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Back cover — Dutch edition (Uitgeverij het Haantje, 2024)

Girls spend an average of six hours a day on social media, a world dominated by victimhood thinking, negativity and stereotypical role models. Beneath a layer of perfect selfies their mental well-being has been eroded. Anyone who does not match the ideal is left with a deficit of self-confidence, anxiety and self-doubt.

The tomboy has vanished. Girls with short hair or a 'boyish' look are bullied. The risk is that they come to believe they may in fact be 'boys'. Girls with autism or ADHD are especially vulnerable. Girls from strict religious families are oppressed at home in the name of faith.

This is also the age of the self-made individual — yet is one ever good enough? Feminism fought to change the gender norms that hold us all captive. Now there is a salon or clinic on every street corner offering body corrections to help you meet those very norms. It is high time to fight again for greater freedom, love and support for girls and young women.

Forty girls and women contributed to this collection. Ten young go-getters speak about their ambitions and their troubles, and agreed to be photographed. Young experts explain how the online world of fanfiction, girls and transgender content hangs together, and how peer judgement and self-diagnosis feed stress and gender confusion.

Others speak about discrimination and sexual violence, and what they are doing about it. Psychologists and teachers offer guidance on how adults can help young people avoid the pitfalls. Prominent women including psychologist Liesbeth Woertman, biographer Jolande Withuis, political scientist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and psychiatrist Riittakerttu Kaltiala share their concerns about girls from the vantage of their professional fields.

This book asks the important questions that are not being asked today — about girls, online madness, gender identities and Islam.

— Sybilla Claus and Iratxe Álvarez · Uitgeverij het Haantje · ISBN 9789090387512 · 368 pp.