Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Crisis of Overachieving Girls. Liz Funk. New York: A Touchstone Book, 2009. 244 pages.
Accused of being an occasional Supergirl myself, I was intrigued by Liz Funk’s Supergirls Speak Out,
a book offering to reveal the Supergirl psyche through interviews and
case studies. There are many books about Supergirls, perfect girls,
those girls that seem to always get it right–whatever it is. We have
read about the connection to eating disorders, self-hatred, anxiety,
exhaustion and now Liz Funk joins the bandwagon with a how-to guide for
those desiring to take it down a notch.
Let me begin
then by saying that this book should under no condition be given to any
young woman you think might be a Supergirl, if you do not want to
encourage a storm of masochism that might well lead her into the
sanatarium. The adolescent girls in this book will make any Wonder Woman
you know seem relaxed. Liz Funk worked so hard that besides the usual
list (an A student, editor of the school newspaper, president of a
foreign cultures club, class treasurer, etc.) she had a literary agent
by tenth grade. At the wise age of nineteen, she has published this book
on her overachievements on the way to taking it easy. She now lives in
Manhattan with a seemingly successful writing career that many college
students would envy. Her overachieving self seems to have brought her
many rewards...why is she discouraging others from doing the same?
Her
bio claims she spent a long time wishing she were Carrie Bradshaw, to
learn that “it would be more fun (and more fulfilling) to just be
herself” and certainly herself seems to have succeeded at that. The five
girls she follows closely, and many of the 100 women she interviewed
for the book, are exemplars of adolescent perfection. The problem she
explains is that these women are fulfilling goals without a sense of
pleasure in their accomplishments, or life. Her book hopes to encourage
these women to laugh, and take life a little more lightly. Undoubtedly
these young women deserve to cut themselves some slack but, given the
case studies she shares, they can afford to do so since their hard work
has borne fruit.
Many Supergirls, in fact, do not see
results like the ones described here, and far more difficult is
explaining to those girls why they should not work as hard as they do.
Despite their dieting, they are not a size 0 (since the goal is
obviously to disappear). Despite their makeup, clothes and hair stylist
they are not attracting hordes of admirers (since constant recognition
is the requirement). Despite their grades, extra-curricular activities,
charity work and part-time internships, they did not get into the school
of their choice (since there are only a dozen or so acceptable colleges
to attend). These girls worked hard, and for naught.
This book will only make those girls feel worse.
Not
because those girls did not work hard enough but because there has
never been the competition for school admittance or jobs as there is
today. Every girl, and every boy, who does not have the advantage of a
trust fund and a parent who will ensure that every one of their contacts
is notified about the brilliance and availability of John or Jane
Junior, needs to work harder, better, faster, smarter than others. The
race begins earlier than a young mind can apprehend which is why parents
manage and manipulate their children into the right schools,
activities, therapists, friendships. Is this ideal? No! Is it what you
see if you live in Liz Funk or Carrie Bradshaw’s Manhattan? Most
certainly, yes.
In her chapter on feminism, Liz Funk
points out, these Supergirls are on auto-pilot, meeting deadlines and
goals, despite Betty Friedan’s warning years ago that living through
someone else is easier than “to become complete yourself.” She explains
that society needs to learn to accept women for who they are, “to not
punish women for being born female, and to stop expecting them to
compensate for their gender with resumés,” a tired and true statement
among many that fill this book. Funk seems to believe that her trite
repetition of past feminist sayings will break through the hard shell of
Supergirls’ success drive so that they will begin “sleeping late and
reading Cosmopolitan”–a statement which leads me to doubt she has
altogether absorbed some of the underlying messages of the feminists she
quotes. Betty Friedan was right in her time and because she was, the
nature of the problem has subtly changed so that the equivalences Funk
presents–superachiever is linked to popularity, dieting is for love and
attention–are simplistic. Her work would have benefited from reflecting
on these overachieving women not from the standards of the women’s
rights movement several decades ago, but through the altered lens of
today.
Her book concludes with advice from other
Supergirls on how to relax. Planning time off is key, she explains.
Doing it until it feels natural is the only way to make it normal. Think
about who you are, what you want and what life you desire, she adds.
This advice is good, available in most women’s monthly magazines, and
unfortunately avoids addressing the complicated fear of what happens
when you do pick a different life, one not scripted, not even by a
Supergirl like Liz Funk.
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