Title: Meet the GAMMA Girls , By: Meadows, Susannah ...



Meet the GAMMA Girls

by Susanna Meadows & Mary Carmichael

They're not mean. They like their parents. They're smart, confident and think popularity is overrated. What makes these teens tick?

Who called same seats? It's lunchtime at Valhalla High School in El Cajon, Calif., and the students have sorted into cliques. The Mexican-American kids occupy two picnic tables on the south lawn, not far from the stoners. The Chaldeans (Christian Iraqi-Americans) have staked out the student center and the punks/Goths line the hallways. Out on the wide east lawn, the prettiest place on campus, are the popular kids, each grade swarming around its own tree. One popular girl--let's call her Wendi--is as close as you can get to being a Barbie doll while still breathing. According to the clique cartography, she's a sophomore. Boys come and go, putting their arms around her just to say hello, and a chasm between her snug top and her denim skirt beckons back. Would it be hard not to be popular? "If I was cut off from all that? If you made me homely looking? And gave me three friends? And made me study all the time? I'd probably shoot myself," she says.

And then there's Jennifer Teschler, sophomore. Tall and athletic, with a smile that renews itself every time she speaks, the 15-year-old is comfortable in her skin, if not crazy about all the freckles. Independent of any clique, she and her relatively unfabulous girlfriends hang at an unassuming swatch of real estate near the pool. On their way to the corner of grass where the "funny, smart" folks of the croquet club sit, Jen bypasses Wendi and the other long blondes, oblivious to their glow. "Popularity is a funny thing," she reflects later. "The people who consider themselves 'popular' seem mostly unlikable and shallow to me, yet somehow the way they act defines them as 'popular.' Popular, that is, among themselves. There are a few 'popular' people that I actually like and are depthful enough that I am friends with them, but mainly they seem like snots."

Jennifer Teschler is evidence that a teenage girl in 2002 can be emotionally healthy, socially secure, independent-minded and just plain nice. Her temperament is, to some extent, a matter of luck. But new forces at school and at home allow girls like Jen to thrive. Thanks to a rich new array of girl sports and other activities, Jen is coming into her own in high school, defined by what she does, rather than by her popularity rating. A surge in ethnic-minority students at Valhalla--their numbers have shot up in the district from less than 25 percent a decade ago to more than 35 percent today--has redrawn the lunchtime map, making the once dominant cool white kids just one of many city-states on campus, and giving Jen and others like her more social options. Jen's sense of herself is nurtured by supportive, ever-present parents. And her values are bolstered by open discussion at church and a strong faith.

Yet you'd never know such a species existed, given the current media flurry over two best-selling books about teenage "mean girls." In "Queen Bees & Wannabes" (No. 35 on Amazon last week), Rosalind Wiseman argues that if your child is snubbed by one of the popular girls, she may become a victim for good. Rachel Simmons's "Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls," currently No. 7 on The New York Times list, calls bullying among girls an epidemic. Not that parents weren't already nervous enough after the last wave of troubled-girl books led by 1994's "Reviving Ophelia." Like those "studies," these new ones capitalize on parental dread, portraying school, especially junior high, as littered with beaten-down and backstabbed girls. "These books go way beyond what we have data on," says William Damon of the Stanford Center for Adolescence. "They're playing to stereotypes."

What the books don't take into account are gamma girls--kids who may not be "popular," but aren't losers either. Wiseman defines "cool," cutthroat girls as Queen Bees; they'd sooner boot someone from their clique than allow their omnipotence to be threatened. Then there are Wannabes, who will do whatever it takes to get in good with the Queen Bee. In a recent story in The Washington Post, Laura Sessions Stepp called the Queen Bees and Wannabes "alphas" and "betas," respectively--but also identified a third breed of resilient girls, the "gammas." They don't long to be invited to parties--they're too busy writing an opinion column in the school paper or surfing and horseback riding. "It's a terrific time to be a young woman," says Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, author of books on children and parenting. "They can choose to be what they want to be."

To check out today's teen scene myself, I returned for a week to Valhalla High, where I graduated 11 years ago. For the most part, I found that girls weren't any meaner or more desperate than when I attended the 2,200-student public school--in fact I found original, confident teenagers all over the place. At Valhalla, it's no longer so clear who's in and who's out, largely because an explosion in extracurricular activities has dramatically expanded the menu of cool. The prosperous '90s and Title IX, which banned sex discrimination in school sports, brought dozens of new offerings, as they did nationwide. (The number of high-school girls playing sports has ballooned from 300,000 in 1972 to 2.5 million today.) At VHS, there are twice as many girl teams as there were a decade ago.

In my day, there was only one guarantee of coolness: cheerleading, or "cheer," as it was called then. As freshmen, my friends and I gazed at the varsity cheerleaders as if they were movie stars. We knew all their names and dreamed of achieving some of that orange polyester pleated-skirt glamour for ourselves. Today, Jen Teschler competes on one of the school's four girls' water-polo teams, the varsity swim team and the new varsity girls' golf team. She's also a peer facilitator (teaching tolerance in the classroom) and the news editor for the school paper, the Saga. Reyna Cooke, another Gamma who is 15 and a freshman, placed fifth in the state in girls' wrestling five months after taking up the sport. If she can collect more competitors, she'll found a girls' team at Valhalla.

A gamma's parents can be found not only cheering from the sidelines, but out on the field, closer to the action. "Parents today are much more deeply sincere about wanting to put enormous effort into raising good kids," says Rosenfeld. Jen barely catches her breath after a swim race before she talks excitedly about her Friday-evening plans: dinner out with her dad. Freshman Emily Waldron's dad has coached her soccer team since she was 5 just so they could have that time together. A teacher at Valhalla, he gives his 15-year-old a lift to and from school, and three days a week they work out together at the gym before school.

Church is one more layer of protection for both Jen and Reyna, who often spend Sunday nights at youth group talking about Bible passages and "joys or concerns." Jen says her ideas about waiting to have sex until she's married come from her parents and from church. Youth group is also an extra social life. The evening begins with a game, sometimes Joshball--"My friend Josh made it up," says Reyna. She considers her church friends more reliable than others. "They're more on the good side than the druggie side," she says. "They know how to goof off."

Jen is self-possessed enough that she doesn't even need to try to look cool. At her swim meet, she pads around the deck in her blue one-piece and orange rubber hat with nothing to hide. Other girls wrap their bodies in blue parkas that reach down to their shins. Jen circulates between the warm-up pool and, naturally, her dad, who's cheering from the pool deck. She finishes last in the 200 IM (butterfly, backstroke, breast stroke and freestyle), swimming alone in the pool for her last half-lap. By the time she reaches the wall the cheering has died. You expect this to be humiliating. "Oh no," she says, her face in full blush from the race. "I know I suck at the 200 IM! I admit it freely!" By now her tomato-red toenail polish is almost all chipped off.

Ironically, a gamma's independence is often born when she's picked on in grade school or junior high. There's no doubt about it: girls can be mean. When Jen was in fourth grade, she wore orthodontic headgear to school and read books during lunch. Some girls stole her lunchbox and forced her to be the monkey in the middle. "I was such a nerd!" she says cheerfully. Emily decided to change her social life back in junior high while on a field trip to an amusement park. Everyone in her 11-girl clique was grabbing partners--"I want to be with you!" they cried--except not her. Incredulous that her friends would turn on her, she chose to make a break. Emily never enjoyed feeling as if she had to wear the right clothes or to do her hair, anyway. "I look at my group I used to be friends with, and they're all exactly the same," she says. "High school was a fresh start." Adored by her teachers, she works hard in school and is devoted to soccer. Though she's unusually mature, her aura is pure kid.

The popular kids grow up a little faster. When I ask Wendi, who's 16, about sex, she says, "You mean how everybody has sex all the time?" Yeah, I guess that's what I mean. When I was a student here, sex was basically limited to those with boyfriends or girlfriends. Since then, the national rate of kids 15 to 17 having sex has actually dropped from 54.1 percent to 48.4 percent in 1997. But the news is not as encouraging as it sounds. One explanation for the dip may be the rise of oral sex, which, according to an article that never ran in the school paper after district-office censorship, is viewed by students as a casual alternative to intercourse. The trend has even changed the bases: First base is still pecking and holding hands, Jen tells me. Second base is making out. Third is now oral sex. Home plate hasn't changed. Valhalla kids, especially among the populars, Wendi says, are all too in sync with rising rates of drug and alcohol use among teens across the country. In 1997, one in five 8th-grade girls had smoked marijuana, twice as many as five years before. And girls are keeping up with boys' alcohol consumption for the first time: 38 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds have imbibed. When I ask a class of 14- and 15-year-old freshmen what drugs they've been around, hands fly up. Pot, ecstasy, crystal methamphetamine, crack, cocaine, acid, mushrooms, PCP, Theraflu, Vicodin, steroids, Ritalin (snorted) and heroin, they say. But heroin, they assure me, is rarer than the others. Not until my junior year did I see alcohol, pot and crystal meth.

Blessed with confidence and self-knowledge, gammas are equipped to shrug off the social pressure to experiment. Drug use is more of a joke than a temptation. Out on her back porch, Jen talks about her decision to avoid premarital sex. She says she was shocked when her dad recently told her that while he thought waiting was best, it was her own choice, and that she should be sure to be safe. "I was like, whoa!" Her friends tell her she's never going to make it to marriage. "And that just kind of makes me more determined," she says. For now, Jen will gladly stick to comparing notes with her friends on the hottest, nicest and smartest guys. In class, she talks casually with a cute boy who's growing his blond locks out (in an attempt, no doubt, to add some edge to his sweet face). One senses that he surfs and he's not unaware of what the beach does for his good looks. I mention to her that I saw her talking to this guy in class. "Yeah, he's cute, but he's whole-sophomore-class cute." As in, probably too much competition.

Jen's already dealing with enough competition: when she's a senior the practically straight-A student will be among the largest pool of qualified college applicants ever. Valhalla kids are forced to start getting serious about college as freshmen. Jen's already aiming for a rigorous veterinary school (UC Davis)--and feeling the pressure. As close as she is to her dad, he is also a major catalyst for academic anxiety. A high-school chemistry teacher, he's pressing her to raise her B in honors chemistry. But thinking about her future is also empowering. "I'm a little scared, a little unprepared and a lot excited," says Jen of college. With the number of AP courses quadrupled since I was there, Valhalla graduates are now much better equipped to compete. "These are the best of times," says principal Larry Martinson, who's been at VHS since it opened in 1974. "The opportunities are far greater, the resources are more."

Without being a geek about it, Jen is a leader in the classroom. In her Spanish class, she's the first to raise her hand and offer a translation for "I already knew Pablo when I met Mauricio." Jen is quiet in her next period, algebra II, but everyone keeps his or her mouth shut: Mrs. Wilson, with her patent-leather pumps and Tom Selleck posters on the wall, runs a tight ship. A wiry little class clown circles Jen's desk and passes her gumdrops, but she denies that he likes her.

It's still adolescence, after all, and girls still have to contend with the likes of Wendi. As part of a crowd proud of being "cute and bratty," she boasts of their image. Which is? "Most of us are, like, blonde. When we walk into a room we let people know that we're there. We always have to look so cute. We match. We wear cool stuff? Like skirts and capris? We all have cute cars?" she says, which has made this week particularly harrowing. Her car, a midnight blue pickup, is in the shop, so she's been driving her mom's periwinkle minivan to school. "Everybody's like 'Oh my God'," she says. Yesterday she opted to be dropped off by her mom to avoid the ridicule.

Jen has more perspective--and that's her greatest strength. Indeed, her understanding of herself extends to the occasional insecurities that all of us, including the most popular girls, have felt. "Sometimes I'm convinced confidence is ungraspable," she says. "Other times I seem to have an unending supply. But nearly always there is a little part of me saying 'You're not good enough, you don't fit.' Thank God it is a little part, easily stifled and easily covered up." Jen says the common advice for teens--just be yourself and you'll be fine--is inadequate. "What adults seem to forget," she writes in an e-mail, "is that we are still trying to figure out exactly who 'ourselves' are and what on earth we are doing." That may be, but the 5-foot-8 swimmer, golfer, surfer, blusher, smiler is well on her way.

Title: Meet the GAMMA Girls ,  By: Meadows, Susannah, Carmichael, Mary, Newsweek, 00289604, 6/3/2002, Vol. 139, Issue 22

Database: MAS Ultra - School Edition Section: Society

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