cover image The Triple Bind: Saving Our Teenage Girls from Today’s Pressures

The Triple Bind: Saving Our Teenage Girls from Today’s Pressures

Stephen Hinshaw, with Rachel Kranz. . Ballantine, $25 (228pp) ISBN 978-0-345-50399-2

Hinshaw, chair of UC-Berkeley’s psychology department and an authority on childhood ADHD, enters a cultural minefield: why do today’s teenage girls, despite enormous opportunities, seem crippled by increased rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, violence and suicide? Hinshaw’s sweeping diagnosis is “the triple bind,” or society’s expectation that young women possess traditionally feminine attributes such as empathy and selflessness, but also succeed in typically masculine arenas such as competitive sports and cutthroat career paths, and finally, generally “conform to a narrow, unrealistic set of standards that allows for no alternative.” Hinshaw identifies academic pressures, sexed-up pop culture, Internet voyeurism and girl-on-girl bullying as sources of overwhelming stress and conflicting ideals for girls. Yet his study suffers from an identity crisis of its own: while Hinshaw shines in conversations with troubled young girls, he plays the role of cultural critic rather than psychologist in offering elaborate analyses of TV shows such as Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy while providing little hard evidence—or testimonies from girls themselves—on how these shows affect girls. Hinshaw neglects his strengths and, in turn, offers little in the way of solutions. (Feb. 10)