The 1996 and 2006' proportion of girls and women in the United States

    1. Caitlyn started high school a few years ago, and, in contrast to her middle school years, she became very popular and was invited to all the parties. Even though her social schedule was filled, her grades went up. The only complaint that her father had was that she seemed to spend a great deal of money on clothes. Her mother defended her saying that girls' clothes cost more. The counselors at school praised Caitlyn as a model student who was sure to get into top colleges. The parents, however, eventually received a call from the emergency room saying that Caitlyn overdosed on Xanax and Vicodin. The nurse said that two other girls in the past week overdosed on the same medications. She was not spending money on clothes, but rather on drugs. In Caitlyn's purse was a suicide note to her parents. Dr. Leonard Sax Why Gender Matters, 139-141. Dear Mom and Dad, I'm sorry to be doing this. I know how much this will hurt you. But there just isn't any other choice for me. I guess you guys still don't know that I've been doing drugs for a long time now. I started in eighth grade. At first I just used Adderall to lose weight. And it worked. I really thought I could get away with it. It was so easy to fool you guys, along with everyone else. Everyone just looked at the surface. People saw how thin I got, and everyone thought it was just great. They envied me. They never wondered: How did that fat girl get so thin? Adderall was wonderful - except for the palpitations and the nausea and the headaches. But that seemed like a small price to pay. Then I started having panic attacks. So say hello to Xanax. Even with Xanax I never could get really calm inside. Until I discovered Vicodin. For a while I thought I could still pull it off. Especially because I knew other girls were doing it. I felt like I was juggling a dozen balls in the air all at once. Maybe I could just keep juggling forever. I had a routine: Adderall in the morning, Adderall and Xanax at lunch, Xanax after school, Xanax and Vicodin at bedtime. No problem. Then the drugs stopped working. Not all at once. Gradually I tried taking more. I increased the Vicodin to two a day. Then four. Then six. Then ten. The side effects got to be awful. I thought about stopping all the drugs, just going cold turkey. But that would mean going back to being fat and stupid. I could never get the grades I was getting without the boost from the drugs. And I couldn't stand the thought of being fat and ugly and stupid again. Once you've tasted the glory of being everyone's favorite girl, how can you give that up? The truth is that the real me is an ugly, fat stupid girl. I hate her. And I just can't go on pretending, taking drugs and trying to fool people. And I hate having to lie to you guys - about what I'm spending all the money on, about how I'm able to stay up all night studying, about how I lost all that weight. And I don't want to be the person that I really am. I don't like that person. She's ugly and stupid and fat. Please forgive me. Love always, Caitlyn Analyze the note. What is Caitlyn's problem with her identity? Comment on this quote from the letter: "Adderall was wonderful - except for the palpitations and the nausea and the headaches. But that seemed like a small price to pay." Caitlyn did recover but we will talk about that later. 2. “Between 1996 and 2006, the proportion of girls and women in the United States taking anti-depressant medication roughly doubled, from 7.5 percent to 13.4 percent: more than one in eight females in the United States now takes antidepressant medication... 'as prior studies have shown that adolescent girls have generally reported and exhibited more symptoms of depression and anxiety than adolescent boys, and this gap seems to be increasing.' ... Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University has studied the situation [on anxiety] in the United States today compared with 40 or 50 years ago. Psychologists have been asking kids pretty much the same questions since the mid-1960's: 'Do you ever feel so anxious that you can't concentrate or focus? Do you ever feel so anxious that you can't get to sleep or stay asleep?' Fifty years ago it was unusual for a teenage girl to answer those questions 'Yes' ... Not anymore. Professor Twenge finds a continuous rise in the prevalence of anxiety, with girls consistently and significantly more anxious than boys." Leonard Sax, Girls on the Edge p, 4-5. “Estimates of the prevalence (of cutting behavior) among teenage girls have been rising steadily over the past decade, with most estimates now at or above 20 percent” Leonard Sax, Girls on the Edge p. 94 Why do you think so many teen girls are depressed? Why do so many teenage girls report anxiety? What are the sources of stress and anxiety for girls in adolescence? Cutting behavior in teenage girls was almost unheard of in the 80’s so why do you think it is increasing so much? How do the biological changes that a girl is going through at puberty influence the way she behaves? What frustrates girls at this time? Adolescent girls often complain that their parents do not understand them – what should the parents understand? What is it that you (if you are a woman) did not feel understood about at that age? What should mothers and fathers do for adolescent girls? Several of you have mentioned social media as having an influence but I need you to be more specific. Just what does social media do to girls? How has their writing, posting behavior changed them? What sorts of things do they post? How do the things they see on social media influence them? How much time do they spend on social media? What were girls doing with themselves before they were on social media?