Rachel Simmons

“In the so-called age of girl power, we have failed to cut loose our most regressive standards of female success - like pleasing others and looking sexy - and to replace them with something m...”

“Secrecy is hardly new on Planet Girl: as many an eye-rolling boy will tell you, girls excel at eluding the prying questions of grown ups. And who can blame them? From an early age, young wom...”

“The Internet foments outrageous behavior in part because it is a 'gray area' for social interactions.”

“If the Internet has been called a great democratizer, perhaps what social media has done is let anyone enter the beauty pageant. Teens can cover up pimples, whiten teeth, and even airbrush w...”

“Teasing is often healthy and fun, not to mention an important part of interpersonal and individual development. But when it's abused, 'just kidding' contains a disturbing logic: If I didn't...”

“If more students use self-compassion to reframe their failures, they may discover more nourishing sources of motivation and healthier strategies to pursue their goals.”

“Social media forces girls to bear witness to painful realities of relationship that were previously hidden from view. It is a new kind of TMI, or 'too much information': publicly posted phot...”

“Girlhood is often marred by schoolgirl cruelty, a grim rite of passage in which parents sometimes cruelly collude. Mothers and fathers must take a stand against petty or protracted hostility...”

“I am a recovering rat racer.”

“Self-knowledge is the foundation of real success.”

“Raising your hand when you're not sure you have the right answer helps you take risks with your ideas and put yourself out there.”

“When I went to prom in the early 1990s, I seesawed between my wish to get asked by the right guy and ride in the cool kids' limousine with the burgeoning realization that I was gay. I had a...”

“Harassment is one of puberty's darkest, most unreported rites of passage.”

“Prom drops girls squarely into the beauty spending pipeline.”

“All around me, I see girls forced to become rat racers in the College Application Industrial Complex, the subculture where students must craft themselves into the perfect specimens for colle...”

“Prom culture is now painstakingly documented on sites such as Instagram and Facebook, exacerbating the angst of the uninvited.”

“If you want to stand with me as a single mom - and I know so many of my friends and colleagues do - please don't appropriate my burden as a way to validate your own. To suggest that you are...”

“Having a baby on my own is a dream come true, but in my world, there's no sheepish spouse on his way home from a work trip to offer me a stretch of alone time.”