See Jane.
See Jane become a teenager.
See Jane deal with her body.
See Jane struggle.
Adolescence has always been a time of physical (and all kinds of other) changes. The ways teenage girls experience those changes today is radically different than it was in the 1930s, when the Dick and Jane books first appeared.
To help youth workers address this shifting landscape, we have reviewed some of the latest research and examined the implications for ministry with girls.
See Jane try to be sexier.
New research: Those of us who care about girls intuitively have sensed the pressure to be “sexy” damages the way they view themselves and others. A 2007 report by the American Psychological Association (APA) spells out the destruction more explicitly. Whether it’s a 5-year-old girl walking through a shopping mall in a short T-shirt that says “Juicy,” or a magazine article promising teenage girls that losing 10 pounds will get them the boyfriend of their dreams, sexualization is linked to impaired cognitive performance, eating disorders, low self-esteem and even physical health problems.
More than 77,000 invasive cosmetic surgical procedures are performed on teens each year, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. While that in and of itself is shocking, consider this: Minors cannot undergo these surgeries unless their parents consent. In most cases, because these procedures are not covered by medical insurance, parents pay for the surgery, as well.
Much attention has been placed on the messages that the media sends to young girls about their bodies, and rightly so. What about the messages from mothers? Youth workers are noticing more and more moms seem to be competing with their teenage daughters for the perfect body and wearing clothes that show off their efforts. Girls are struggling to keep up. With bodies that change faster than they can handle, and certainly more unpredictably than their mothers’, adolescent girls may find themselves in a losing race with their moms to be sexier.
How you can respond: Schedule a girls-only series of small groups and invite moms or female mentors. Include a separate discussion with the moms and mentors about the messages they may unknowingly be communicating to their girls when they make either negative or positive comments about their own bodies, as well as their daughters’.
Have a similar conversation with male and female volunteers and small group leaders in your ministry, discussing the ways our own pursuit of physical perfection as adults shapes the attitudes and behaviors of the girls with whom we work. Talk honestly about the ways we might be contributing to girls’ confusion by gravitating either toward or away from a girl who flaunts her body. With your female volunteers, role-play conversations about a girl trying to be sexy, then ask her how she views her body, as well as why she wears the clothing she chooses.
Give a notebook and some art supplies to your middle school girls who are ready to think more deeply and let them create their own journals to help them reflect on the pressure to be sexy. After a few weeks or months, have a check-in lunch and ask them to review their journals and identify common words and themes they can discuss together. By teaching girls to journal and name forces like pressure, image management and sexualization, we’re equipping them to interpret and process their experiences and feelings. Simply being able to identify and name their experiences can help young teenagers make sense of what feels like chaos.
Help high school girls who already are adept at making sense of their chaos (at least on their better days) learn to view their bodies in more reflective and sophisticated ways. Yes, your girls need to exercise and pay attention to nutrition, but it’s not so they can look better in their swimsuits this summer. It’s because God made their bodies and wants to be honored in their treatment, which means integrating healthy disciplines. Through honest discussions and our own self-disclosure, we can help our girls find a healthy middle ground between the two extremes of body obsession and body neglect.
See Jane explore how far is too far.
New research: First the good news: Teenagers who take a virginity pledge delay sexual intercourse and have fewer sexual partners than those who do not.
Now for the not-so-good news: The delay of first sexual intercourse is only about 21 months, with the average age being 18.8 for pledgers and 16.11 for non-pledgers.
Approximately 75 percent of teens who make a promise to God, family, friends, future mate and future children of abstinence before marriage DO NOT succeed in keeping that promise. What’s worse, students who take a pledge are less likely to use a condom at first intercourse and more likely to engage in other sexual behaviors (i.e., oral sex, anal sex). Research suggests our efforts to help girls “stay pure” might be too focused on avoiding specific behaviors and not focused enough on a deeper transformation of hearts and attitudes toward sexuality.
How you can respond: We’re not totally anti-abstinence pledge, but instead of using statistics or fear to get students to “just say no,” perhaps we should try giving students a vision for the benefits that happen when they “just say yes” to God’s desires.
Remind students their hormones are God-given, and God’s intention for them is to abstain from sex until marriage. Couple a pledge with a more significant ritual related to abstinence on a retreat or at a special gathering.
Involve parents and invite them to think beyond a purity ring and instead give girls a camera so they can see their purity through a new lens, or a pocket mirror inscribed with the words “God’s Image” to remind them each time they open it their worth comes not from their sexuality but from God’s image residing in them.
Rather than focusing our conversations on “how far is too far” (which rings empty to most of our kids anyway), maybe we can help shape a new perception of female sexuality that helps girls integrate their sexuality with the rest of life (including their spirituality) so they can set wise boundaries with their bodies before they enter a romantic relationship.
See Jane play. See Jane sit.
New research: There’s mixed news about girls’ sports these days. While more girls than ever are playing organized sports, overall they are becoming less active and less healthy (yes, even those who play a sport). Outside of organized sports, girls seem literally to be sitting around a whole lot more than prior generations. Girls lag behind boys in meeting age-appropriate healthy levels of physical activity, and they drop out of organized sports more often, especially as they transition from childhood to adolescence.
It’s true: Some girls do throw like girls. Researchers studying the influence of body image on sports have found the way a girl feels about her body predicts how she’ll throw a softball. If she has learned her body is an object, and she needs to be concerned about her appearance at all times, she is far more likely to “throw like a girl.” Adolescent girls on sports teams tend to have higher self-esteem, which improves body image, but sports can be a double-edged sword for girls, especially given that studies show popular media still overwhelmingly sexualize women’s sports, focusing on women’s bodies rather than their athletic competence. One recent study found 76 percent of teen girls had received sexist comments about their athletic abilities.
How you can respond: Give girls appropriate ways to express their physicality, even if they aren’t jocks. What message are girls learning about their bodies by the sports or physical games involved in your youth ministry? Are these games targeted only to guys while girls sit on the sidelines and watch or cheer? How can you bring new twists to games so differences in strength and athleticism are neutralized and the playing field is leveled?
A girl who lacks confidence in her body or her athletic prowess and chooses to sit on the sidelines during volleyball might dive in and play a modified volleyball game in which everyone plays on their knees, or you play with a balloon instead or a real ball. Experiment with minimizing the competitive focus of games and emphasize fun and relationship-building instead (which of course is good for girls and guys).
Of course, girls also will be far more likely to get off the bleachers and into the game if your female adult volunteers understand the power of their own modeling. Every time your female leaders sit out, they are saying it’s not only permissible but preferrable for girls to sit on the sidelines. Instead, involve your female leaders in planning the games, and when it’s time to play the game, hand over leadership to those same women so girls see women not just playing, but taking initiative and enjoying it.
See Jane buy … and feel bad about herself.
New research: OK, it’s no shock that girls are a huge consumer market, but recent research shows another twist: Teen materialism has been linked directly to self-esteem, especially among younger teens, particularly among girls. When self-esteem drops (most often in early adolescence), materialism sky-rockets. When selfesteem goes up, materialism drops—again, especially if it goes up in early adolescence. Unfortunately, self-esteem usually does not begin to rise again until later adolescence.
How you can respond: Give girls opportunities to increase their self-esteem by helping them identify and use their natural and spiritual gifts. Do girls experience themselves in your ministry and church as more than just a kitchen helper or a nursery worker? If not, brainstorm with your team until you develop a strategy for changing the perceptions and roles of young females across the spectrum of church ministry.
Teach girls how to advocate. A few years ago a group of 13- to 16-year-old girls was able to convince Abercrombie and Fitch to pull a line of T-shirts boasting slogans such as, “Who needs brains when you have these?” across the chest. Their “girlcot” is only one of a number of successful examples of girls advocating for the reduction of cultural sexualization of women.
See Jane soar.
While some of these new research findings are downright scary, the more time we spend with creative youth workers, the more hopeful we become. Let’s work together to see the Janes in our ministry love God with their hearts, minds, souls—and their bodies, too.
