Ophelia Part 1

Polly’s story:

Dr. Pipher opens Her book with “Polly’s story” – Her childhood remembrance of a vibrant, tomboyish, outspoken, take-no-prisoners Girl who hit the invisible brick wall of puberty and found that that role, though tolerable for a Girl, was not acceptable for a Woman.

So after some struggle, Polly became what society expected – fashion-conscious, demure, watching from the sidelines as the boys did the thinking and speaking -- a different person entirely.
“I was the only one who mourned the loss of our town’s most dynamic citizen,” Pipher writes.

Saving the world

Our world is very sick – full of angry men and damaged Women.

Never before in the history of humanity has it been this bad. Look at the number of people on anti-depressants; look at the number of suicides, of people rotting in prison; of anorexics and self-cutters and fractured families.

Some of our problems are as old as humanity. Some old evils have, if not vanished, at least subsided, such as the slave trade and the denial of Women’s suffrage. But always before, there has been an escape valve. There has always been a frontier, whether Qumran, Plymouth, the Canadian border or the Wild West, a place to which misfits and oppressed people could escape the evils and the perceived evils of their old world and start over, with room to breathe and self-governance far from the oppressor’s legions.

No more. The world has become a very small place and there are no more frontiers. For the first time in history, we can’t escape the stench of our social sewage. We have to deal with it and we are doing a terrible job.

This is mirrored in the lives of our children, who once had “frontiers” of their own – fields and forests to which they could escape when the pressures of adults upon them became too great. Those Norman Rockwell days have gone, too, and the children suffer. Boys squirm all day in school, with no recess; squirm some more in day care centers and well-intentioned after-school programs; and get no relief, and find their only solace in video games and acting out.

Something must be done.

And what of Girls?

I have begun to read a very important book: Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls.

I would like to share what I learn here and discuss it with you all – how this author believes we can help the Girls in our world to escape the poisons of our society and grow up confident and happy.

If we – both Women and men – are to be part of the solution to save our common humanity – then saving the selves of adolescent Girls is vital. Girls grow to be Women and unhappy, self-hating Girls logically grow up to become unhappy, self-hating Women.

And the boys and men who love them, suffer too, seeing their pain and feeling helpless to cure it.

And in turn, Women who are miserable and hurt, are in no position to help the men in Their lives to deal with their own male doubts, insecurities and frustrations – and so the vicious cycle worsens.