Opinion | A Message for Girls About Womanhood

Is being a woman really all that awful?American popular culture and media have a long history of being less than generous toward the female sex.But it’s hard not to see today’s dominant cultural and social messages about womanhood as especially bleak.Think of everything captured in the celebrated cri de coeur “It is literally impossible to be a woman” from America Ferrera’s character in “Barbie.” Girlhood and female adolescence are treated like hurdles to overcome en route to a lifetime of persisting.

Looming womanhood is something to stress over — a matrix of dire statistics about sexual violence and unwanted pregnancy often exacerbated by scare stories on social media.Girls are repeatedly told how women are discriminated against and abused, the victims of “toxic masculinity.” They hear about the pay gap and the lack of affordable child care.This pessimism was only reinforced by the second election of Donald Trump, a known sex offender.

His victory was seen as a setback for women; the defeat of Kamala Harris, a reflection of entrenched misogyny.Girls were apparently left weeping by the implications for both their day-to-day existence and their future.

True, 45 percent of women voted for Trump, but for the rest of us, end times: “What are the other women — those who feel that they’re living in a nation that is hostile to their very existence — to do?” a writer for The Atlantic asked.Given this grim outlook, who wouldn’t bemoan or regret her sex?Girls are already feeling stymied and dispirited.According to a 2023 survey of more than 17,500 girls, girls’ self-confidence has plunged since 2017.

Their levels of anxiety are way up.In a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 53 percent of girls reported extreme depressive symptoms.There are plenty of reasons behind these trends.

But it’s worth asking if part of the problem is that girls see womanhood less as something to look forward to than as something...