Packaging Girlhood - Annotated by Sharon Lamb & Lyn Mikel Brown (Paperback)

About the Book

The authors present an eye-opening look at how culture, media, and marketers dictate what girls should look like, enjoy, become, and consume--and what parents can do about it.

Book Synopsis

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).

From the Back Cover

Advance praise for "Packaging Girlhood"
"Be prepared to be shocked and saddened as you come to see the world of sex, shopping, media, body-fat, and self-esteem through the wide eyes of today's American girls. Be prepared, also, to find invaluable guidance and insight from authors Sharon Lamb and Lyn Brown who know our daughters from inside out. This is a must-read for parents and teachers who want to steer girls away from marketing schemes that distort female power and authority, and towards true self-acceptance and authentic empowerment."
-Polly Young-Eisendrath, author of "Women and Desire" and "The Resilient Spirit"
"Lyn Mikel Brown and Sharon Lamb 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. In "Packaging Girlhood," they provide solid ways for families to help girls stay rooted in reality while buffeted by the powerful winds of commercialism. In the process, we parents learn more than a little about staying rooted in reality ourselves. This is the kind of guidance that families need, especially if they think they are immune from marketers' schemes."
-Joe Kelly, President, Dads and Daughters
"With compassion, insight, and humor, ÝLamb 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. "Packaging Girlhood" is filled with useful information and practical suggestions for adults wishing to help girls critique and rewrite consumer culture's narrow and toxic portrayals of girls. Never judgmental and always illuminating, "PackagingGirlhood" reflects Lamb and Brown's deep respect for girls and their first-hand understanding of the dilemmas of parenting."
-Lynn M. Phillips, Ph.D., Department of Communications, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
"A tour de force of excellent scholarship put in a very readable context and chock full of practical suggestions to parents for change! In "Packaging Girlhood, "Lamb and Brown expose the manner in which our daughters whom we believed had been newly reinforced with "girl power" actually remain enslaved in the gender straitjacket of a narrow and distorted set of messages about what being a "real girl "or young adult female is all about.
A must read for anyone who teaches, works with or wishes to support girls (from tots to teens) in our society and for every parent of a daughter who wants to give her child a legacy of meaningful possibilities instead of a prepackaged world of inhibiting stereotypes."
-William S. Pollack, Ph.D., author of "Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood"

Review Quotes

"...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

"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

About the Author

Sharon Lamb is professor of psychology at Saint Michael's College in Vermont and the author of four books, including The Secret Lives of Girls. Her research on girls' development, teenagers and sex, and abuse and victimization is widely cited. As a clinical psychologist, she often works with girls, listening to their struggles and hearing their strengths, in her private practice in Shelburne, Vermont.

Lyn Mikel Brown, professor of education and human development 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 organization, Hardy Girls Healthy Women (www.hardygirlshealthywomen.org).