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Alpha Girls By Dan Kindlon In the new book Alpha Girls, Dan Kindlon takes a look at what he considers to be a new generational trend – high-achieving adolescent girls with positive self-images and dreams of success. Clearly, Kindlon has identified an important segment in the population of today’s girls and offers several insights regarding their thought processes, interests, and goals. He even goes so far as to point to reasons why these girls are so driven and confident, a lot of which, he says, has to do with the strong influence of fathers.
While it’s clear society has changed in many ways (yes, the numbers of women in college is catching up to and even exceeding that of men; yes, many fathers today seem to be taking time to be more involved in their children’s lives), Kindlon has sought out a certain type of girl and generalized her characteristics to those of a generation. He admits that many of the girls he interviewed came from privileged white backgrounds. Furthermore, while he also admits that, according to an Adolescent Life Survey distributed to over 900 boys and girls in both the United States and Canada, 20% of girls could be considered alphas, he goes on to say that “we came to feel that, in many respects, when we talked about alpha girls we were talking about a whole generation.” This, simply, is not true. Many girls (likely that other 80%, in fact) could not be described as “alpha girls.” Their perceptions of themselves may be suffering, they might shy away from math and science in schools, perhaps they fear competition with boys, and they may even suffer from an eating disorder (research shows that millions of adolescent girls in the United States do). Some of Kindlon’s data is also confusing – for example, 83% of alpha girls claim that “working mothers can have relationships with their children that are just as warm and secure as mothers who do not work,” and 74% say the same of fathers. However, half of these respondents also claim that “a preschool child is likely to suffer if both parents work full-time.” (Most alpha girls seem to want both a successful career and a fulfilling family life, and maybe do not have all of the information necessary to figure out how to accomplish this.) Furthermore, there is no evidence to say that women of this sort did not exist in previous generations; in fact, Kindlon says that these alpha girls owe a lot to their moms, many of whom worked outside of the home, displayed their own independence, or encouraged their daughters to make their own choices in life without falling prey to the inhibitive views of others. These women were likely the “alpha girls” of the previous generation, perhaps evidence that this phenomenon is not new. Although it does not seem that Kindlon has sufficient information to generalize that the upcoming generation is one made up mostly of alpha girls, Kindlon does suggest a very real and important occurrence in society. It is an intriguing and inspiring thought, that many girls do not have inferiority complexes and plan to work hard in order to achieve their full potential in life. This is fantastic news, worthy of praise and further study; but in the mean time, let’s not overlook that other 80%.
Click Here to Purchase At Amazon.com: Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She Is Changing the World