SENTINAL WATCH September 25, 2006 Issue

WOMEN AND WORTH—MORE THAN THE DESIGNER PURSE

ELAINE FOLLIS

I HEARD about two high-school girls, one of whom deliberately wrecked the other's reputation by spreading vicious lies. Apparently this is nothing unusual. According to two books I recently read, cliques, gossip, and drama often characterize women's interactions.

Rosalind Wiseman's Queen Bees and Wannabees discusses friendships among adolescent and teenage girls; while Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities, by Alexandra Robbins, involves college sorority life. Both books underscore the issue of worth among women and girls. Whether in an eighth grade classroom or a sorority house living room, when "queen bees" set the bar of social acceptability, other girls jump to scale it. And why? Because they buy into the idea that the standards their peers set define who they are and what they are worth. With their own consent, they turn over control of their lives to someone else. Unfortunately, they may also be tempted to turn their lives over to drugs, alcohol, promiscuity—all in search of that elusive quality of worth and self-esteem.

Indeed, the quest for worth takes many women on a merry-go-round that never stops. And this vulnerability isn't really new. It traces all the way back to the story of Eve. She turned over her life to a talking snake. Ridiculous as that sounds, it is no more so than turning over one's life to the persuasions of a clique that carries designer purses.

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