Curse of the Good Girl
Being good is bad. Being bad is good. That’s the message communicated in Rachel Simmons’ book, The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence. “Our culture is teaching girls to embrace a version of selfhood that sharply curtails their power and potential,” says Simmons. “In particular, the pressure to be ‘Good’—unerringly nice, polite, modest, and selfless—diminishes girls’ authenticity and personal authority.”
Simmons argues that The Curse of the Good Girl “erects a psychological glass ceiling that begins its destructive sprawl in girlhood and extends across the female life span, stunting the growth of skills and habits essential to becoming a strong woman.” According to Simmons, “Being Good is a fundamentally self-limiting experience.”
Simmons, a Rhodes Scholar, founding director of the Girls’ Leadership Institute, and a consultant to schools and organizations around the world, wants young women to consider how being a Good Girl limits them, and how being a Bad girl would empower them. Simmons believes that “Bad Girls”—those who are outspoken, proud, and rebellious rule-breakers, and commanding attention—have qualities that are, in fact, very good.
“The decision to be Bad is equally a sign of courage, the willingness to resist convention and be who you want to be. Bad Girls take up space with their bodies and voices; they are immodest, tough and proud. They don’t care what other people think.” According to Simmons, having girls embrace their inner “Badness” is the key to overcoming the “poisonous” impact of the pressure on girls to be “Good.” “Real girls” know that there is no right or wrong way. They reject good and bad stereotypes and pick and choose for themselves the ways in which they want to be good and bad.
“Good” and “Bad” drain girls of their authenticity by telling them who and how to be. . .A Real Girl has both Good and Bad in her and available to her. She chooses who she wants to be, and her internal architecture is by her own design.”
Simmons claims that for women, “Equality is the freedom to create a life of her own design.” In order to break the Curse of the Good Girl “we must give every girl the tools and permission to be herself, whoever that is. . .” Some of the “tools” she suggests are the ability to identify one’s own thoughts and feelings, and the communication skills to make those thoughts and feelings known.
Simmons concludes that, “When girls can no longer agree upon the answer to the question, ’Who is a Good Girl?’ we will know they are free to be themselves.” Her aim is to educate girls to get beyond an external definition of “Good” and “Bad,” dictate their own standards, have the authenticity to be who they truly are, and the power to claim what they want to be.
For me, reading this book was aggravating. Simmons advanced some very good ideas about equipping young girls to be aware of their thoughts and feelings and to communicate them in an authentic, open way. Teaching young women communication skills is something that I definitely advocate. But her categorization of what constitutes “good” and “bad” and her insistence that girls cannot rely on an external standard to know “good” and “bad” were maddening.
Simmons underlying claim that being good is a “fundamentally self-limiting experience,” that girls should choose to be “bad,” that women will only be self-actualized and powerful when the dichotomy of good and bad are overcome, and that women have the authority to choose and create their own measure of right and wrong, were merely an updated take on 1970’s feminist drivel.
As I was reading, the Lord’s warning about mixing up right and wrong constantly came to mind: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!” Isaiah 5:20-21 (ESV)
If we really want to help the next generation of girls, we’ll expose the falsehood behind Simmons’ message. We’ll teach them that there is an external standard of right and wrong to which they ought to align their lives—God’s standard. And that being bad is bad, and being good is good.
Satan tempted Eve to embrace a version of selfhood that he said would increase her power and potential. He convinced her to rely on her own compass for knowing good from bad, right from wrong. He convinced her that she had the right to determine who she was, and what her womanhood was all about. Women ever since have a sin tendency to succumb to the same sin. Simmons is wrong. It’s not “The Curse of the Good Girl” that diminishes woman. It’s the Curse of Sin that tempts us to ignore God and try to decide for ourselves what is bad, and what is good.
© Mary A. Kassian
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Mary, thanks for exposing us to this crazy thinking. What will they come up with next? Isn’t it amazing how many colorful, cute, and savvy packages Satan can devise to wrap the same ol’ lie in?!?
You have reminded me that one of my main task as the mom of a teen girl is to teach her that indeed there is a black and white code of right and wrong. It’s God’s standards, found in His Word. It never changes or deviates, and it certainly never suddenly becomes bad for us to do or be what is good!
Once again you have helped me to refocus on the huge task at hand. Thank you for your encouraging and enlightening words. Blessings!
Kay
[...] Goodness and normative ethics fer gurls. [...]
I enjoyed your thoughts, thanks. I couldn’t help but think of “sugar and spice and everything nice” vs. “slugs, and snails and puppy dogs tails.” There does seem to be a “badness” wrapped up in maleness–a function I believe, of testosterone. Scratching head…
To be honest, I’m surprised that someone actually wrote this book. Considering Simmons seems to be highly involved in community, it is surprising to find that she actually thinks this is a beneficial way of living. I teach high school girls and I can say first hand that girls who want to serve themselves in a ‘bad’ way only create hardship for themselves and others. I find it hard to believe that Simmons feels this way when she’s cut off in traffic by a ‘bad girl’ or when a ‘bad girl’ treats her poorly!
I have not read the book yet (I intend to because I am curious). I fully agree that we need to be concerned about the “bad girl” encouragement if Simmons is encouraging girls to behave in a self serving, power hungry, uncompassionate fashion. I am concerned when anyone is encouraged to behave that way as it usually causes them to forget that each person is a child of God and that Christ is in everyone we meet.
However, I do think there is a certain “badness” that does need to be encouraged. I am not talking about the badness of the powerful business executive who has betrayed and crushed everyone in her way on the way to the top, that’s selfishess. I’m also not talking about the badness of the girl who skips classes, does drugs and goes home with a different guy every night. There is nothing useful in that kind of rebellion. I am talking about the badness of the woman who stands up for what she knows in her heart is right despite the consequences of doing so (and those consequences can be severe). This woman chooses God for her moral compass rather than the conventions laid out by her peers (which are not necessarily Godly).
I’m thinking in particular of the badness of the woman who was healed by touching Christ’s cloak. She broke one of the deepest social rules of her time by touching a man while she was on her period (for 12 years), and by touching a man who was not her husband. And she did it because she had faith in Christ. She knew, because of her faith, that if she just touched His cloak, she would be healed. It was the right thing to do. But by doing it, she broke all of the social mores of her time. She was a bad girl.
The authenticity and strength we need to encourage is the strength to be who God has called us to be despite what society tells us. It’s the “badness” that leads us to blow the whistle on unethical or criminal activities going on at work even though we will likely be fired and justice never served in this lifetime, or the “badness” that causes a young girl to tell the Queen Bee at her school to stop picking on the girl with strange clothes and funny hair even though she will never have someone to sit with at lunch again.
Women who are unerringly nice, polite, quiet, people pleasers generally don’t do that sort of thing. Daring to follow your moral compass rather than the mob mentality you face everyday requires that you assert yourself by using your voice and taking up space.
As I said, having not read the book yet, I don’t know what sort of badness Simmons is encouraging; but I do think that having the faith, strength and integrity (and the ability to not care what others think of you) to dare to do right despite the fact that you will be labelled bad by your peers, is the sort of “badness” we need more of from our women.
Good point. I agree with you 100% – but I would call that boldness, not badness. Girls should be bold about standing for goodness and rejecting badness. Badness, to me, has connotations of moral compromise. Sadly, we live in a culture that continually wants girls to think that bad is good. “Badness” is something the Bible never condones. To be fair, I do think that in some cases, it is boldness and not badness that Simmons is actually advocating. My main issue with her book is that her language is very unclear. It muddies the water and implies that good is bad and bad is good – and tragically, this is a message that our girls get all the time. Intentional or not, Simmons reinforces the concept that moral goodness is bad.