We keep asking girls to cope. It’s time to ask what they are coping with.

By Dr. Sarah Miles, Director of Research

For more than a decade, Challenge Success has surveyed middle and high school students and worked with schools and families around the world to improve student well-being. Over that time we have watched distress among girls and young women stay stubbornly high. Girls are more likely than boys to report worry, pressure from parents and peers, physical symptoms of stress, too little sleep, and mental health struggles. 

These patterns do not suggest that boys are not facing serious challenges of their own.  And, of course, girls’ experiences are not uniform. Race, class, sexuality, disability, and other aspects of identity shape both the pressures girls encounter and the resources available to them. However, these patterns do mean that many, many girls are experiencing a distinct and persistent set of pressures that deserves our attention.

We have spent years working with educators, school counselors, and parents to move the needle on student well-being overall. And, frankly, the gap for girls has barely budged. The news headlines remind us why. Recent accusations of sexual assault on a college campus are one story among many. Highly publicized accounts of sexual violence, harrassment, and the mistreatment of girls and women illustrate the particular moment girls and women are living through, and have long lived through. Set alongside what girls encounter in social media, popular culture, and everyday life, these stories reflect pressures that extend far beyond the walls of any individual school. It is no wonder that gains in girls’ well-being are so hard to produce.

The work any individual girl can do to “practice self-care” or “complete the stress cycle” only takes them so far. And the work that any one school can do, while very important, is limited. The schools we work with have increased their awareness of issues facing girls, they’ve brought in renowned guest speakers, created beautiful wellness spaces, and worked to manage assessment and workload stress, among countless other initiatives. This work is important, and we hear from the girls themselves how much it matters to them, yet the data remain largely the same. We do not wish to discount that work. The work that schools are doing to show up in support and solidarity with their girls is laudable. It is the right work for educators to be doing at this moment. But our educators and our girls can’t work their way out of this on their own.

We think it is past time to be frank about the fact that the system girls and women exist within is not well, and is often, in fact, harmful. Much of what our society interprets as a well-being problem is actually a rational response to genuinely hard conditions. The pressures are real. What we are learning about social media and girls, and the steady stream of news about how girls and women are treated, is not background noise. It is the water our girls are swimming in. Feeling off balance, angry, sad, anxious, or low in the face of all of this is not a malfunction. It is often the expected, and even healthy, reaction. What matters is that we, as a society, do not accidentally suggest that the work is to fix the girl so she stops reacting to a world that is, in real ways, harming her. It is equally important that we recognize that while this work of support can and should be done in schools, school itself is afloat in these same waters. 

References

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Youth Health in Focus: Findings From the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey 2015–2025. U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services; 2026. 
• Challenge Success. Student Voice Report, 2024.
• Pew Research Center. “Teens, Social Media and Mental Health.” April 22, 2025. 
• WHO Regional Office for Europe, A focus on adolescent mental health and well-being in Europe, central Asia and Canada: HBSC International Report from the 2021/22 Survey, Volume 1. Copenhagen, 2023