“The New Girl Order”, By Kay S. Hymowitz

I really enjoyed reading Ms. Hymowitz’s article. I find it to be very convincing and beautifully written. It has a lot of statistical data, personal anecdotes and examples. I believe the author covered everything in her essay on this particular topic. She defined the term SYF (Single Young Females), discussed their preferences and life styles and even tried to predict SYF future outcomes.

While reading the article I was constantly trying to detect Kay S. Hymowitz’s position on this topic. At the beginning I was thinking that she wasn’t happy about how the things were going because she was stressing the fact that the only things young women are interested in today are partying and living single lives producing no children. She describes: “ The lifestyle also means whole new realms of leisure and consumption, often enjoyed with a group of close girlfriends: trendy cafes and bars serving sweetish coffee concoctions and cocktails; fancy boutiques, malls, and emporium hawking cosmetics, handbags, shoes, and a $100-plus buttock-hugging jeans; gyms for toning and male-watching; ski-resorts and beach hotels” (478). But later in the article I found out that the author is actually a feminist who fully approves the current order of things. And I absolutely share this opinion with her. In my opinion it is great that women today have become so much independent from men, well educated and self-confident. Their lives have definitely become better, happier and more interesting than the lives of their mothers and grandmothers.

People’s life span has also significantly extended, so why to hurry into marriages and burden oneself with kids at early age? Moreover if the desire of starting a new family doesn’t die among the women and most of them eventually get married and become perfect mothers for their kids. In addition I believe that women at their thirties become even better wives and mothers due to their maturity and life experience.

“Saplings in the Storm”, by Mary Pipher

Even though it is difficult to argue with Mary Pipher, who is a practicing psychologist, family therapist, cultural anthropologist, and must be a real expert in the field of gender-related issues, there is still something that I don’t agree with.

Yes, it’s true that girls profoundly change with the onset of adolescence but why there is a generalization that all girls loose their selves and the only thing they start to do is just pleasing the people around them?  I believe that puberty can become a great stimulus for some of the girls. I remember in my elementary school there were girls who seemed diffident, intimidated and with a heap of complexes. And in high school nobody could recognize them. These girls have blossomed: all complexes vanished and now they were the most pretty and self-confident people.

So, puberty is a turning point in teenagers’ lives but it is not necessarily a point to the erroneous direction.