The idea that there could be one solution to breast cancer- screening, early detection, some universal cure- is certainly appealing. All of us, those who fear the disease, those who live with it, our friends and families, the corporations who swath themselves in pink, wish it were true. Wearing a bracelet, sporting a ribbon, running a race, or buying a pink blender expresses our hopes and that feels good – even virtuous. But making a difference is more complicated than that.

Simpson Rowe was quick to say that only perpetrators are responsible for assault, but assertiveness and self-advocacy are crucial defensive skills.

There is a way hook ups are serving young women. And it was important for me to always talk about how behaviours were serving girls, not just making them the victims.

I know that if i could imbue her with a superpower, it would be the ability to withstand the pressures of the cultures around her, to be her own woman despite the potential costs: i would give her the courage of her convictions.

When we’ve defined femininity for their generation so narrowly, in such a sexualized, commercialized, heteroeroticized way, where is the space, the vision, the celebration of other ways to be a girl?

How about this, I would counter: try not commenting on your own looks – on the size of your thighs or the tightness of your jeans. At least not in front of your daughter. Girls receive enough messages every day reducing them to their appearance without women they love delivering them, too.

I also worry about the incessant drumbeat of self-objectification: the pressure on young women to reduce their worth to their bodies and to see those bodies as a collection of parts that exist for others’ pleasure; to continuously monitor their appearance; to perform rather than to feel sensuality.

Encouraging girls to explore sexuality within mutually caring, emotionally connected relationships is one thing; insisting on it is another.

Young people are not tabulae rasae. They have a sense of right and wrong. But if they’re repeatedly exposed to certain themes, they are more likely to pick them up, to internalize them and have them become part of their sexual scripts.

If we start with that, with wanting girls to see themselves from the inside out rather than outside in, we will go a long way toward helping them find their true happily-ever-afters.