Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [140]
Girls’ symptoms reflect the grief at the loss of their true selves. Their symptoms reflect the confusion about how to be human and be a woman. The basic issues appear and reappear in many guises. Girls must find, define and maintain their true selves. They must find a balance between being true to themselves and being kind and polite to others. Pathology often arises in girls because of the failure to realize their true possibilities of existence. The best treatment for this pathology is growth encouragement and resistance training.
Working with adolescent girls has changed me. I’m more humble and more patient, less sure of success than I am with adults. I am more respectful of families and aware of the difficulties that they encounter when girls are in adolescence. I’m more focused on our mass culture and the damage it does young women. I’m angrier. I’m more determined to help girls fight back and to work for cultural change.
After a lifetime of work, Freud claimed that he didn’t know what women wanted. I think his ignorance came from his failure to analyze the cultural context in which women lived. Margaret Fuller was able to define what women need in a way that stands the test of time: “What a woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded to unfold such powers as are given to her.”
Chapter 14
LET A THOUSAND FLOWERS BLOOM
MARGARET
Margaret grew up in the Northwest, where her father worked at a steel mill and her mother was a homemaker. She and her brother, Neal, attended school a block from their home and explored the nearby woods with the neighbor kids. With puberty, several things happened at once. Neal distanced himself from Margaret, her mother spent many evenings a week with her charismatic prayer group and her father grew disenchanted with the marriage.
Before, Margaret had never worried about who was popular or attractive, but with puberty everything changed. Her body developed rapidly and soon she was tall and full-breasted. As she put it, “I had the biggest boobs of any girl in junior high.” All of a sudden her looks mattered. Boys who played games with her and Neal were suddenly looking at her breasts and making suggestive remarks.
Earlier, she had had two close friends and got on well with other girls. Now Kim and Marsha changed the situation. They picked scapegoats and encouraged the other girls to scorn their unlucky choices. The girls agreed because they were afraid that if they didn’t they would be next.
At first Margaret went along with these girls. “I knew it was wrong,” she said. “I was frightened of being their next victim.” But soon Margaret was picked as the scapegoat, ostensibly because she was flirty, but more likely because she was popular with boys and inspired jealousy. Also, she was a good student.
She was shunned by all the girls in her class, including her two close friends. No one would walk by her, sit by her or talk to her. If a girl accidentally touched Margaret she would rush to another girl and “rub off the germs.” That girl would then rush to another girl with the germs and so on.
Margaret wanted to tell her family, but Neal no longer had time for her. He was off with his friends or on the phone to his girlfriend. Her parents were preoccupied—her mother with her prayer group, her father with his work. She doubted they would understand. She had never lied to her parents, but she faked illness