For
girls coming of age in a culture which
measures their value by the size and shape of
their bodies, adolescence can be devastating.
In
1991, "Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging
America," the landmark study by the American
Association of University Women, showed that
girls' self-esteem drops markedly after
puberty. The research confirmed what mothers
knew from our own experience. During the next
five years, a flurry of books addressed a
condition which psychologists Lynn Mikel
Brown and Carol Gilligan in their book,
Meeting at the Crossroads, named "loss
of voice". Schoolgirls and Reviving
Ophelia stimulated mothers to discover
new ways to support our daughters so that
they would not fall into the same murky abyss
of confusion, shame, and loss of identity
which we had experienced.
My
own daughter entered sixth grade the
following year. On a school camping trip, a
group of mothers shared our fears about what
lay ahead for our daughters. We decided to
get together and start a girls' group at our
school.
I
don't know how successful our classroom
attempts were. We examined the media's
influence on the female body image, re-wrote
sexist fairy tales, role-played peer-pressure
situations and family conflicts and tried to
model the principle that girls could be
anything they wanted. For our daughters, it
was challenging and intrusive to have their
mothers enter the middle school scene.
One
day our arrival in the classroom was met with
a protest organized, I believe, by my
daughter. The girls were angry that they had
to come to girls' class when the boys were
enjoying PE! We knew when our credibility was
on the line. We changed the schedule.
But
the best fruit of our efforts was when we
stopped meeting at school and began meeting
at each other's homes, eight mothers with our
eight now-seventh grade girls. We argued and
discoursed with one another over marvelous
potluck suppers while the girls watched tv or
chatted in the hot tub! But we had drawn our
circle in the sand, and the girls knew it was
a circle of support.
In
neighboring Marin County, Beth Hossfeld had
an experience very like our own. She, too,
was raising daughters. She remembered her own
adolescence as a time of self doubt. "I was
plagued with a weighty self-consciousness
that had me overly concerned with
appearance." Those years were "turbulent and
chaotic, with concerns about sexuality both
central and yet unexpressed verbally.
Confidence and communication were both in
short supply." Like us, she wanted her
daughters' lives to be better.
Beth
started a girls' circle in her home with her
older daughter, her nieces, and their
friends. It continued for five years, with
some girls staying through to their senior
year. A licensed marriage and family
counselor, Beth went on to publish Girls'
Circle, a handbook for holding similar
groups.
Through
a mutual friend she met Giovanna Taormina,
who had also started a group for her
daughters modelled on her own experience in
women's circles. The two joined forces to
create trainings for parents, educators and
therapists who wished to facilitate girls'
groups.
Roberta
Walker is one mother who used Beth's book to
start her own continuing girls' circle at
Guerneville School; she wrote about her
experiences in our Fall issue. So many girls
have expressed interest in joining it that
another "girls club" was started at the
school, led by Mo Renfrow, mother of three
daughters.
Roberta
and I talked with Beth and Giovanna one
Saturday morning at a bookstore café
in San Rafael.
Do
girls still need support during
adolescence?
Beth
and Giovanna have discovered that interest in
girls' circles is not only growing, but it
crosses all demographic divides. "We realized
there is no boundary as far as the type of
people that come to us," said Giovanna.
Whether for Girl Scout groups or kids on
probation, community leaders, church leaders
and parents are eager for ways to strengthen
girls.
Girls
circles work
"I
work with the fifth through eighth graders at
St. Hillary School in Tiburon," a Catholic
School. Beth told us. "This year, we did a
peer leaders group for seventh and eighth
grade girls, who then led lunchtime circles
for fifth and sixth grade girls.
"The
young girls just soaked it up, plus they
loved it that the older girls wanted to be
with them."
Circles
provide a matrix or container that validates
the changes each girl is going through.
Learning that they are not alone and having
the opportunity to give voice to their
experiences is empowering. "They go on to do
more, they become very active in their
schools or communities," said Beth. "I can't
think of a girl who's slunk away from herself
or had a harder time. Some said that without
the circle they couldn't have gotten
through."
Giovanna
told us that in her first circle, "We did a
lot of ritual, different types of ritual
&endash; The girls developed a sense of
feeling good about the range of emotions and
the different things that we go through.
"They
got in touch with their power."
A new
study by Noreen Ostrowsky confirms that
girls' circles bolster girls' self esteem.
Ostrowsky developed a service learning course
for the psychology and education students at
the University of Michigan's Morris Campus,
based on Beth's book. In their first semester
they studied women's and girls' psychology
and facilitation skills, and in their second
semester they went into the community and
co-facilitated girls' circles for middle
school girls. The circles were supported by
community organizations like Rotary Club, so
there was no cost to the families.
"They
found that girls' self esteem maintained,
which is significant in itself," said Beth.
The
circle itself is magic
Groups
and locations may vary, but the circle format
is essential. Said Beth, "There's a wisdom to
the circle. It puts everyone in an equal
space and it's so nonthreatening in that way.
It brings a physical focus.
"The
circle is so powerful and so nurturing and so
non-judgmental that there's room to express
the things that we're most uncertain about.
There's no constraints on what you should or
shouldn't say, and there's no pressure. One
girl said, I realized that I could tell the
group things that I would never tell my very
best friend."
The
circle is sacred. "There's something about
the circle that separates it from every other
occasion, " Giovanna added, "something apart,
a unique time and space. It's very ancient,
and the girls tap into that, as I tap into it
when I'm holding the groups.".A simple
opening ritual sets the tone. "Whether it's
having some music playing or a candle going
when they walk in, this is a unique time and
space, and everything here stays within
here."
The
format developed by Hossfeld and Taormina
includes six parts: after the opening ritual,
the theme is introduced, followed by a
check-in. Then the girls participate in an
activity which gives them an opportunity to
express their feelings about that particular
theme through art or writing. Often the work
is done in silence, so that the girls can
work without distraction, really noticing
what is going on within themselves. Sharing
follows, and a brief closing ritual which
ends on a note of affirmation.
Guidelines
are established by each group. In general,
eight basic principles provide a foundation
for respectful communication. They include:
confidentiality; nonjudgemental attitude;
active listening; focus on one's own
experience; offer experience, not advice; no
interruptions; freedom to choose whether or
not to speak; shared decision-making. "In the
circle we have council format, which means
that everyone gets to speak and everyone else
just listens," said Giovanna. "They know that
others are listening fully and can't
interrupt. What they're getting outside is
just crosstalk &endash; crosstalk &endash;
crosstalk." The creation of safety and
confidentiality is essential to the
work.
The
hottest topic is &endash; Sex!
Safe
space provides an opportunity to talk about
very sensitive issues. "My experience is that
girls are totally starved for talking about
menstruation and the meanings of it," said
Beth. "There's so much anxiety for the kids
when they're starting to get into it, feeling
so exposed, so we try to make it a natural
process for them and give them respect that
they're coming into their
womanhood."
For
older girls, sexuality is the focus. Beth
said, "There's nowhere that girls get the
ability to talk about their own natural
desires as they develop into sexual beings.
The stereotypes are so huge and maybe bigger
than ever. What's a slut, sluts and
players…
"When
the girls have an early sexual experience,
there's so much shame that's riddled in
there. There's nowhere to talk about it in a
way that they can process the complexity of
that experience and all the meanings of
it."
What
worries her is that "Kids will begin to
identify with a particular label. Maybe the
part of them that's kind of curious gets
involved with someone to check something out,
but then they're completely shamed &endash;
and then their choices begin to reflect
feeling less and less of an ok
person."
The
old gender gap still applies. "There's a lot
more acceptance of boys' sexual desires,"
added Giovanna.
"Girls
are still basically giving their bodies to
hold onto the relationship," said Beth, "and
it's still about the guy, and the girl
thinking if I do this then he'll stay with
me."
Giovanna
was "absolutely shocked" at the number of
girls engaging in oral sex at a young age.
"To me, it's something that is so personal
and you've got to get to know the person, and
also it's a give and receive thing, and to
them it's more of a give, like servicing.
Very shocking."
Said
Beth, "The other thing is the relationship
between alcohol and sex. They come to circle
and they say, I'm just sick about this thing.
I went to this party, I got wasted and then I
did this thing with this guy, and then I saw
him the other day and I literally almost felt
sick to my stomach, these horrible bad
experiences and there's nowhere to talk about
that stuff."
For a
few moments, the humiliation of those early
experiences held us. We four had been
embraced by the circle, where what comes up
is what is most deeply felt.
A
circle within a circle
"The
thing about circles is you don't need to
identify that there's something wrong with
you. We're all in this culture trying to
figure out how to live," said Beth. And it's
not easy.
The
magic of the circle is that it allows us to
feel what we feel. Knowing that we are not
alone, we are strengthened in our ability to
find our way in a world still hostile to our
deepest feelings.
Perhaps
when the circle becomes the paradigm of
social organization, as Jean Shinoda Bolen
predicts it must, we will find ourselves
living in a world where our feelings are
validated, and our voices are strengthened by
being truly heard.
To find out more about Girls' Circle and
facilitator trainings, go to www.girlscircle.com
