We want our daughters to become doctors, mothers, writers - whatever their hearts desire, but do they really have a choice? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, what becoming a woman means to today's girls. Social critic Naomi Wolf on the pressure to be bad. And how to raise daughters with spunk and self esteem.

SEGMENT 1:

Feminist writer Naomi Wolf tells Judith Strasser that the 60's message of sexual liberation has been transformed into yet another way to exploit young women. She calls for a return to the petting culture that allowed girls to safely explore their own sexuality. Wolf is the author of "The Beauty Myth" and "Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood."

SEGMENT 2:

Journalist Melissa Ludtke talks with Judith Strasser about why teenagers become mothers and why the results are so often disastrous when they do. Ludtke's book on the subject is "On Our Own: Unmarried Motherhood in America." Also, Janie Victoria Ward tells Steve Paulson that the secret to raising strong African American daughters is to teach them to acknowledge and resist racism. Ward teaches in the Department of Education and Human Services at Simmons College in Boston, and is the author of "Raising Resisters."

SEGMENT 3:

Women's work doesn't end with menopause. Anthropologist Kristen Hawkes tells Jim Fleming about her "Grandmother Hypothesis." Hawkes thinks that grandmothers' willingness to help feed very young children enables mothers to produce more offspring and may be what allowed early humans' superior adaptability and population growth.

• week of 10/26/97 - hour 3