
Pipher depicts adolescent girls as psychologically disadvantaged compared to their male counterparts. Kindlon asserts that “American girls are by and large outstripping the boys who are their contemporaries in academic terms and in self-esteem levels”–a sharp contrast to the depressed and insecure Ophelia.
While Kindlon’s book stands as an earmark for the female cause, it is not without controversy. Alpha Girls argues that the demeanor of today’s females can be partly attributed to “closer” father-daughter relationships in our society. He argues that such rapports have “a profound impact on the way many girls think and feel, how they interact with the world and what they want and expect from life.” Kindlon explains that fathers “deliberately and unconsciously” pass down to their daughters traditional “male ways of being.”
However, some of Penn’s “alpha girls” don’t seem to agree with Kindlon. “I’d call myself a Daddy’s girl, but I don’t agree,” said Ayeesha Sachedina, a Wharton senior and President of Wharton Women. “Male ‘ways of being” are not necessarily inherently male. There were women in the past who exhibited these qualities. I believe that the reason we see more females demonstrating them today is because it’s more socially accepted.”
“I was equally close to my two parents since I was an only child,” said Amy Gutmann, arguably Penn’s biggest alpha girl. She attributes her success to “both my mother and my father passing down to me a love of learning and a desire to contribute to making the world better. I don’t associate it with either male or female characteristics.”
My female classmates have never taken a back seat to the boys in the classroom. However, I would say that sometimes a girl needs to make a stronger effort to prove herself when she enters a disproportionably male territory. My first encounter to this was when I became the first class of girls admitted to a previously all boys school. It wasn’t until I threw a football with a better spiral than the guys that I was considered one of them.
Maybe it’s the extra obstacles that “alpha girls” need to overcome, whether in gym class or in the working world, that has enabled them to develop a thick skin and be more willing to make sacrifices to achieve their goals–and maybe it makes success that much sweeter.
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October 19th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
I think some “alpha girls” learn to be strong not just by seeing their parents as examples, but by observing the weakness of their parents and promising themselves they will grow up to be different. Sometimes bad examples can spur girls to action just the same, or maybe with even more determination.
November 13th, 2006 at 8:32 am
To Ayeesha Sachedina - he said “TRADITIONAL male ways of being” (my emphasis). Meaning those ways of being which are traditionally and conventionally ascribed to males because of millennia of cultural imprinting. There have always been many exceptions to this, however; see Madame Curie, and many other female pioneers. What Kindlon is saying is that more and more American fathers are sharing this cultural imprinting with their daughters. It’s not something inherently, biologically male, it’s an outlook gained through mirroring parents and peers.