The Triple Blind
Combining moving personal stories with extensive research, Dr. Hinshaw provides tools for parents who want to empower their daughters to deal in healthy ways with today’s pressures.
The Triple Bind that girls face today:
• Act sweet and nice
• Be a star athlete and get straight A’s
• Seem sexy and hot even if you’re not
In many ways, today is the best time in history to be a girl: Opportunities for a girl’s success are as unlimited as her dreams. Yet societal expectations, cultural trends, and conflicting messages are creating what psychologist and researcher Stephen Hinshaw calls “the Triple Bind.” Girls are now expected to excel at “girl skills,” achieve “boy goals,” and be models of female perfection, 100 percent of the time. Here, Dr. Hinshaw reveals key aspects of the Triple Bind, including
• genes, hormones, and the role of biology in confronting the Triple Bind
• overscheduled lives and how the high pressure to excel at everything sets girls up for crisis
• how traditionally feminine qualities (such as empathy and self-awareness) can put girls at risk for anxiety, depression, and other disorders
• the oversexualization of little girls, preteens, and teenagers
• the reasons girls are channeling pressure into violence
Reviews
“Hinshaw, chair of UC-Berkeleys psychology department and an authority on childhood ADHD, enters a cultural minefield: why do todays teenage girls, despite enormous opportunities, seem crippled by increased rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, violence and suicide? Hinshaws sweeping diagnosis is the triple bind, or societys expectation that young women possess traditionally feminine attributes such as empathy and selflessness, but also succeed in typically masculine arenas such as competitive sports and cutthroat career paths, and finally, generally conform to a narrow, unrealistic set of standards that allows for no alternative. Hinshaw identifies academic pressures, sexed-up pop culture, Internet voyeurism and girl-on-girl bullying as sources of overwhelming stress and conflicting ideals for girls.”
“Highly readable, fascinating account of the lives of contemporary young women … In probing chapters that deftly synthesize sobering statistics, case anecdotes, and personal observation, Hinshaw makes a strong case that teen girls are in crisis … This balanced, thorough, compassionate title is required reading for parents, teachers, and teens of both sexes.”
“If you read any book about girls in the next decade, make it The Triple Bind. Dr. Hinshaw masterfully articulates the intense and hidden pressures that every one of our daughters endures. Most important, he offers us solutions.”
“Society is failing today’s girls, pressuring them to achieve success at levels they cannot possibly attain. Now that Stephen Hinshaw has named and explained The Triple Bind, it’s up to all of us to better support the healthy development and inner well-being of girls. A must-read.”