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January-February 2008
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< previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 To assess the psychological and social health of a new generation of girls, Kindlon designed the Adolescent Life Survey to measure 19 dimensions of teen experience (from mental health to career and family aspirations) and in 2005 surveyed 700 girls and 228 boys in the sixth through twelfth grades in a range of urban, suburban, and rural U.S. and Canadian schools. He then interviewed the top 113 high-school girls, born for the most part between 1984 and 1988. These were alpha girls who had attained a 3.8 or better grade-point average and at least one leadership position, pursued 10 or more hours of extracurriculars weekly, and scored high on measures of “achievement motivation.” Kindlon found signs of a new “alpha psychology” among all the girls. There were no sex differences in depressive symptoms, no drop in self-esteem across the six grades, and no lack of confidence. By tenth grade, in fact, the girls he surveyed had higher self-esteem than boys, and alphas had significantly higher self-esteem than non-alphas. Lower socioeconomic status tended to lower self-esteem scores for both sexes, irrespective of race or ethnicity, but Kindlon interviewed many “inner-city alphas”—the phenomenon is not confined to “elites.” (Consistent with previous research, he did find higher rates of anxiety among girls than boys—perhaps because girls “want to get things done,” he speculates, although he notes that biological factors could be involved. In either case, he cautions against overemphasizing the anxiety scores, because boys may underreport their own anxiety.) “Loss of voice” may be a thing of the past, as Kindlon suggests, but gender pressures persist, says Wendy Luttrell, Aronson associate professor in human development and education: “We can’t talk about how girls are doing today without talking about boys and girls in relation to each other.” As a feminist ethnographer who analyzes gender, race, and class in educational settings, she believes kids today, in fact, are still “incredibly constrained” by gender. She recently observed such forces in action at the close of her youngest daughter’s summer college-prep program. The karaoke competition between sex-segregated groups was “a Saturday Night Live mimicry of what gender roles in contemporary society look like,” she reports. The girls performed “sexy-but-cute Britney Spears acts,” while the boys presented aggressive, sexualized, hip-hop dance numbers. “Each group played off the extreme of the other,” she notes, wishing the hypermasculine and hyperfeminine performances had been far less stereotypical, with “both boys and girls crossing what we consider to be ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles.” The alpha generation may yet fulfill that wish. “Girls are now able to play more roles,” says Kindlon. Alpha girls don’t identify with a passive-feminine sex role, yet maintain “female” skills like social networking. They also know how to do things that only men and boys traditionally did, such as “channel their aggression in a competitive situation—not to get too mad, but to get mad enough so you can play harder—and to compete and to enjoy winning.” Fathers play a big part in this psychology, Kindlon adds. He has found that alphas’ dads are more involved in their daughters’ lives than non-alphas’ dads. They can pass along “male ways of being,” such as rougher play and greater risk-taking, and “male ways of thinking.” This “hybrid” self, an “androgynous” personality incorporating aspects of both parents, is a cornerstone of alpha psychology, he believes. The more androgynous girls in his study had higher self-esteem, were less anxious or self-conscious, and engaged in less promiscuous sex and substance abuse. Because they can choose from what feminist psychologists call “separate” (traditionally masculine) or “connected” (traditionally feminine) styles of being in the world, they have a psychological advantage. “Girls are better adapted,” he says. “They’re more flexible and have more skill. Boys haven’t changed as much—or haven’t been induced as much to play a variety of roles.” What girls are saying, adds Kindlon, is, “I have flexibility that no other woman has ever had in history, or certainly not in any numbers, and I can play any role—‘Bring it on.’” As one “hybrid” alpha (now at Harvard) told him, “I can wear high heels to my linear algebra class. I can be sexy or I can be feminine, or I can also blow the boys away in this really tough class. I can do anything. I don’t see it as inconsistent to be wearing high heels. I don’t feel like I’ve got to dress down or dress like a man to do this class. I can still be a woman and do all these other things.”
The Rise of the Alpha GirlLong-emerging changes in girls’ access to higher education and career options have prepared the ground for girls’ “emancipated confidence.” In fact, aspects of alpha girlhood aren’t new. “Girls have been ahead of boys in pre-college education for well over 100 years,” says Allison professor of economics Lawrence Katz: in high-school graduation rates and in constituting two-thirds of honors students. “What was striking in the past [was] that even though girls dominated boys through high school, boys were given greater opportunities to go on to college.” 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | continued >  
 
 
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