Reviving Ophelia 25Th Annivers, Pipher, Mary Phd

In 1994, Reviving Ophelia was published, and it shone a much-needed spotlight on the problems faced by adolescent girls. The book became iconic and helped to reframe the national conversation about what author Mary Pipher called a girl-poisoning culture surrounding adolescents. Fast forward to today, and adolescent girls and the parents, teachers, and counselors who care about them find themselves confronting many of the same challenges Pipher wrote about originally as well as new ones specific to today.

Girls still struggle with misogyny, sexism, and issues of identity and self-esteem. But theyre also more isolated than ever before: They dont talk face-to-face to the people around them, including their peers, as they used to: Theyre texting or on social media for hours at a time. And while girls today are less likely to be in trouble for their drinking or sexual behavior, they have a greater chance of becoming depressed, anxious, or suicidal.

In this revised and updated Reviving Ophelia, Pipher and her daughter, Sara Pipher Gilliam (who was a teenager at the time of the books original publication), have incorporated these new issues for a 21st-century readership. In addition to examining the impact that social media has on adolescent girls lives today, Pipher and Gilliam explore the rising and empowering importance of student activism in girls lives, the wider acceptance of diverse communities among young people, and the growing disparities between urban and rural, rich and poor, and how they can affect young girls sense of self-worth. With a new foreword and afterword and chapters that explore these topics, this new edition of Reviving Ophelia builds on the relevance of the original as it provides key insights into the challenges and opportunities facing adolescent girls today.