Giving Girls the Ability to Say No

They look just like women. They might even make love just like women. But, as Bob Dylan once observed and a new report on teenagers confirms, they break just like little girls.

According to the report “Teenagers Under Pressure,” commissioned by Seventeen magazine and the Ms. Foundation for Women, today’s girls in many ways have become stronger and more sophisticated than in the past. They take school seriously, they participate in sports and volunteer activities, they expect to live in somewhat equal relationships with men.

When it comes to dating, there’s no doubt teenage girls are also more aggressive than they used to be. Fifty-eight percent of all girls admitted to making the first move when they wanted to go out with a boy (78% of boys said a girl has made the first move), according to the report.

But when it starts to get serious, they cave in to boys who pressure them for sex and then can’t handle the intimacy.

Even when they know they aren’t ready for sex, many girls don’t have the confidence to stand up for themselves and say no. The majority of girls (76%) and boys (58%) agreed that the most common reason for teenagers to initiate sex is because the boys want it. Most of the girls regret it later.

Eighty-one percent of the girls who had had sex said they wish they had waited until they were older. Interestingly, even 60% of the boys said they also hadn’t been mature enough.

The poll surveyed 500 girls and 500 boys ages 13 to 21 in randomly selected households nationwide.

Caroline Miller, editor in chief of Seventeen, said the results mirror the “avalanche” of letters the magazine receives from girls who can’t handle sexual situations and can’t talk to their parents. A typical situation, she said, is a younger girl who finds herself alone with an older boy in his home when his parents aren’t there.

Similarly, other questions in the survey showed that girls are also less confident than boys, less comfortable standing up for themselves and not as able to handle criticism--all traits that hinder their abilities to navigate the world of work after they leave school.

To Miller, the survey only confirms the toll being exacted by a combination of pressure to grow up, freedom and a lack of parental support for both boys and girls. “Society says, ‘Why can’t girls just say no?’ A 14-year-old is supposed to say no to an 18-year-old, a guy whose parents and teachers can’t say no to him either?”

Pasadena internist Dr. Drew Pinsky, co-host of the nationally syndicated teen call-in show “Lovelines,” said he has also detected a growing acceptance among young people of the notion that there is such a thing as being too young to have sexual intercourse. “The feelings that come out of these intimacies are startling to young people. They’re not ready for it,” he said. Girls particularly end up feeling abused because their relationship expectations are so different from boys’, he said.

Usually, he said, 18 is an age when people can begin to make reasonable decisions about their sexual behaviors and relationship choices.

Now that the word about the disadvantages of early sex is coming from teenagers themselves as opposed to adults, Pinsky said he expects to see rates of teenage sexual intercourse, and consequently the rates of pregnancies and disease, drop significantly in the next few years.

Meanwhile, he said, parental attitudes can clearly make a crucial difference in buttressing teenagers’ coping abilities. Rather than lecture girls about sexual behavior, Miller suggests parents start early on to help girls realize their feelings matter.

Said Miller: “You want your daughter to be able to disagree with you comfortably, to argue for her position, negotiate, stand up for herself and get used to criticism.”

Even in the ‘90s, she said, “The most corrosive thing we do is teach girls they have to be peacemakers. Those are the girls who find themselves caving in to pressure.”

* Lynn Smith’s column appears on Sundays. Readers may write to her at the Los Angeles Times, Life & Style, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. Please include a telephone number.