Academics Rank Highly Among Girls

Despite the popular image of teenage girls obsessed with boys - talking about boys, thinking about boys, calling boys, chasing boys, crying over boys - what they are really concerned about is school, according to a survey released last week.

About three-quarters of girls now in school say their academic progress is what they worry about most, the survey said.

But an analysis of the survey said that while girls do well in school, they often do so only in an effort to please others.

“I think it’s important to point that out, because there is a lot of confusion there,” said Marie Wilson, president of the Ms. Foundation for Women. “They keep getting better grades while we say they have low self-esteem.”

The survey of 500 girls and 500 boys, by EDK Associates in New York, was commissioned by the foundation and Seventeen magazine.

The girls’ motivation to please others shows up again and again in the survey analysis. When it comes to having sex, teenage girls often do so because boys want them to.

Nearly three-quarters of girls, 73 percent, and about half the boys, 53 percent, cited sexual pressure girls receive from their boyfriends as the reason why girls have sex.

Of the 67 percent of girls who reported having had sex, more than two-thirds, about 81 percent, said they later regretted it.

“Why don’t girls just say no? Girls are taught to avoid conflict and worry about other people’s needs and desires more than their own - especially boys,” said Caroline Miller, editor-in-chief of Seventeen. “We need to teach them how to stand their ground.”

Wilson sees hope in the things girls say they value in themselves.

Adults need to get more involved in discouraging that kind of behavior, Wilson said.

“Girls don’t start out being people who accommodate. They start out as forceful little creatures. We have to start early reinforcing what think and feel.”