Celebrating Girls: Nurturing and Empowering Our Daughters (Paperback)

by Virginia Beane Rutter (Author) "THE WORD CELEBRATE comes from the ancient Greek word melpo-meaning to sing, to dance, to praise!..." (more)
Key Phrases: celebrating girls, puberty ceremony, puberty ceremonies, Changing Woman, Mother's Day, Sunrise Ceremony

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Raising a daughter? As Peggy Orenstein concluded in Schoolgirls, girls still view their gender as a liability. How then, can parents who are concerned about the sexist restrictions society tends to heap on girls help their daughters honor the feminine inside? What kinds of modern daily rituals and special initiation ceremonies can help a girl through her transitions, and help her celebrate her life? In Celebrating Girls, Virginia Beane Rutter offers specific ways to help raise self-esteem, make girls understand that they do matter, assure their physical self-confidence, empower their minds, and support their creativity.

From Publishers Weekly
How can we help girls find confidence in their femininity in a postfeminist society wherein they continue to be shortchanged both emotionally and developmentally? Rutter, a Jungian analyst in California, suggests that some answers lie in ritual and celebration. Many of her recommendations reflect actual rites of passage practiced by Native Americans and other tribal peoples. Rutter sometimes adopts a melodramatic New Age stance, e.g., her glowing report on a "group menarche ceremony" at something called the Menstrual Health Foundation: Coming of Age Project. She devotes an entire chapter to promoting water-related activities (from bubble baths to river rafting) to help young women get in touch with their "watery essence," which is her metaphor for "the ebb and flow" of feminine emotions. Yet, underlying even the loopiest prescriptions is a perceptive mind. Rutter adeptly suggests ways mothers can use traditionally feminine pastimes?shopping, storytelling, even brushing or braiding a child's hair?to instill in a daughter a strong sense of self. An empathic (and savvy) mother, she asserts, can even "reorient" a teenage daughter's avidity for makeup and clothes so that it is no longer a desperate urge to be accepted by her peer group, but a means to assert an idiosyncratic sense of self. (Aug.) Health
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Conari Press; 1st THUS edition (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573240532
• ISBN-13: 978-1573240536
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #497,399 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An answer to Reviving Ophelia, March 8, 2001

By A Customer

Reviving Ophelia, while necessary and in my opinion accurate, was pretty discouraging. It talked all about the problems of how girls' self-esteem plummets during puberty. And it compares girls to a tree in a hurricane who need the support of others to survive. But Reviving Ophelia doesn't give much advice as to what a parent can do.

I really liked this book because it gave a lot of concrete examples of how to make your daughter proud of being a woman. From doing the hair of a toddler to coming of age ceremonies, this book had a lot of good suggestions. I also liked that it had examples of how things are done in other cultures such as certain Native American or African groups of people.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Self-Esteem Plus!!!, March 30, 2002

By A Customer

I came upon this book by accident. I was searching the library shelves for books on adolescents for a reasearch paper on troubled youth, and all of a sudden a little pink and purple colored book came falling off the shelf. It turned out to be one of those little moments where you could sense destiny happening before your eyes.
What started out as a research paper for school, turned into a major life changing moment. I can't help wishing that my mother could have read this book before I was born...how different my journey into adulthood would have been!!!
This is an inspiring book that can help parents raise their daughters with dignity, and a sense of self, in a world where Brittney Spears seems to be of high influence, kids complain because they have only ONE pair of [expensive] shoes, and expect not only a [expensive] Nintendo Play Station, but other holiday/birthday gifts as well (what ever happened to begging for the simple pony)?
In fact, I would not only recommend this for parents, but for anyone who is looking to make peace, and mend relationships with their own parents. It helped me to understand myself and my childhood a whole lot better. It's a wonderful, wonderful book. Every young girl should be under its influence.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for all Moms with daughters, August 30, 2000

By	P. Alderman (Lexington, SC United States) - See all my reviews

This book really gave me some insight into raising my daughter. It explores the differences in the way girls and women are raised in other cultures as well as our own. It helped me to really look to my daughters spirit and nurture her at the heart of it. I gave it to a friend and now I'm purchasing another copy!