Girls are in crisis — and their mental health needs to be taken seriously

If we want to see improvements in the lives of girls in Canada and beyond, we need to first think critically about why we tend to dismiss and invalidate their concerns. (Shutterstock)

An article in the Washington Post recently declared “a crisis in American girlhood.” Girls in the United States are experiencing alarmingly higher rates of sexual assault, mental health issues and suicidality than ever before.

Data collected in 2021 by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) demonstrates how dire the circumstances of American girlhood are. Fourteen per cent of teenage girls in the United States shared that they had been forced to have sex, and 60 per cent had experienced extreme feelings of sadness or hopelessness. Nearly a quarter of girls had considered and planned suicide.