As a teacher, I see that more teenage girls than before seem to be troubled and depressed. I think that young girls are under more pressure than before to be "right". Many of them feel that they are supposed to party and drink, otherwise other kids won't like them.
I have to agree with you. It is *peer* pressure that affects the good girls. In the psychology department at our college, most of the cases coming to the resident Psychologists were young girls who wanted to be like either the latest pop-star or desperately wanting to land the latest College Boy (the all-rounder especially in sports and usually the worst sort of guy too)
Instead of exhibiting even a little bit of maturity and trying to hunt for somebody real and lovable or pursue a good career, they were busy painting their nails in horrid colors and dying their hair with glittery bluish hair-gels.
But when they peel of their facade, those girls are the ones who are most depressed, probably because they are nothing without their make-up kits. We (our batch) even held a campaign against them to create an awareness and to do something worthwhile in life rather than waste their time and money of gorgeous glittery costumes and cosmetic-kits.
Who starts all these? Who are these trend-setters? Is it the pop stars, models and actresses or is it the so-called-good-friends?
I still don't think it is because the girls are jealous of the super-models' beauty.
May be, in some rare case when a girl's ambition is to be a model. But what about the rest? Who introduces these girls to the latest trend? The other girls!!!
It's just the peer-pressure and the urge to blindly ape the person next to us, that's probably ruining these otherwise smart kids.
