From Self-Confident Girl Scouts to . . . ?

Annie is 11 years old, with a face full of freckles. She has opinions she wants known.

“Girls should do what they want!” she says.

She is having a hard time sitting still. The subject of girls-and-what-they’re-good-for-anyway can get her a little riled. She has a brother.

The folding chair on which Annie is perched, just barely, bounces against the blacktop as she talks--more like shouts. The voices of her friends, fellow Girl Scouts from Fullerton’s Orangethorpe Elementary School, momentarily fade out.

“It’s supposed to be a free world!” she says. “We should be allowed to do what we want to do!”

To a one, Annie’s friends practically jump up and cheer. To a one, they are full of enthusiasm, self-confidence and the belief that they can be whatever they want when they grow up. All it takes is determination, wits and OK, OK, a little luck. No matter. They have it all.

“Girls can do anything boys can do, only better,” says 11-year-old Nicole.

“There are more men doctors, and the girls are being stuck as nurses!” says Annie. “So I’m going for pediatrician!”

Sitting here listening to these girls, I believe. They are funny, opinionated and brave. Their backgrounds are diverse, their skins different shades. Some of their mothers have jobs, others careers, and some stay home with the kids. Not all their fathers live at home.

Right now, none of this seems to matter. These girls are so sure that what they have to say is important that they can’t wait to broadcast the news. They talk so fast I’m having trouble taking it all down.

Flash forward to the year 1997. By then, most of the damage to these girls’ self-esteem will probably already have been done.

Now is when Annie and her Girl Scout friends are, statistically, at their most assertive and self-confident. They are 9 to 12 years old.

“Adolescence is a tough time for both girls and boys,” read the findings of a recently released survey of 3,000 American children commissioned by the American Assn. of University Women.

“As girls and boys grow older, both experience a significant loss of self-esteem in a variety of areas,” it says. “However, the loss is most dramatic and has the most long-lasting effect for girls.”

Here’s an example that the study cites. When elementary schoolboys were asked how often they felt “happy the way I am,” 67% answered “always.” By high school, 46% still felt that way. With the girls, however, the figures dropped from 60% to 29%.

The survey findings confirm what smaller, more anecdotal studies have found in the past.

In the struggle for equality, girls are still losing ground.

As I write this, women are deployed as soldiers in the Persian Gulf. They are holding elected office, welding steel, fixing cars and raising children full- or part-time. They are competing against men. When they “win,” they are usually paid less for a comparable job. Women are taking what they can get.

None of this, of course, is new. The women’s movement brought it all up for debate. The process of change is ungainly, with many setbacks, and the question remains, “How do we know when we win?”

The finish line still seems a long way down the road.

Now the Girl Scouts in Fullerton are in a more reflective mood, something that’s not easily accomplished when they’re talking about boys.

“They act like they can do everything!” says Stephanie, who is 9 years old.

So I ask her if she thinks that she cannot.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that they walk up to people, like, ‘I’m going to beat you up!’ ”

“Yeah,” says Bethany, who’s 10. “Like ‘I can do this and you can’t! ‘ “ Here Bethany employs her best grade-school whine. Everyone knows that’s how boys talk.

“They act like they’re cool,” Annie pipes up. “Like they’re a lethal weapon!”

“Macho is pretty stupid,” says 12-year-old Frances, summing up.

The girls agree that boys might need their pity, because everybody knows that girls are best.

Then Tiara, who’s 12, tells me this:

The other day a teacher asked if she’d like to race against the fastest boy in the school. Why, yes, Tiara would, even though, she points out, she just had her street shoes on.

The fastest boy in the school was decked out in his running best.

The boy won the first round. Everybody on the playground was watching. Then the teacher suggested they try it again. Tiara came in first. The fastest boy in the school got “really mad.”

As she tells her story, Tiara’s pals offer sympathetic nods, uh-huhs, and adamant “yeahs!” Then Tiara gets a bit sad.

“Later I felt kind of a little sorry that I won,” she says. “I told him that I didn’t mean to win. I was just racing for fun. I mean, he really took it hard.”

“Boys,” says Frances. “They can really be annoying.”