Book review: Raising Girls, by Steve Biddulph

by Steve Biddulph

HarperCollins

Fifteen years ago, according to Australian child psychologist Steve Biddulph, girls were "on the move, going places, focused and confident", while boys were "somehow all wrong". Raising Boys, the breezy, warm-hearted book he wrote to combat this "disaster area", sold millions and made him into an international parenting guru.

Raising Girls is a response to what Biddulph identifies as a "sudden and marked plunge in girls' mental health" over the past five years during which the growth of social media has encouraged anxiety and narcissism, childhood exposure to pornography has increased, and corporations have made millions from the pinkification of girlhood.