Becoming a Woman: Puberty
and Adolescence
Puberty
• Most girls enter puberty between the ages
of 10-15 with the average age of
menarche at 12.
• “Fat Spurt” – girls gain on average 24
pounds at this time around the breasts,
hips, thighs and buttocks.
• 120 % increase in fat gain while boys gain
muscle mass.
Menarche
• Refers to the first time a girl
starts to menstruate.
• Mid 19th century Britain, the average ago
of first menarche was 15- 16 years old
whereas today the average age is 12.
Factors in Early Menarche
• a) Nutrition – undernourished girls have delayed
menstruation but girls in North America today tend to be
over-nourished.
• b) Hormones in animal food products, pesticides and
plastics of bottled water lead to more estrogen being
absorbed by young girls and starting to menstruate
earlier.
• c) Exposure to sex, pornography, provocative dress
etc. may prime brain to earlier sexual maturation.
The Conspiracy of Silence
• Culture of silence and embarrassment
around menstruation.
• Heightens girl’s insecurities, maintain
secrecy and shame, and perpetuates
negative views about menstruation.
• Most girls taught about menstruation as a
negative rite of passage.
• In Tierra Del Fuego in South America girls are initiated though a
•
•
•
•
‘course of moral, social and religious instruction along with the boys
but received separate teaching from old women of the community
about applying the wisdom of womanhood.
A group was formed with the purpose to teach girls about the
‘secrets of sexuality and fertility’ by these older women who also
introduced them in the female customs of the groups.
In Australia, the Aborigines treat a girl to "love magic." The women
teach her of the female powers and the physical changes marking
womanhood.
When a Japanese girl has her first period, the family celebrates by
eating red-colored rice and beans.
The Ulithi (oo-lith-ee) tribe of Micronesia call a girl's menarche
kufar (koo-faar); She goes to a menstrual house, where the women
bathe her and recite spells. The girl then returns to the menstrual
house when her next period comes.
• Sri Lanka notes the time and day. An astrologer is contacted, who
studies the star's alignment at the noted moment, in order to
predict the girl's future. Her house is prepared for a ritual bathing,
where the girl is scrubbed all over her body by the women of the
family; she then is dressed in white. Printed invitations for a party
are sent out, during which the girl receives money and special gifts.
• In some remote parts of India, a tribal girl who has reached
puberty is given a ceremonial bath, decked with ornate jewels and
garments, and the girl's kith and kin are all invited for a ceremony,
in which it is announced that the girl has come of age and that
celebrations follow.
• In Nepal, Kumaris are young girls worshiped as goddesses by
Hindus and some Buddhists, at the onset of menarche it is believed
the goddess spirit vacates her body and they are returned to
ordinary life after a series of rituals.
The Navajo Indians have a celebration called kinaalda (kinn-allduh). Girls run footraces to show strength. A cornmeal pudding is
made for the tribe to taste. The girls who experience menarche
wear special clothes and style their hair like the Navajo goddess
"Changing Woman.”
• The Nootka Indians believe menarche to be a time for a physical
strength test; the girl is taken out to sea and left alone. She is to
swim back and is cheered upon returning to the shore of the village.
• The Mescalero Apaches consider their menarche celebration the
most important. Each year, an 8-day-long ceremony is celebrated in
honor of each girl who began her period earlier that year. The first
four days include feasting and dancing. Boy singers recount the
history of the tribe each evening. The other four days are a private
celebration during which girls have a private ceremony, reflecting on
their passing into womanhood.
Menstrual Pain
• Refers to painful cramps in the abdominal
•
•
•
region.
Also includes headaches, nausea, fatigue and
pain in the lower back and upper thighs.
Estimates range from 50-75% of high school
and college age women report menstrual pain.
Leading cause of young women’s absence from
school or work.
Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)
• Variety of symptoms that may occur a few
days before menstruation and include
headaches, breast soreness, swelling in
some body regions, increased sensitivity
to pain, acne, various psychological
reactions such as depression, irritability,
anxiety and lethargy.
Why PMS?
• 1- Psychological factors such as anxiety
and strong endorsement of traditionally
feminine gender roles and;
• 2-Cultural factors such as our culture’s
belief that PMS is a well established fact
and the emphasis on biological
explanations.
Premenstrual Dysphoric
Disorder (PMDD)
• Symptoms: depressed mood, anxiety, mood shifts,
irritability, anger, difficulty concentrating and staying
focused, fatigue, loss of energy, overeating, food
cravings, insomnia, or oversleeping, and physical
symptoms such as weight gain, bloating, breast
tenderness or swelling, headache, and muscle or joint
aches and pains (APA, 1994).
• Currently treated with antidepressants or anti-anxiety
drugs.
• Genealogy of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is
historically rooted in the hysteria.
• Rodin (1992)
• “Although the discourses describing
ostensible causes of hysteria
changed over time… a woman’s
sanity was consistently tied to her
reproductive system and her role in
society. This connection persists
today in the contemporary disease
category of PMS” (Rodin, 1992, p.
51).
Menstrual Joy!!!
“How might it have been different for you if, on your first
Menstrual day, your mother had given you a bouquet of
flowers and taken you to lunch, and then the two of you
had gone to meet your father at the jeweler, where your
ears were pierced, and your father bought you your first
pair of earrings, and then you went with a few of your
friends and your mothers friends to get your first lip
coloring; and then you went for the first time to the
Women’s lodge to learn the wisdom of women? How
might your life be different?”
(Judith Duerk, Circle of Stones).
Women’s Bodies, Women’s
Wisdom
• Dr. Christiane Northrup
• Women receive and process
information differently at different times in their
cycles and rather than seeing this as unstable,
diseased or as a problem, women should learn
about their cycles and pay attention to what
their bodies are telling them.
• Rather than looking at the extra sensitivity of
•
“PMS” as bad, crazy, diseased, pathological or
needing to be fixed, women can look at it as
internal system that is warning them that
something is wrong in their lives and to pay
attention to it.
The increased sensitivity is a gift of an insight.
Breast Development
• Teasing
• Embarrassment about comments made at school
•
•
•
•
•
or by family.
Anxiety about growing up.
Anxiety about not having the ‘right breasts’ not
big enough etc.
Unwanted sexual attention.
Girls that mature earlier, date more, are sexually
active earlier, and tend to engage in ‘adult
behaviors’ like smoking, drinking and sexual
intercourse at earlier ages.
Negative implications on academic performance.
Body Image and Physical
Attractiveness
• Eating Disorders and depression
• Excessive concern for weight has been tied to eating
•
•
•
disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.
Those who perceive the pressure to be thin, are
dissatisfied with their bodies and have a lack of social
support are the most vulnerable to negative media
images and the most likely to develop an eating
disorders.
Girls have higher rates of depression beginning at age
13.
Early maturing girls (those who reach menarche before
the age of 11 have the highest rate of depressive
symptoms.
Friendships and Relationships
• Girls self esteem is highly related to the
quality of their friendships.
• Silencing
• Adolescence and even adult women
silence themselves, or are silenced in
relationships rather than risk open conflict
and disagreement that might lead to
isolation or interpersonal violence.
• “ Adolescence is at time of disconnection,
•
•
sometimes of dissociation or repression in
women’s lives, so that women often do not
remember- tend to forget or to cover over- what
as girls thy have experienced and known.”
Struggling over speaking and not speaking,
knowing and not knowing, feeling and not
feeling.
“Are these losses of voice and relationship
necessary, and if not, how can they be
prevented?”
Girls Relational Aggression
Group Work
•
a) What actions can parents and teachers help to
enhance the self esteem of adolescent girls?
•
b) Design a ritual in which to mark a girl’s first
menarche? Who would be involved? What would you
do? Where would you go? Say? See?
•
c) Pretend you have been asked to give a lecture to a
junior high school girls about puberty. What
information would you provide these girls? What
information would you omit at this time from your
lecture?