September 8, 2001

Foreword to The Frailty Myth

Tiffeny Milbrett

Every year we’re learning more about what women are capable of, physically. The myths about female weakness – that our reproductive systems are fragile and dictate that we not be too active, that we have no endurance, that we can’t do anything requiring upper-body strength – have slowly but surely been shot down during the last century.

But that doesn’t mean people don’t buy into those myths. They do. Girls are still treated differently than boys – in the classroom, in the gym, and, eventually, when they grow up, in the boardroom. They’re not expected to be as competitive. Aggression is frowned upon in girls, yet lots of jobs require a certain amount of aggression. The whole notion of “femininity” – which is really just a way of acting and thinking, not some God-given quality – requires girls to put unhealthy restraints on themselves. It disempowers them. It keeps them from really going for it. When it comes to their bodies, it makes them fear getting “too big,” or “too strong.” So they prevent themselves from developing fully. They actually stand in their own way because they’re taught that they should. Who’s teaching them? Read The Frailty Myth and find out.

When I was young I didn’t really think of myself as a boy or a girl. For as long as I can remember I thought of myself as an athlete. It wasn’t that I knew I’d grow up to become an athlete; I had no way of knowing that. But I knew I was an athlete as a kid, and it was important to me.

I was seven and a half when I joined my first soccer team. I’ve been playing soccer ever since, first in youth leagues, then at the University of Portland, then with the U.S. national women’s team. In 1996 we went to the Olympics and won the gold. In 1999, we went to the World Cup and won. In 2000, we went to the Olympics, where we won silver. Now, for the first time, the United States has a professional women’s soccer league, the Women’s United Soccer Association. There are eight teams in all. I play for the New York Power.

My mother raised me to be an athlete. We lived in Hillsboro, outside Portland, a great area for sports. As a family we were tremendously active, camping, rafting, hiking, skiing – you name it, we did it. My mom, who was a single mother when she raised me and my brother, played on a very competitive soccer team for women over thirty. Every year they went to the state regionals. When I joined the Hillsboro Soccer Club as a little girl, my mom was my first coach.

 The only way I’ve ever thought about my body is as a source of enjoyment. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t enjoy it. I love competing, getting air in my lungs, building muscle, being fit. I love sweating, taking risks, trying to score goals. Never once, growing up, did I experience limitations because I was a girl. Partly, this was due to living in Portland, a city where there are sports opportunities – even for girls – around every corner. But it was also because of my mother.

 There are two critical things my mother, Elsie Milbrett, did for me. One, she had a completely hands-off approach to my decision making: she let me decide what I wanted to do. Two, she never, ever criticized me, or belittled me, or put me down. She certainly never made me think I had to change my ways or do something in particular because I was a girl. Many times throughout my childhood I was mistaken for a boy. Did this bother her? No. She never tried to change me. She never said to me, “That’s not what girls do.”

  In my neighborhood I played with the boys. I did everything they did, whether it was football, basketball, or building forts. I’d come home from school, throw down my books, and run out to play until the sun went down. My mother let me do what made me happy. She didn’t worry me by suggesting, “Shouldn’t you be playing with girls?”

  Mom, thank you so much for never telling me how I should be.

  I know that I’ve been fortunate in many ways. Recently, I read Peggy Orenstein’s Schoolgirls and got steaming mad over the way girls were treated in the schools she wrote about. I was drawn to The Frailty Myth because it uncovers the physical side of our harmful ideas about girls and women. We need books like this because we need to understand what’s going on so we can see and reject what isn’t good for us. It’s important to stop perpetuating the negative myths that keep us from developing ourselves. Colette Dowling writes about “learned weakness” in The Frailty Myth. She shows over and over again how girls are still being discriminated against in physical education classes, and how parents unwittingly contribute to the biased ideas kids have about boys’ strength and girls’ weakness. This is the first book to show where these ideas come from, and how deeply entrenched they are – so much so, people don’t even realize what they’re doing to girls.

  Dowling says we have to get girls out of the doll corner, and I couldn’t agree more. Too much emphasis on “girl play” makes them afraid to get big and strong. It steers them toward being sedentary, and as you’ll see in this book, there’s a huge price they pay for that. New studies are showing just how important exercise is to both mental and physical health. On the physical side, girls who don’t exercise start losing bone early in life. Imagine - we never knew this before! On the mental or emotional side, girls who don’t use themselves physically are at risk for distorted body image. By the same token, when they exercise, their confidence and self-esteem gets boosted. There are even cognitive benefits: research shows that exercise helps both memory and the ability to learn new material. What do you know? Academic achievement can be enhanced by working our bodies!

Physical education has always been thought of as a kind of added benefit: a dividend, or frill. When schools have to cut funds, the first things to go are phys ed programs. Now it’s been proven that learning to use our bodies is no educational frill; it’s crucial to the development of the whole person.

 The Frailty Myth shows exactly what we have to do to get beyond these myths and start empowering ourselves. It isn’t just girls, it’s women of any age who need to get moving. I don’t care if you’re a mom who’s fifty-four and trying to pick up some sport or physical activity for the first time, you can do it. You can have fun, make friends, be social. You can get out of it what you want to get out of it. No matter what age you are, you can physically change your life whenever you decide to do it. The Frailty Myth can help you make that decision.