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Pipher, M. (1994). Reviving Ophelia: Saving the selves of adolescent girls. New York: Ballantine. ISBN 0-345-39282-5. $12.50 (paperback). 304 pp.
The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. (1997). Physical activity and sport in the lives of girls: Physical and mental health dimensions from an interdisciplinary approach. University of Minnesota: The Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport. Available from: 203 Cooke Hall, 1900 University Avenue S.E., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455; or can be downloaded from: http://www.kls.coled.umn.edu/crgws/
Recently, I sat waiting with a group of mothers as our daughters finished their practice at the gym. As mothers do, we were exchanging "war stories" about raising adolescent girls. One mother stated, "We never acted like that, did we?" We all fell into our own thoughts about our experiences as adolescent girls. Presently, one mother broke the silence, "You couldn't give me a million dollars to be an adolescent again!" We all laughed and nodded our heads in agreement. Not one of us wanted to live through again what our daughters were living through right now. Yet all the mothers waiting there would have done anything to make it easier for their daughters than it was for them. So, just what is so difficult about being an adolescent and being female? And what can we, parents, professionals, and citizens, do to make it better for adolescent girls?
In Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, Dr. Mary Pipher gives voices to adolescent girls, who tell us their stories of being female and a teenager in America today. Pipher also gives us advice on what we, as a society, can do to make our culture more nurturing and less "girl-poisoning" than it is. In a recently released report, Physical Activity and Sport in the Lives of Girls: Physical and Mental Health Dimensions from an Interdisciplinary Approach, sponsored by the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sport (PCPFS), a well-respected group of researchers provide another glimpse of what it means to be young and female and what role physical activity and sport can play in helping girls reach their full potential. While Pipher uses a collection of qualitative case studies of individual girls and addresses a breadth of issues affecting them, the PCPFS report...