BodiMojo Teen Health Blog – Teenage Nutrition, Fitness, Stress, Relationships & More

Just shy of  New Year’s eve, various PBS stations around the nation will air the one-hour premier, “A Girl’s Life.” (See local listings for December 30, 8 p.m.) Produced by Powderhouse Productions with author Rachel Simmons, it is meant to be a companion piece to the “Raising Cain: Exploring the Inner Lives of American Boys” (2006).

I was privileged to see a “women only” screening of the program earlier this month in a small intimate movie theater outside of Boston and immediately sorry that the program was not the two-hour length of its brethren show. The program tracks certain coming of age issues among four teen girls’ lives – classic concerns in a contemporary landscape.

What’s unique about the program is that at least 30 percent of the footage was filmed by girls, leaving some scenes with a bumpy but realistic sensibility. On the one hand, is it refreshing that “A Girl’s Life” was not shot entirely through the eyes of adults or heavy on expert commentary (although Rachel Simmons, Jean Kilbourne, and danah boyd offer some important insights); on the other hand one is left with an uncomfortable sense that we aren’t doing enough for today’s girls  and no clear answers presented themselves.

Take for example, Analuz, a 15-year old athlete whose developing body does not fit the cultural ideal for women. She has a hard time finding a dress for her coming-of-age party. When it comes to formal wear there are few teen dresses on the racks for large size young women. It’s as if the retail industry ignored them entirely, although the average U.S. dress size is a 12-14, not 0-2. The scene in the department store dressing room is heartrending – one in which women of all sizes and shapes could relate to. Her mother  buffers the pain with her intuitive understanding and unwavering support of Analuz.

There is Libby, a 14-year-old victim of cyber bulling instigated by her BFF. The onslaught of text messages maliciously enlisted her entire eighth grade against her. It was not brought to adult attention until she finally crumbled after months of ostracism, hiding herself the school  bathroom  and finally calling her dad. It is an instructive story on the consequences of technology paired with female gossip and relational bullying – not to mention the stoic nature of many children not to share their distress with the adults in their life for fear of even worse consequences by peers. This segment alone should be shown to middle schoolers and parents across the nation as a lesson in the values, responsibility and ethics in a digital age.

The digital landscape is again brought to bear in the most violent of segments, with 16-year-old Carla, a leader of an inner city “crew” – a female gang. Here we see violence escalating as she and her family are threatened. The aggression was not left on the street, however, but was posted on YouTube by the rival girls from cell phone footage. We witness the hair pulling, face scratching, and cheap punches edited to make the rival group look triumphant. Eventually, a community mentor comes to Carla’s aide, leaving us with a sense of hope for this girl’s future. Carla commented at one point, “I want to be a lawyer. I like arguing!”  I could not help but wonder what her rivals would make of the airing of this show.

An perhaps the most classic of the four segments is the narrative of Sonia, an 18-year-old immigrant girl worried that she may not get the financial aid she needs to attend a good college. We want for her the opportunity of success so she can leave East Harlem, N.Y.,  pursue her dreams, and make her Mexican parents proud. Unlike the female rivalry presented in Carla’s story, this segment spoke loud and clear of the value of an all-girl education in an experimental N.Y. high school, where personal integrity, community, and collaboration seemed the primary mission. Failure was not an option.

In the end my dilemma was whether I’d want my 12-year-old to watch this. She has not yet experienced any of the challenges of these four girls. My first instinct is “Do No Harm” – avoid presenting new knowledge that one could eventually misconstrue and turn against oneself or others. Maybe I should wait a few years? Upon consideration, watching this with other mothers and daughters could make for quite an important group discussion – and possibly prevent harmful behavior and foster healthy ones. In the end every one of those four girls had an important connection with an adult who helped usher them through difficult moments – a mother, a father, a mentor, and teachers.

It also would behoove PBS to sponsor a second hour – filming girls, their parents, schools and  communities at large, actively offering solutions and setting examples. While the issues seem core to adolescence specifically and human nature at large – connection and loneliness, isolation and inclusion, love and violence, adversity and success – the rules keep changing and we need to keep the dialog open.