Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes

Winner of the Books for a Better Life Award

Every parent who cares about empowering her daughter should own a copy."
- Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls

"...a must-read for parents and teachers who want to steer girls away from marketing schemes that distort female power and authority and toward true self-acceptance and authentic empowerment."
-- Polly Young Eisendrath, author of Women and Desire and The Resilient Spirit

The image of girls and girlhood that is being packaged and sold to your daughter isn't pretty in pink. It is stereotypical, demeaning, limiting, and alarming. Girls are besieged by images in the media that encourage accessorizing over academics; sex appeal over sports; fashion over friendship.
Packaging Girlhood exposes these stereotypes and gives you guidance on how to talk with your daughters about these negative images and provides you with tools and information on how to help your girls make more positive choices.

"A tour de force of excellent scholarship put in a very readable context and chockfull of practical suggestions for parents for change!"
-- William S. Pollack, Ph.D., author of Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood

"Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown have that rare gift of translating cutting-edge research and analysis into strategies and information that every parent (and every girl) can use in daily life."
-- Joe Kelly, president of Dads and Daughters (DADs)

"With compassion, insight, and humor [Lamb and Brown] unravel and demystify the messages girls confront throughout their development, and they offer adults useful tools to help girls resist their powerful pull."
-- Lynn M. Phillips, Ph.D., Department of Communications, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

"Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown's sharp analysis and patiently pragmatic advice is just what we need to sustain our daughter's quests for healthy identities."
-Michael Kimmel, author Manhood in America, Professor, SUNY Stony Brook

Sharon Lamb, author of The Secret Lives of Girls, is professor of Psychology at Saint Michael's College in Vermont. Her research on girls' and teens' development is widely cited. Additionally, she listens to their struggles and strengths in her private practice.

Lyn Mikel Brown, professor of Education at Colby College in Maine, is the author of three books on girls' development, including Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development (with Carol Gilligan). She creates programs for girls at her nonprofit Hardy Girls Healthy Women (www.hghw.org).