They may be the smartest ones in their class, but barriers still exist that prevent some young women from raising their hands when they know the answer.<\/p>\n
The concept of \u201cdumbing down\u201d is one of several challenges faced by girls that are explored in a new book by Brock University Child and Youth Studies professors.<\/p>\n
Shauna Pomerantz and Rebecca Raby have spent the past six years examining the issues that academically successful females encounter.<\/p>\n
Their new book, Smart Girls: Success, School, and the Myth of Post-Feminism<\/em>, investigates how girls deal with stress, the \u2018supergirl\u2019 drive for perfection, race and class issues, and the sexism that is still present in schools.<\/p>\n The book explores what it means for girls to \u201cdumb down\u201d and includes stories of students who felt the need to giggle and ask for help in the classroom even though they knew the answers.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the heels of Trump\u2019s win and on the heels of what we are seeing to be a backlash against racial and gender gains that we have made, I think that the book can contribute to a bigger conversation about what work still needs to be done in the 21st century,\u201d said Pomerantz, an associate professor.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not anywhere as far as we think we are.\u201d<\/p>\n During their research, Pomerantz and Raby interviewed 71 girls and boys between the ages of 11 and 18 who attended 15 public, Catholic and private schools across Niagara.<\/p>\n Some of the girls interviewed felt the need to offset their intelligence by being conventionally pretty, exceptionally nice, thin or athletic, while others would keep quiet about their smarts in order to keep it from their peers, said Raby.<\/p>\n \u201cGirls\u2019 lives are complex,\u201d she said. \u201cThey still experience sexism. There are challenges with really dominant popular conceptions of femininity that girls have to try and negotiate.\u201d<\/p>\n Pomerantz said the book is meant as a \u201ccritique of the way girls are talked about currently around education and schooling, particularly in the media.\u201d<\/p>\n Girls\u2019 academic successes are often touted in headlines, while the suggestion is made that boys are falling behind and require additional attention, Pomerantz said.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t believe the hype. We\u2019re not in a post-feminist movement,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cGirls still need attention, so do boys. We can\u2019t focus on one at the expense of the other. We have to look at what\u2019s going on overall.\u201d<\/p>\n The goal of the book is to put girls back on the agenda.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to show is that whether girls are smart or not, they\u2019re still struggling in ways that we don\u2019t really talk about or see anymore,\u201d Pomerantz said.<\/p>\n The book is geared toward the general public with the aim of showing how teachers, administrators, parents and the media can help young women thrive.<\/p>\n Smart Girls<\/span><\/i> is available at the Brock University Campus Store, both in store and online<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Chapters online<\/span><\/a> and in store, as well as on <\/span>Amazon<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n A book launch is scheduled to take place Friday, Feb. 10 at the Niagara Artists Centre in downtown St. Catharines.<\/p>\n The event, sponsored by Brock\u2019s Social Justice Research Institute, Social Justice and Equity Studies, and the Department of Child and Youth Studies, begins at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A new book by Brock University professors Shauna Pomerantz and Rebecca Raby explores the challenges that academically successful young women encounter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":43441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3319,1,4,5,38],"tags":[45,4893,128,1083],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43440"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43440"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43472,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43440\/revisions\/43472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}