Rachel Simmons is the author of the New York Times bestseller Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls. Simmons works internationally with girls, parents, and teachers to develop strategies to address bullying and to empower girls. A graduate of Vassar College in 1998, Simmons won a Rhodes scholarship and attended Oxford University, where she began studying female aggression. Simmons is the founding director of the Girls’ Leadership Institute, a summer program for middle-school and high school girls, and currently serves as a consultant to schools and organizations around the world. Simmons lives in Brooklyn, New York.

You can see Rachel Simmons’ website HERE.

About The Curse of the Good Girl

In her New York Times bestseller Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, Rachel Simmons was the first to explore the phenomenon of female bullying.  Now, in THE CURSE OF THE GOOD GIRL: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence , she exposes the myth of the Good Girl, a myth that diminishes girls’ power and potential by teaching them to accept only an artificial and very limited version of selfhood.

Unerringly polite, nice, modest, and selfless, the Good Girl paradigm is so narrowly defined it’s unachievable. With self-esteem tied to perfection, girls are unable to know, express and manage a complete range of feelings. The need to be “perfect” leaves girls uncomfortable with feedback and failure, making it difficult to recover from even minor setbacks; a conflict with a peer or a mistake in the classroom is often enough to unleash paralyzing self-criticism. Deprived of the permission to articulate their needs, strengths, and goals, girls are confined by a psychological glass ceiling that can extend into adulthood, stunting the growth of vital skills and habits essential to personal and professional success.

Drawing from the stories of the women and girls who attend her workshops, Simmons traces the impact of Good Girl pressure on girls’ development and provides strategies to teach girls to not only to listen to their inner voice, but also to empower and embrace their real selves. She shows how true freedom of the self is permission to take the healthy risks that can result in great triumphs, and to accept and grow from the mistakes we make along the way.

Rachel Simmons’s THE CURSE OF THE GOOD GIRL is a call to arms from a new front in female empowerment, providing tangible lessons and effective strategies to help Good Girls become Real Girls.

Rachel Simmons’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Tuesday, September 1st - This Full House

Monday, September 7th – The Scholastic Scribe

Tuesday, September 8th – Juggling Life

Thursday, September 10th – As Many As We’re Given

Friday, September 11th – this blessed life

Thursday, September 17th – In the Gutter

Monday, September 21st – A Striped Armchair

Tuesday, September 22nd – Mrs. Magoo Reads

Wednesday, September 23rd – smiles miles trials

Thursday, September 24th – Laughing Through the Chaos

Tuesday, September 29th – Overstuffed

Friday, October 2nd – not that you asked…

Monday, October 5th – Petit Elefant

Wednesday, October 7th – A Mom on Spin

Also mentioned on Radical Parenting

Date TBD – Raisin Toast

Date TBD – Major Bedhead

Date TBD – dutch blitz

Date TBD – 5 Little Monkeys

Date TBD – VodkaMom