Inside the Dangerously Empty Lives of Teenage Girls

If you were a teenage girl what lengths would you go to in order to fit in or become popular, no matter how dangerous the situation may be? Dr. Leonard Sax, a family physician and founder of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, is the author of two books concerning the effects of gender differences and focusing on teenage girls and their complicated lifestyles. Sax had 3 main ideas that he talked about in the article he wrote “Inside the Dangerously Empty Lives of Teenage Girls.” The article was referring to how teen girls are living a rougher and more dangerous lifestyle than teenage boys. Sax talks about how many girls suffer from eating disorders, depression, binged drinking, and how they are obsessed with photo shopping there self images. The third key point that Sax focused more on and may have not realized it was that the article and the statistics are based more on the lifestyles of girls who live in larger cities in the United States, rather than other places throughout the world.

Sax’s first main idea, girls living a rougher more dangerous lifestyle than boys, is a stereotype and is not true. Girls and boys are two very different genders and have different opposite lifestyles. It is true that girls may be more vulnerable than boys in some cases, but this is because their bodies are built differently as well. The point that was brought up in the Maclean’s article was that “The guy who’s captain of the hockey team, who’s popular, is not secretly cutting himself. But the girl who’s popular, captain of the basket ball team and doing well in school, is.” This is another false statement. One reason why Sax may be so stereotypical is that he does not have any boys of his own. He has one daughter and his wife whom he lives with. His focus may be on his daughter all the time, trying to make sure that she does not encounter all the problems out there that he believes she is exposed to in her everyday life from other girls at school, or the media. The fact is, both teen boys and teen girls have the some of the same issues they suffer. While girls may be more competitive in being popular or looking better than the others, boys are competitive in things such as sports, and videogames.

The second idea Sax talks about is how many girls suffer from eating disorders, depression, binged drinking, and how they are obsessed with photo shopping themselves to portray a better self image. Once again this is very stereotypical. These obsessive disorders can happen to anyone ranging in age. Sax writes “I’m the skinny girl, that’s an accomplishment. It’s normal to be anorexic.” There are a lot of people out there who suffer from eating disorders, not just teenage girls. “These girls believe it’s a lifestyle choice, not pathology.” The photo shopping of self images is a true fact. “Girls tend to care more about how they look and what they did yesterday, rather than who you are and what you want to be.”

The last main idea that Sax turned his attention to was the facts he was stating were based mainly on the larger cities in the United States. If he had looked