“I’m pregnant.” Head lowered, she whispered, glanced sideways at her mom, then back to her hands twisting in her lap. She waited; looked up to check my reaction, expected criticism. It didn’t happen. I knew how long she’d been telling him ‘no’. I understood the pressure had gotten to her at last. She was fifteen.

And she was not unusual.

Fully ninety-two percent of girls in a Connecticut high school survey reported they had been sexually harassed at least once in high school (University of Connecticut, 1995). That’s nearly every girl. A 1999 report by the American Association of University Women, based on a survey of 2,000 girls across the country, described “cruel school sexual politics, in which boys press for sex and tease girls who refuse, while girls egg each other on, then turn on those who accede to boys’ demands.” The girls in my office tell the same story.

I know your eyes glaze over when someone starts quoting statistics. Don’t do that. Read that paragraph again. Think about what that means for your daughter and her friends. It describes almost every teenage girl I know.

Our girls are in trouble, and they can’t tell us. The degree to which they are taunted, teased and harassed on a daily basis by their own gender as well as their male peers is extreme. Their adjustment to it, their sheer lack of outrage, is disheartening.

Girl-to-girl violence has become common. Rather than banding together through hard times and rocky relationships, they turn on one another with a bitterness that is sad, surprising, and very nasty. Girls have always been “catty”, and boys have always challenged each other to “just step outside”. These days, though, the challenge to a fist fight is just as likely to happen between girls. As enemies, not allies, girls fight their way through school, often alone.

Girls tolerate such treatment just as their mothers, aunts and grandmothers are making greater strides than ever before. Anita Hill made the private shame of sexual harassment a public issue, enabling women to protect themselves, and their jobs, in the workplace. Teenage girls have yet to receive the same protection.

When writing a few months ago about the “Quieter Violence” that strikes girls in our own schools, I had no idea of the reaction to come. The subject seems to have struck a chord among many adult women. An amazing synergy has begun, pulling together women from all over Blount County who know the truth of this matter; who want to do something about it. I thought you’d like to know.

The Maryville Branch of the AAUW, led by Harri Ropp, is providing an opportunity for us to explore the issues that surround our daughters. On September 25, at the World Class Buffet in Midland Plaza, they will host a roundtable discussion on the lives of girls in Blount County. After dinner at five, the roundtable will begin at 6:00 p.m. The discussion will be led by a panel of local professional women who work with these girls, including guidance counselors, law officials, therapists, moms, and hopefully even a few of the girls themselves.

Are you worried about your own daughter? Would you like to find a way to empower the girls of Blount County? You may want to join in the discussion on September 25. I’ll be there. I hope you will too. We have much to do.

Wendy Pitts Reeves, L.C.S.W., is a Clinical Social Worker and Rule 31 Family Mediator with Cove Mountain Counseling in Maryville. She can be reached at 681-2869, or by email at wendy@CoveMountainCounseling.com.