The statistics are nothing new.
By high school, only 29% of girls describe themselves as happy the way they are and only 23% feel that they are "good at a lot of things."
While 28% of boys will argue with a teacher when they believe they are right, only 15% of girls will do the same.
Reading about these figures in newspapers, released in a 1991 American Association of University Women study, hit journalist Peggy Orenstein "between the eyes."
Orenstein wrote "SchoolGirls" (Doubleday, $23.50) to put a face with the figures.
Actually, there are many faces. Like Amy Wilkinson's. Marta Herrera's and Becca Holbrook's.
Amy's academic triumphs are eclipsed by the tiniest of mistakes, Marta ponders joining a gang just to fit in and Becca is burdened with her mother's confessions of marital rape.
Tomorrow, Orenstein will appear on "The Morning Exchange" to discuss her book and what she learned on her "gender journey."
The former managing editor of Mother Jones magazine and freelance journalist spent a year in two California middle schools: the suburban "Weston" with mostly white, middle-class students and the inner-city "Audubon" with mostly low-income minority students.
Orenstein changed the names of the schools and the students to guarantee anonymity.
She tracked several eighth-grade girls at each, chatting between classes, watching their actions in science labs, hanging out at school dances and even attending a slumber party. Orenstein also interviewed their parents, teachers, friends and relatives.
The result is a narrative that paints a sometimes bleak picture about growing up a girl in America.
At the suburban school, Orenstein introduces the reader to Nate, an eighth-grade boy who frequently interrupts math class by shouting out answers, and to his teacher who tolerates and inadvertently encourages his behavior.
"I think my opinions are important, so I yell them out," Nate said to Orenstein. "Girls will sit there until the bell rings with their hands up and never get their questions answered."
At the inner-city school, Orenstein introduces 13-year-old La-Rhonda who frequently misses classes to feed and dress her four younger siblings and get them off to school.
"I can't help it," she tells Orenstein. "I have to be responsible for my little brothers and sisters. My mom can't do it by herself. There's just too many of us."
The book touches on issues like sexual harassment, racism, eating disorders and the double standards that make boys studs and girls sluts. Was Orenstein surprised to see such young girls confronting adult problems?
"In some ways it's all surprising, in some ways it's not," she said. "There have been a lot of gains for women in the last few years, but it's not like we are rid of the conflicts. Why should they be, when we, as adult women are not? They see everything we do."
Orenstein said the most shocking thing she observed was the girls' obsessions with thinness and body image. While she described her own struggles with bulimia at 16, she said the attitudes she observed in girls like Becca were still disturbing.
Even though Becca is so thin that many of her friends call her Twig, she still tells her mother one day, "I can't go to school today, I'm too fat," Orenstein writes.
"To see these girls on the cusp of puberty, already obsessing about their weight and thinness, was frightening," Orenstein said. "The words anorexia and bulimia are like a talisman with them. They say 'Are you anorexic? Cool! So am I!' as if the fact that they are too thin means they can never be too fat.'
To her chagrin, Orenstein said many times she was sucked into traditional ways of dealing with the girls. To strike up a conversation, she would comment on their cute haircut, instead of what they had just said in history class.
"Or sometimes I would be talking to a girl, or looking at her paper and a boy would come over and try to pull me away," Orenstein said. "Instead of just saying no and doing my job, like the good girl that I am, I would pull myself away from what I was supposed to be doing and pay attention to him."
Orenstein said she is prepared for criticism that the book puts a focus on girls, without examining why boys have problems in school or at home.
"But our world has been saying for years that the things boys do deserve more attention," Orenstein said. "When I was writing this, people would say 'Well, what about the boys?' Yes, boys have problems, too. But for years and years we've been talking about the boys' problems. As soon as you turn the lens to girls, then everyone starts asking about the boys.'
Schools need to strive for gender equity and teachers to be more aware of how they treat boys and girls differently, she said.
"There are so many forces at work in children's lives that there are no villains," Orenstein said. "But some teachers just can't teach what they don't know."
Parents need to talk to their sons and daughters about gender issues, said Orenstein, who hopes families will use her book as a springboard for discussion.
"It's also really important for girls to have time just with other girls," Orenstein said. "It gives them a sense as a group and lets them know that with the problems they are facing, they are not alone."
