Parenting expert, Steve Biddulph, who I am not a fan of for various reasons, is best known for his book, Raising Boys. Now Biddulph has begun calling attention to the plight of girls with the launch of his new book, Raising Girls. That’s nice, except man oh man, does this guy do some fabulous mansplaining.
Check out these examples from this Sydney Morning Herald article:
“I’m about to retire [but] I want to light a fire under the girl question,” Biddulph said. “People are waking up to this around the world. There is a movement to save girls.”
Now he quotes alarming statistics to emphasise his point – anxiety and depression has doubled among girls, self-harm has increased 60 per cent, and 13 per cent suffer an eating disorder. One-fifth of girls are now having their first sexual experience at 14, and in the last year girls overtook boys in the binge-drinking stakes.
Biddulph said aunts need to become more involved in their nieces’ lives as confidantes, and mothers should model positive behaviours like healthy body image.
“I want to start a more active feminism, to help girls see what their options are,” Biddulph said, noting the original feminist mantra of ”girls can do anything” has been reduced to a choice between supermodel, movie star or pop singer.
Thanks Steve, can’t wait for you to “start” our feminism for us.
Hahaha. thank you for this – brightened up my day no end. Except it also made me really angry as well because, well ignorance. Tut.
Oh, how the rage and sheer roll-your-eyes exasperation collide! I didn’t appreciate the bit about sexually active 14 year old girls either. Wonder what his opinion is on sexually active 14 year old boys? (What about queer sexually active teens??) Also wonder if his suggestions are like the boys’ book and you are supposed to tap into girls’ naturally nurturing nature and supply them with lots of dolls to play baby with and early makeup to get a head start on the idea that looks are important?? (Ok I’m not against kids playing with makeup or the 6 year old begging to put lipgloss on, but I can just see him going for more gender essentialist play.)
Well, he does say in his book about boys, when talking to your child about sex (which he says ten is a good age to do so) that the sex should come MUCH later. Also, he says that talk is a good time to mention being gay.
What are your complaints with the book about boys?
I also don’t think he has a problem with 14 year old girls having sex, I think it’s the idea of kids in general having sex.
Regarding what he suggests for girls,
“Avoid anything aimed just at girls. The world does that quite enough already.”
I deteste “mansplaining”. Ridiculous. Really ridiculous. And then when people actually buy into these trickled down voodoo theories it makes me all the more furious. Well. I guess I don’t need my coffee this AM to get my mind pumping. ugh.
Points taken. Can someone suggest a better book about raising girls, then?
A bit old but Reviving Ophelia is very good. Also Queen Bees and Wannabees about cliques and bullying etc.
Maggie Hamilton, “What’s Happening to our Girls” (Penguin/Viking, 2008).
“The curse of the good girl” by Rachel Simmons is brilliant.
Hate, hate, hate Stephen Biddulph! Parenting ‘expert’, my arse. No qualifications whatsoever from what I have been able to uncover.
Isn’t being a parent qualification enough to have an opinion on the matter?
But he’s not selling just an opinion, this is advice he is giving and it is wrong. Do you listen to every parent on how to bring up children?
Advice is informed by one’s opinion/experience. My point in response to the comment is that he is as qualified as any parent to offer advice. All parents offer advice, good or bad. I don’t follow advice generally, unless it aligns with my general philosophy and sounds reasonable and useful. I think Biddulph’s success is due to his advice/opinion aligns with mainstream values, in that he says what most parents already believe but he just elaborates it. Old fashioned values appeal to lots of parents who are rightly or wrongly worried about raising kids. It’s validation therapy for fretful parents. That he is a man doesn’t make him any less qualified to offer advice either though it does make him an obvious target, particularly in regards to girls. There’s plenty of tripe written on the subject by female writers too. I don’t follow advice unless it appeals to my values. I try to use my better judgement as we all end up doing anyway, regardless of how many books you read. I disagree with much of Biddulph’s opinion, but I’ll defend his right to say it, as I’d defend yours.
Your defence of Biddulph’s right to his opinion is redundant, Toi. The mainstream media loves him, and his books sell well. As you point out, people like to feel that their prejudices are vindicated, and Biddulph repeats a lot of sexist tropes.
What’s happening here is that people expressing their opinion of Biddulph’s work. They have a right to their opinion, just as he does.
1) No, I don’t think so and 2) He doesn’t sell his view as opinions. It is very skewed and agenda driven. Here is what his website Stevebiddulph.com describes one of his books: Raising Babies was the book that created a storm in the UK with its evidence- based survey of the research on daycare. It shows how inferior daycare is, compared with parental care by mothers and fathers. It was written as part of the (successful) campaign by child development experts for proper parental leave in that country. (Its title is somewhat misleading, and we’d prefer it to be titled “Should Under Threes Go to Nursery?” ) I have educational qualifications myself and have looked at a lot of research. There is actually a lot of conflicting research on this topic so it is quite easy to research shop and pick the findings you like and use them to support a particular ideological standpoint. This is what he does and this is what makes his influence so concerning.
Sorry, missed out the quote marks. The bit quoted from the website ends at the ) symbol. Also wanted to add that even this description is disingenous. That book is all about why women should stay home and look after children, not men and women. Now he is apparently turning around and saying girls are in crisis. Women need to step up and do something about it!
Degree in science and psychology from university count as a qualification. You do not need to uncover much. It is called google
Honours in Psych doesn’t even make one a clin psych, let alone an expert in feminism or parenting or child development, all areas he pontificates on. Biddulph is not currently registered as a clinical psychologist in Australia, either. It all depends on what one considers a “qualification”, I suppose.
THis has been added to his website since I initially checked his site (and other sites which are strangely silent on the subject of his academic qualifications):
‘Steve was born in the UK, and emigrated with his parents to Australia in 1963. He went to Bonbeach High School in Victoria, then graduated from Melbourne University with a Science Degree in 1974. In 1975 he completed an Honours Degree in Psychology at the University of Tasmania’.
I agree with lauredhel that an undergraduate qualification does not a psychologist make (in Australia at least). Even google can verify this: http://www.psychologyboard.gov.au/Registration/General.aspx
Oh yes I read that tripe too! I noted the complete lack of any mention of MALE role models too. The complete lack of any MALE responsibility for the patriarchal world in which our daughters are slut-shamed and abused. It reads as a woman-and-mother-blaming fest. Total mansplaining, and I’m glad you don’t like his stuff either!
I attended one of his Raising Girls seminars and was HORRIFIED how much he slut-shamed girls. He promotes abstinence and thinks that ‘encouraging girls to play sport will stop them chasing boys’. There was SO MUCH WRONG with what he had to say, I despair for the girls whose parents buy this book and take his rantings as gospel.
A quick calculation confirmed that that one event drew in around $20,000. Any wonder he’s about to retire.
Thank you so much for this, blue milk. The po-faced hostility that Biddulph shows towards women and girls really needs to be shown for what it is. He fills me with despair, as does the mainstream media´s enthusiasm for him. Your deft, sarcastic takedown made me laugh and feel hopeful again.
Thanks so much for a great post, and also for the link to the article by Clare Gould. Together they comprise the best analysis I’ve seen of what is wrong with, and dangerous about, Biddulph’s approach.
Argh, have just bought both Raising Girls and Raising Boys…
Remember to share the funny bits with us.
Seriously. Think of it as a good way to hone your feminist chops.
Here is a note I wrote to all the young girls of the world, especially because I am raising men, and it breaks my heart when young girls are already subjected to body image things:
http://pomegranateandseeds.blogspot.com/2013/02/love-notes-such-and-other-sweet-things.html
i would love to hear anyone’s thoughts.
A friend gave me her 10 year old copy of Raising Boys…I was pretty disturbed by Biddulph’s reference to the mothering habits of rats (with boy baby rats). Does anyone else know what I am talking about? I think I blocked it out of my head! ….Until now!… I was pregnant at the time, but seriously considering making some kind of complaint about it – he was virtually making inferences and joking about child sex abuse…horrific…how he got so successful Gawd only knows.
Biddulph’s stuff is anti-feminist at its core, no matter how he describes what he is doing, because he is a gender essentialist. According to him, the problems with/for boys in our culture arise because we don’t nurture their essential masculinity as they are growing up, and given his comments about aunts and mothers I assume his underlying message is the same about girls and their essential femininity. It’s a load of bullshit, and he should be howled down at every opportunity.
[…] Parenting expert, Steve Biddulph, who I am not a fan of for various reasons, is best known for his book, Raising Boys. Now Biddulph has begun calling attention to the plight of girls with the launc… […]
Does anyone remember TISM? Years and years ago they had a ranting post on their website about Steve Biddulph. It was very entertaining & also gave away that TISM were actually a bunch of dads.
Yes, I saw them live once and they were fantastic!
[…] blue milk congratulates Steve Biddulph (author of How to Raise Boys and How to Raise Girls) on bringing it to our attention that maybe – just maybe – the world isn’t friendly to girls, and perhaps we should find ways to change that. Good one Steve, welcome to feminism. […]
[…] Milk focuses on how parenting expert Steve Biddulph, in his new book ‘Raising Girls’ has essentially ‘created’ feminism. Because, well, it just didn’t exist […]
and what about page whatever when he states that an increase in young women engaging in oral sex has seen an increase in mouth and throat cancers!! WTF? At that point I put the book down.
[…] Biddulph discovers something that I think we’ve been calling feminism (bluemilk.wordpress.com) […]
Hi, I’d like to know if your review above is from actually having read the book or just from what you read in the Sydney Morning Herald and prior opinion of the author? I just finished reading the book and found myself in agreement with most of it. I think the above criticisms don’t reflect the messages of the book. I have not read raising boys I’m only referring to Raising Girls. I did read your review just after I borrowed the book from the library and went into it thinking I would not like it based on your article. I felt compelled to come here and comment after reading it!
I would also like to know if Blue Milk ever got a chance to read the ‘Raising Girls’ book? I think you need to do some serious Femsplaining.
You’re an idiot
After I originally commented I seem to have clicked the
-Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each time a comment
is added I receive four emails with the exact
same comment. There has to be an easy method you can remove me from that service?
Appreciate it!
Helpful info. Fortunate me I found your website unintentionally, and I’m stunned
why this accident didn’t took place in advance! I bookmarked it.
I just finished reading Raising Boys. I have a 4 and 14 year old boy. Full of testosterone. You bet! After reading the book, I nitpicked what I thought was
necessary to change about the way I handled things and noticed positive changes for all of us. Boys will be boys! It is that way and always has been. As a mother of a teenage girl also, it has its challenges, but being female, I understood what was going on in her head and body and related to her easier. This book gave me an insight to what’s going on in boys. You don’t have to agree with everything Steve says. It’s a guide. Another good read is the book, ‘What’s happening to our girls’. By Maggie Hamilton. Having any child will bring its days of challenges and I’ll read anything that might make things more positive for my child and our family.
Please read this and stop bashing Steve Biddulph – he’s on our side.
Clare, I find it interesting that you feel so threatened by Steve’s opinions. I’ve worked in prisons and delivered programs to At Risk Youth in an attempt to keep them out of prison. As a male I relate to Steve’s ideas, both for myself and the emotionally crippled men I’ve worked with in prison. Perhaps some of his ideas aren’t to your liking, but the program I’m working on to try and keep more of our men out of jail, is based on both Steve’s and Celia Lashlie’s ideas, informed by her years of experience running prisons. Please don’t put him down for trying to change what is a massive problem for all of us, male and female. If you can read between the lines and his obvious male perspective and look for the truths, they are there. And please don’t try telling men how to fix themselves speaking from a feminine insight, as that’s what you seem to be most upset with Steve for doing. I hear your outrage that a male would think it alright to have an opinion on a feminine issue. I question it myself, but please, what are you defending, or trying to prevent. At long last men are beginning to face up to their issues, and Steve has been a front runner in helping men see that they need to change, while providing paths for them to follow. So more power to him and every other man that wakes up to the fact they need to heal themselves. We are two separate movements aiming for the same goal, and knowing that we wont always get it right while we’re learning how, will help us support each other on this journey. I wish that men had realised the need for change at the time the women’s movement was being born, but thankfully were finally waking up. Together we can make this world a better place for everyone, and because it’s men causing most of the mayhem and destruction in the world, the need for change, facilitated by people like Steve Biddulph are greater now than ever. Thank you for listening
Thank u for this. I just read the first two pages where Steve says what happened to Kay lee was not earth shattering … reason on … non consensual sexual experience with a 17yr old …. hmmmm… not earth shattering???? Puts down book. Reiterates original thought of what wld a male know about girls