The Curse of the Good Girl erodes girls' ability to know, say, and manage a complete range of feelings. It urges girls to be perfect, giving them a troubled relationship to integrity and failure. It expects girls to be selfless, limiting the expression of their needs. It demands modesty, depriving girls of permission to commit to their strengths and goals. It diminishes assertive body language, quieting voices and weakening handshakes. It reaches across all areas of girls' lives: in their interactions with boys and other girls, at school, at home and in extracurricular life. The Curse of the Good Girl cuts to the core of authentic selfhood, demanding that girls curb the strongest feelings and desires that form the patchwork of a person.

Silence is deeply woven into the fabric of the female experience.

A 2010 study by the Girl Scouts found that girls downplayed their confidence, kindness, and talents online in favor of highlighting how fun, funny, and cool they were. The study suggested a girl’s social media profile was a persona she constructed, a photoshopped billboard on the information superhighway. Unlike the messiness of real life, where you might come to school wearing the “wrong” outfit or say something awkward in class, a Facebook profile is a cool, controlled social avatar intended to stand in for you. Online spaces like Facebook and Tumblr are new social proving grounds for girls, rivaling the hallways where girls show off new clothes or friends.

[Girls'] anger is explained not by a root of evil churning deep in their hearts, a pathetically common explanation, but rather by the imperative to above all be nice. Because these girls lack the tools to deal with everyday feelings of anger, hurt, betrayal, and jealousy, their feelings stew and fester before boiling to the surface and unloading torrents of rage.