Looking forward - supporting girls with becoming young women

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Two great pieces of news today: Keira's victory in court, and Joanna Cherry's (and allies) victory in Scotland.

Great to hear that the grown-ups are back in the building. But thinking about Keira's case, and about the future for women more generally, while today's judgement should notably call a halt to children (largely girls) undergoing unnecessary surgery and taking dangerous untested drugs in the UK, it won't on its own stop those same girls transitioning once they're a bit older. It's awful that we live in a society that is so misogynistic that young girls feel the only way they can achieve happiness is by opting out of being women altogether (via drastic surgery and dangerous, untested drugs).

As well as cutting off the supply of these drugs, we need to think about cutting off the demand, i.e. think about what is causing these young girls to hate their own, healthy, female bodies to such a degree.

All of us who are adult women know that female puberty is a difficult time, and many of us experienced misogyny and hence dysphoria too at that age. Is there more we can do to provide support, a welcome for young girls to the sisterhood? Very moved by Raquel Rosario Sanchez's tweet on this, addressed to Keira.

How can we help these girls to love who they are, the bodies they're in, to feel supported, and realise that despite the misogyny that they will undoubtedly encounter, being women is great, something to be welcomed, not feared?

Any thoughts welcome.

Pigeon:

"How about instead of inducting people into the status quo and conformity, we support those who fall into the cracks and are ostracised?"

Yup, that's exactly what this whole thread is about. Welcome.

What a grand idea for a thread OP. I'm with you on this: I'm thinking something that firmly teaches girls that they are allowed to have boundaries. So much of the lobbying effort by genderists has gone into breaking down boundaries for girls: asserting that it isn't kind if they don't share spaces and move over for 'needier' people at a time when they no doubt feel like shrinking themselves anyway, encouraging them to believe anyone can be a girl at a time when they must be able to see that boys are developing more power and strength both physically and metaphorically (no wonder they believe they too can opt out), encouraging lesbians to believe they can't exclude people with penises from their sexuality and on and on. There's so much more around the objectification of women and pontification of relationships that I could get into, but don't want to write an essay...

I notice that a certain PP has asserted that there's no way they would consider themselves to be like other girls which is also a brilliant spotlight on internalised misogyny and the disdain with which girls generally are viewed.

*"I think highlighting strong role models, non-conforming women, lesbians, women of all creeds, sizes, colours, seems a good way to help."

This is no different than the quote that came from Teresa May when she was an MP in the 80s, saying that in order to stop girls becoming Lesbians they needed to be given good male role models.

Same shit different decade.*

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Boundaries, Hecates, yes absolutely.

Consent, boundaries, self confidence. I think critical thinking generally is something that is becoming ever-more important to teach - I believe schools are starting to do a bit of this.

I've been thinking about this since I saw The Social Dilemma and started reading about the mental health crisis in girls and young women. I don't think "crisis" is too strong a word when you look at the increase in self harm and suicide as well as ROGD. I've been asking what we can do as adult women as mothers, grandmothers, aunts, teachers, members of society to support our girls and help them build resilience.

The Social Dilemma obviously concentrated on the social media aspect, which I do believe is part of it and I think we need to be aware what our daughters are doing online and set limits. But I think that's only one part.

One thing that might help is more physical activity. Not necessarily competitive sport, but activities like hiking, dancing, swimming, martial arts. Appreciating your body for what it can do, rather than just how other people are viewing you.

I don't know, it's something I've just started to think about.

Because a lot of the discourse around trans issues are the same as the discourse around homosexuals a few decades ago

I recall the debate being that homosexuals didn't need any medicalisation thank you
Kind of ..well...completely opposite to the trans question here

And I guess when peopl are saying more mental health support is needed, that's based on personal experiences. We ask for mental health support but get offered puberty blockers?

lots of people refuse to listen to people who have had trans-experiences as teenagers. People with no experience making up the rules as to how to treat people who do have the experience.

I think this is such a good idea.

I agree with much of what's been said, but also think that for many kids, not just girls, there is a real fear of growing up and of the real adult world. This is harder for those with any kind of comorbidity that affects the security of friendships and difficulty fitting in (ADHD in my D's case).

The pull towards a trans identity seems to me to come partly from this - an alternate reality, a mask, allowing dissociation and deflection from the 'Bear Hunt'. But they can't go over it / under it / around it or whatever. They've got to go through it', haven't they?

I think I would have liked a book called something like 'How to hold your nerve during puberty and not freak out about feeling like a weirdo, because it'll (probably) be (sort of) alright in the end.' Not sure it would sell well.

Maybe we need to teach them to assume things will be uncomfortable, physically and emotionally, but that that's not because you're in the wrong body. It's just because your expectations were too high. Discomfort isn't a sign of anything - it's just the human condition. Do you think I'd do well as a motivational speaker? P'raps not.

@CrazyPigeonLadyMarried2Trans

Because a lot of the discourse around trans issues are the same as the discourse around homosexuals a few decades ago

With respect, I am old enough and lived through that debate (as a lesbian) and can assure you that it is nothing like this current discourse. And children were not used in any way - except by outlier organisations like the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) who were finally shown the door having initially been welcomed by too many of the left.

Do you think I'd do well as a motivational speaker? P'raps not

Maybe a Buddhist one, ponpoy: First noble truth, living beings are subject to suffering and discomfort.

I think I would have liked a book called something like 'How to hold your nerve during puberty and not freak out about feeling like a weirdo, because it'll (probably) be (sort of) alright in the end.' Not sure it would sell well.

Nail on head though

Ponpoy - actually, I'd buy it. I think it's what all kids need; well, maybe there are a few outliers who sail through adolescence with no qualms, but certainly most of us would benefit/have benefited from this.

Adolescence is hard. Growing up is hard. Being an adult is hard. But it's not like they're the only people who've had to go through this - every adult that ever lived went through this. It is harder if you don't have good role models or good support though. Where support of the sisterhood could come in handy.

To nurture girls - and boys - to grow up happy in their own bodies, we need to address the toxic, porn-soaked culture they inhabit. I'm not a bit surprised that girls are terrified of maturing into the sobbing, helpless victims they see being choked, spat on and generally degraded in the increasingly violent porn that sickens their youth. Likewise, how confusing is it for boys to be indoctrinated into beliefs that their mother, sisters and female friends are only fit to be treated like that and that they must learn to be callous, vicious abusers if they are to become men?

Until recently, this place would have been Girl Guiding. My unit is full of GNC girls, as was the one I attended. I met my fir at girlfriend at Guides! We don’t do much of the official stuff and do lots of getting lost in the woods and setting fire to things.

Sadly HQ seem set to destroy that.

Oh god Newlygranny your post is so on point. I only ever wanted girls and sometimes I wish they were boys because of the insidious shift towards sex acts that mainly satisfy men = liberation/lib feminism for girls and women.

I think this is a key aspect of growing up female that we need to get a handle on if we're to persuade girls that being female is a positive thing!

Yes, I definitely hated my female body too as a young teen. This is so common, it's almost unusual not to experience it, I think

Actually I think the experience of posters who post on here saying this are the unusual ones. Perhaps it's a "birds of a feather flock together" situation I've never come across the sort of body hatred amongst girls or women which seems to be the norm on here.

To be absolutely honest if I had a teenage daughter I'd be as wary of letting her be influenced by the negativity of a lot of what is posted here every bit as much as the ideology of "genderists"

Dido, I find this really interesting because my entire life I've been surrounded by women whose relationship with their bodies has been complicated, to say the least. A mother who was permanently on a diet, school-friends with anorexia or bulimia (a girl at my school was hospitalised). In my adult life most of the wonderful women I know have a shall we say 'punishing me relationship with their bodies, they either exercise to much, or too little, eat too much, or too little, and so much of it is about emotions and how the way they look defines them. I don't buy your assertion.

That should read 'punishing', don't know where the 'me' came from.

Great idea for a thread. I will think more about ways to make girls feel good about being girls. (Or just even not making their biological sex a consideration is also fine). I would suggest access to an all-female environment is good, as this can create space for all sorts of conversations and examples outside of the dominant misogynistic culture.
It’s such a horrible shock how girls overtly get projected on to them all kinds of awful misogyny, highly sexualised, being shouted at in the street by strangers and generally becoming public property for comment.. so social space away from the male gaze can be such a relief. Also a social mix of different ages can be important for that as well as peers in a same sex space.

Then the other side of the coin, how to stop girls and young women feeling shit about themselves. So many great suggestions on the thread. Porn culture, social media, undermining of safeguarding and regulatory capture and the reach of capitalism into every last area of our personal lives is a toxic combination for young people and for girls in particular.

I’d suggest one specific example of an action which I think would help pre-teens- age ratings on music videos, in the same way we give them to movies.

social space away from the male gaze can be such a relief

Amen

My abiding memory of adolescence is painful self-consciousness, trying to avoid male attention and a bubbling anxiety about how my body was going to embarrass me next. And I was a late starter. I tremble for the little girls who develop early, in primary school. Being the first girl in the class with breasts must be so scary.

I have never felt like most other girls
Why do you think most girls all feel the same way? You are talking about half of humanity! What we have in common is our sex, not much more.

I would like to see a book like "my body is me" but for older kids. My dd is 10 and it really is heartbreaking to see how she is gradually learning to be more self-conscious, aware of her appearance and to generally take up less room in the world.

I have never felt like most other girls, I have never been interested in their music, their shows, their celebrity crushes, their books, their fashion. How about instead of inducting people into the status quo and conformity, we support those who fall into the cracks and are ostracised?

I was the same, it's why I was drawn to the goth scene. The thing is, looking back and talking to other women, I've realised that I was so focused on differences rather than what we had in common. I had absorbed the media messages about what women were like, and also not taken into account that women were punished - especially girls - for not conforming to those stereotypes. Those girls weren't inherently different to me. I think it would have done me good to have felt less alone, to have recognised common ground, and it might have helped them too- shown them it was ok to be themselves rather than feeling they had to conform. It's one of the reasons I live MN, it made me realise that I wasn't an outlier, that other women struggled too, they just hid it better.