The Secret Lives of Girls: What Good Girls Really Do--Sex Play, Aggression, and Their Guilt - Hardcover

Lamb, Sharon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743201078 ISBN 13: 9780743201070

Publisher: Free Press, 2002

Synopsis

A thought-provoking and provocative book, drawn from interviews with pre-teens, teens, and adult women, examines the everyday behavior of "real" pre-adolescent girls, revealing how private sexual play and agressive behavior can mold them into strong, self-assured, and well-balanced women. 40,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

Let girls be girls, counsels psychologist Sharon Lamb in her provocative book The Secret Lives of Girls. "I want to be able to free girls and women to take off the shimmering costume of a femininity that equals goodness--to acknowledge all aspects of being human," she writes.

Reporting on 125 interviews with girls and women, Lamb details and normalizes the sexual play and anger expressed in the privacy of girls' bedrooms and playhouses. The result is a groundbreaking and guilt-free guide for parents and teachers to assist girls in accepting their sexual and aggressive feelings. Her portraits of girls' exuberant sexuality ("practice kissing," "I'll show you mine") and spontaneous anger (not-so-dear diary, pranks, and "cutting down") are fresh and fascinating. One particularly memorable chapter describes games of "naked Barbie" and applauds the lessons learned about becoming a sexual person rather than just a desired object.

Lamb's observations are so sharp that readers may wish the chapters offering her smart suggestions for change were longer. Some readers may be surprised and others unsettled by the vivid scenarios Lamb portrays. Still, by listening to girls and telling their stories without judgment, Lamb invites them to stop living a double life that ignores their anger and sexual feelings. She provides parents and teachers with a powerful and practical model of how to understand and nurture the hidden and genuine strengths of every girl. --Barbara Mackoff

About the Author:

Sharon Lamb, Ed.D. is a professor of psychology at Saint Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont, and a clinical psychologist in private practice. She has worked with Carol Gilligan and Jerome Kagan at Harvard, as well as trained at Harvard Medical School. She lives in Shelburne, Vermont, with her husband and two children.

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0743201078
• ISBN 13: 9780743201070
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272