The Girls Leadership Institute: An Antidote to Girl-Powertainment?

There's a lot that's very feel-good about Rachel Simmons' Girls Leadership Institute, a two-week summer camp for girls in the Berkshires. There's some high fivin' girl power action meant to equalize "mean girls" and shy girls and all the other types of adolescent girl personalities that young women adopt to make it through middle and high school.

There's training in conflict management and voicing one's fears, emotions, needs, and desires. There's a ban on fat talk. There are turquoise feather boas rewarded to "Fierce Fabulous Females." There's hugging, crying, jumping, bonding.

But ultimately, is a $2,650 summer camp that focuses on Fierce Fabulous Females really addressing the issues that many young women face today — being paid less than men, being blamed for suffering rape or harassment, being objectified and discriminated against based on their bodies and their races — or is it simply teaching girls in largely well-to-do situations how to avoid (or not become) mean girls?

At first, prepped by the backlash against girl-powertainment, I was critical of the Girls Leadership Institute. It seemed like something that predominantly wealthy girls could put on their applications to Vassar and Smith, something that would cement values that have most likely already been imbued in them via the privileged situations in which they grew up.

But, even though it seems to cater mostly to girls from the middle and upper classes (25% of the girls are scholarship students from single-sex charter schools), I think the Girls Leadership Institute is ultimately a positive thing. It revives a girl power concept that has been so demoralized by Britney Spears-esque disingenuous sexuality that it feels more like a brand than a way of being. It doesn't assume that girl power equals the freedom to writhe around in fishnets or paint one's nails green.

It addresses the fact that girls face very different pressures from boys during adolescence and, until institutionalized sexism and attitudes towards women begin to change, that girls must learn certain behaviors that are assumed by boys: speaking their mind, for example, or looking people in the eye and disagreeing. A combination of prevalent gender stereotypes and girl-on-girl aggression makes girls much less likely to demand their rights (equal pay, an end to bullying or harassment) and much more likely to retreat into submissiveness and self-doubt. Meanwhile, this girl-on-girl aggression is rarely addressed or tackled as a real threat to girls' well-being.

Rachel Simmons has written on these subjects: "Odd Girl Out," about the devastating effects girl-on-girl aggression can have on young women's development, and "The Curse Of The Good Girl," about how girls feel pressure to tame themselves into sweet, accommodating personalities that make everyone happy. Simmons seems to have a grip on not only on the pressures young girls face, but also on the ways in which these pressures can be addressed: head-on, directly, in a safe environment that allows girls to speak their minds free of pressure and judgment.

Of course, programs like the Girls Leadership Institute have to complement awareness and changes in schools and, above all, in communities and society at large. But I can't help thinking of what a difference it would make if more girls, especially from underprivileged and immigrant communities, could have a shot at inhabiting a space for at least a few weeks where they could assert and believe in themselves.

Photo credit: Laurenbepe