This month at one of the middle schools where I collaborate we are beginning to “rewrite” the play Hamlet –from Ophelia’s point of view. As we work our way through the script and watch clips from the movie, it’s striking to see how very sweet and uncertain and eager-to-please and tragic Ophelia was.

More than once, I’ve remarked on the absence of Ophelia’s mother and any girlfriends in the play. The only other female character is Queen Gertrude, whom you might (correctly) remember as a Shakespearean version of “Desperate Housewife,” marrying her husband’s brother in a bid for power by proxy.

Would Ophelia’s life have been different if a mother rather than a father guided her choices? Could a good gal pal have changed the way her life turned out? We’ll see what the girls come up with as they begin rewriting the play in January, but you can guess my thoughts on the subject.

Girls who are “connected” with their same sex peers do better, without a doubt. While boys seem to be able to substitute athletic or academic success for friendships, the studies I’ve seen suggest it doesn’t work that way with girls–or women, in my opinion. Relationships are key to all of us, but as feminist psychologists Jean Baker Miller and Carol Gilligan pointed out, for females both young and adult, “growth through connection” is an important psychological process we can’t thrive without.

Ophelia didn’t–but girls can and will. Think about ways you can role model positive relationship skills to the younger generation–you never know whose life you might turn around.