So even at the dawn of the third millennium, intellectual resourcefulness in females may deviate from feminine norms. Girls may feel pressured to hide their innate abilities. Bright girls may feel dejected over the way their lives are being shaped, he continues, and the physical criteria by which they are evaluated. The cumulative outcome may be melancholia and hopelessness, thus helping to explain the reversal of their level of adaptation. Thus the positive competence, sensitivity and eagerness to please shown by girls in early life may predict depression.
Females also react differently to depressed feelings.
Rather than acting out they tend to turn inward and ruminate on the meaning of depressive experiences and on their inadequacies and the expectations of others. High intelligence may possibly reinforce this tendency to ruminate in vulnerable adolescent girls. Dr. Gjerde has had many e-mails and letters from teenage girls concerned about the need to hide their intelligence, and from worried grannies who feel their granddaughters fit the Type I female pattern. Of course many sweet, bright quiet young girls turn out very well. But you need to make certain such girls have adequate social relationships.