Is Overachieving Bad for Girls?

Dan Kindlon's new book, "Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She Is Changing the World," begins in the pastoral setting of a typical suburban New Jersey high school. The students read excerpts from "Reviving Ophelia," Mary Pipher's 1994 bestseller that painted a Modigliani-esque portrait of teenage girls -- depressed, anxiety-ridden, self-mutilating and self-loathing.

But 12 years after the publication of Pipher's book, Kindlon and the Jersey girls he is chatting with are convinced that American girls have had a real psychological makeover. Sarah, a sophomore, asks, "Who are the girls in this book? I mean, I feel sorry for them, but they're pretty much losers."

Kindlon holds up young women like Sarah -- girls with high GPAs, stacked extracurricular resumes and Ivy League dreams -- as the new Athena archetype. An alpha girl, he explains, is "a young woman who is destined to be a great leader. She is talented, highly motivated and self-confident." Through interviews and an impressively large survey (900 girls and boys across the United States and Canada), Kindlon concludes that alpha girls have an "emancipated psychology." They are no longer slowed down by empathy or emotionality, and are now free to pursue success with rabid dog competitiveness.

Unlike Kindlon, I don't see Sarah's dispassionate reaction towards those in pain or her peers' full throttle drive towards achievement as cause for celebration. What are we teaching young women about success and well-being? How has the baby-boomer legion of superwomen influenced the way a new generation of "alpha girls" envisions their worth in the world? How do we measure progress?

Kindlon and many others cheer at the idea of a nation of young women resembling Reese Witherspoon's character in the movie "Election": hard-working and high-strung, taking classrooms and boardrooms across America by storm. A flurry of feminist self-congratulation followed Jennifer Delanhunty Britz's March 23, 2006, New York Times op-ed, "To All the Girls I've Rejected," in which she admitted practicing affirmative action for boys at Kenyon College because there were simply too many qualified young women.

I am more inclined to sound a word of warning. Ambition that is not tempered by wisdom is dangerous. It can lead to a soul-sucking, endless search for a sense of satisfaction that will never come from blue ribbons or promotions. It can lead to loneliness, secrecy, disease. Contrary to our very American disposition, achievement, accumulation and public recognition are not tantamount to true progress.

During the course of researching my book, "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body," I heard "Sarahs" across the country voice their suspicion that to be a success, they had to be infallible. Under this impossible pressure, many of them developed eating and anxiety disorders that they kept secret from even their closest friends. In a 2001 survey of Duke undergrads, the overwhelming concern of young women was to appear not just perfect, but effortlessly perfect.

It's true, my generation of women has broken records and taken names. Women now outnumber men on college campuses by at least 2 million. A recent report by the National Council for Education Statistics concludes that girls consistently outperform boys on reading and writing tests, and are more likely to have taken algebra II, AP/honors biology, and chemistry than their male peers. They are also more likely to participate in music, performing arts, belong to academic clubs, work on the school newspaper or yearbook, or hold office in student government.

Here's the big "but": 7 million American girls and women have eating disorders. Panic disorders and depression are twice as likely in women and 75 percent of autoimmune illnesses affect women. This is not progress without pain.