Girls Speak Out ABOUT Girls...

Columns by Andrea Johnston Real Girls, Real Connections A Women’s and Girls’ Movement A Special Place Girls Who Speak Out Find True Self When a Little Matters

For Girls: A Special Place Published in Feminist.com Have you ever thought about how many times a day someone or something tells you what you’re supposed to look like, act like or feel like? Can you imagine a place where you can be whomever you want to be? Some people believe that imagining what you want is the first step on the road to finding it. I know seeing a place inside my head helps me create or find it in the outside world. For example, when girls asked me for a place to meet girls from other countries, I planned a meeting in my head and then found people to share it with. We had a gathering, the First National Girls’ Conference, at UNICEF House in New York City with girls from 40 US states and 10 countries in 1997. Guess what? It felt and looked like the wonderful meeting girls and I imagined. Our energy and hope still helps girls and women stay positive about being female even as they face challenges. To be happy from the inside out, each of us needs to keep positive feelings about ourselves alive and strong. Let’s imagine that each time you are told something negative about yourself, especially things that have to do with being a girl, you see yourself in a place where you can be positive about being a girl and being yourself. What would your special place look like? Is it an island, one of my favorite places, or is it on a mountaintop? In your bedroom? Are you alone? Are there animals nearby? Birds? A special friend? Let’s suppose someone has just told you that girls are supposed to be quiet and let others talk because a girl’s place is as a listener rather than a talker. You, however, enjoy talking and want to share your thoughts with other people, including adults who believe girls should be seen and not heard from at all. Close your eyes and imagine a safe place where you can be yourself. Take a deep breath and settle into feeling comfortable and strong. Are you the type of person who would open her eyes and ask the people around her to listen to what you have to say? Are you a girl who prefers to save her words for another time because you have a feeling it will easier once you have more practice feeling calm, focused on positive feelings, and in control? There are as many ways to act as there are girls. No one way is the only way or the right way to respond to negative opinions about you. It depends on who you are, where you are, and how you feel. Feeling and actually being physically and emotionally safe are important factors in deciding what you can do and say aloud. What if it’s one of those times that you feel hopeless about having control over your life? Is that special place still important to you? Girls I know tell me that whether or not they feel in control, they enjoy imagining a place where they can be themselves. I practice imagining a beach with water that is clear enough to see the bottom. The seawater feels like silk against my skin. It calms and frees me at the same time. Here’s what twelve-year old Amulya says about her special place: "Sometimes when I feel like I’m the only one who cares about being myself despite the pressure to be very thin, wear makeup and giggle about boys all the time, I imagine my special place," says Amulya. "I feel hopeful and can move forward easier than if I let myself go along with what feels wrong to me. "Of course, it’s harder," Amulya explains, " when everyone seems to think differently from me. But my special place is always there, deep inside me. I guess I go there for inspiration." Did you know that girls can inspire each other? Girls in Afghanistan where it’s still dangerous to go to school find a way to get to class every day. Sometimes they hide in dark rooms with windows covered in order to be safe from people who believe only boys can move about outside. Thousands of girls showed up at school when they reopened after the recent war, and acted as if it was the best gift they ever had. They continue to come to school even as the enemy called the Taliban executes their teachers and terrorizes them. "If I can learn each day in and out of school," one girl in Afghanistan says, "I have hope for my future and believe what’s unfair in my country can change." Even though it’s dangerous, girls in places such as Afghanistan are determined to get an education and stay true to what they believe. Girls close to you and far away believe the same thing about being a girl as Patty in the United States believes: "Girls have strengths that can change the world." Sometimes it’s unsafe to be yourself and sometimes it’s safe. No matter what, however, deep inside you that special place is safe and a source of inspiration. Remember, the next time someone tells you something that isn’t true about you or girls in general, imagine you’re in your special place. Look for the words that will keep you safe and help make the world a happier place for girls to grow up in. Someday, you may publish your ideas for others to read. This Girls Speak Out column is one place where you can read and write what you want others to know about girls. Send me your opinions and we’ll include them here.* Who knows? Maybe this will be a special place where you can find yourself and girls like you. I know girls inspire me everyday. I hope you write to us, send us pictures of your special place, too, and soon more girls may inspire each other to stay true to themselves as they grow up. *How to reach us: Gspeakout@aol.com or www.girlsspeakout.org Look for Girls Speak Out for Girls on Feminist.com

A Women’s and Girls’ Movement Published in Feminist.com, February 2006 Remember those times growing up when you swallowed a great comment or idea because your inner voice said, "Not now. It’s not okay for me to speak?" Among the thousands of women with whom I’ve spoken, often in intimate group settings, not one woman wants a girl (a girl in the context of my columns is ages 8 to 18 years old) to feel the shame, guilt or regret about "giving in" that they felt and often still carry with them. No girl among the thousands of girls ages 8 and up with whom I’ve spoken blames women who "confess" burying a true self. Indeed, girls empathize. Women, however, blame themselves. I spend most of my time trying to create new opportunities for a wide variety of girls to be heard, and make a conscious choice to be or not to be gender activists. Surely we all know that no one can accomplish such a task without women; and yet I find a common practice among women, including those in the Women’s Movement, is to keep their distance from working directly for and with girls and advocating for their inclusion in campaigns and events. Some dedicated veterans of the Women’s Movement rail at me for insisting that girls be included at regular meetings and conventions as well as be advisors to organizations working on behalf of women. (I hope this column encourages readers to share their stories). What Works I take an anti-ageist stand because I know it works for girls and the movement for gender equality. Among other actions, I’ve arranged for nine and ten year old girls to sit at a huge, oval boardroom table with U.N. representatives exploring whether to host a first girl-run conference (for the first time, I understood how a spinning chair can be liberating). A ten year-old girl turned the tide in our favor when she hiked herself up on her knees, leaned forward across a gulf as big as that between Bush and Boxer and suggested that the "mistake you made when you designed the Secretariat, and left girls out, could be corrected. After all, we’re open-minded and flexible." It is one of the few times I’ve seen a diplomat speechless. Years later, when applying to college, this same girl wrote about finding a voice at that table and deciding it was worth the fight to hold onto it. Another reason to include girls in all stages of activism is that they do what Carol Gilligan’s research hinted: working for and with girls inspires women. Goddess knows we need inspiration these days so let’s find out why we’re overlooking this wellspring. Widespread Misconceptions and Emerging Truths One objection to routinely including girls in activist groups is fears for their safety, both physically and psychologically. We wisely abandoned a project to organize Girls Speak Out in abortion clinics, but I discussed abortion at a YWCA national convention with girls seven and up because an evangelical girl raised it. I worried when girls in Namibia read my book, and took to the streets of their hometown with picket signs, so through Equality Now, I found local women who could help protect them and support their parents. Educating women who don’t work with girls about girls is vital to girls and the women they will become. All women, not just mothers, teachers or therapists, need to know the realities about girls’ resilience; how to create a safe place for girls to speak their minds rather than say what we or the culture wants them to say, especially when to say "no" and "yes" to us. Women worldwide must be aware of local, national and global networks that support girls’ equality and participation. There are plenty of women who can do this for each other thanks to the Women’s Movement (and the Internet), and many women who are experts at working with girls one-on-one and in large groups are thrilled to help spread such hard-won knowledge. Mentoring, a practice that needs to be redefined as going both ways across age boundaries, can be long-term or a one-time communication or something that creates a gestalt. I’ve found that both approaches work, even long-distance, depending on the girl and the circumstances. Women with different experiences can balance each other. I remember when the girl-led conference I mentioned above was actually happening. Over a hundred and fifty girls and women were standing outside UNICEF House in Manhattan in the dark waiting for buses that were nearly an hour late to take them back to their hotel. Gloria Steinem, one of the conference organizers and the girls’ favorites, turned to me and said, "This is one of my worst nightmares." I was stunned because she has spoken out in places that scare me, and from my educators’ and observer’s point of view, the girls were thrilled with an unscheduled chance to socialize. My nightmare, I told her, was that when we returned to her house exhausted, there would be a camera crew in the living room set up for an interview. The buses arrived, and the cameras didn’t. Another objection to inviting girls fully into the movement is political. The refrain I hear most often from women activists is, "We have enough trouble supporting women without diverting attention to girls, and risk being restricted to roles as mothers." During the organizing for the Fourth World Conference for women in Beijing, for instance, even feminists in the United States struggled against a girl-child platform for this same reason. Over a decade later, when statistics about girls’ physical and psychological health are still as depressing, I encounter the same resistance. Challenging Triggers Now I believe an important reason why women resist including young girls politically is personal. Girls’ outspokenness stirs us inside. The younger they are, the more they speak out. It’s really a wonderful thing for them to do. But for us, it’s hard work to collect painful, embarrassing and/or scary memories and then move beyond emotional scars to position them as warning signs and ultimately, positive stories about our growth, resilience and compassion. Girls’ outspokenness and built-in bullshit detectors can be about healing for them and for us. The ability to give girls center stage (and the keynote speaking spots) comes from practicing a variation of Gandhi’s message: A true leader leaves no followers behind. She leaves leaders. When I help women participate in Girls Speak Out sessions and train them as organizers and facilitators, and I’ve done this with soccer moms, CEOs and ambassadors in different countries, I am looking for someone who moves beyond her triggers. It is almost a certainty that if you listen as closely to girls as you must to show them a range of alternatives {which is the primary reason why girls surf the web (and listen to adults)}, you will be triggered. Depending on your childhood experiences, you will be deeply in pain or just uncomfortable or even joyful. Because today’s dominant cultures, and this is true in all countries on this planet, are unfair to girls more than any other age or gender group, and you were a girl, chances are you are hurting. As someone with a really painful childhood that made it into a textbook on dysfunctional families, I will not urge you to, "Get over it!" I do advocate that helping a girl stay strong and believe in her true self is a transformative gift. When it is truly about her, it makes life richer for both of you. You’re never too old or too young to take a journey that nurtures a true self. Next About Girls: Examining Childhood for Gender Triggers

Girls Who Speak Out Find True Self Published in Bay Area Business Woman, April, 2006 Recently I’ve been thinking about what I bring with me to work every day. I don’t mean a Treo, cell phone, or laptop. I’m thinking about what I carry inside me that affects what I do. One reason I’m inclined to do this is that about a dozen years ago I co-founded a girls’ self-esteem program called Girls Speak Out™ with Gloria Steinem that brings together small, diverse groups of girls and women. Among other things, we talk about what happens inside us and in the outside world that affects our self-image. I’ve learned that each self includes what Sandra Cisneros describes in her short story Being Eleven: "When you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and — one." Cisneros compares girls and women to those wooden Russian dolls that open to reveal smaller and smaller dolls. Hidden inside us is who we were as a girl and she travels with us as neatly as the tiniest Russian doll fits inside the biggest one. Even though we’ve learned that being a woman in the business world means you’re Super Adult, and while we can’t see who we used to be, the experiences, events, beliefs and impressions from our girlhood are alive. There are times when something is unfair, and the girl inside me is triggered and screams, "That’s so unfair. Jeez. Get a grip, people." I used to panic, struggle to be mature, and calmly work my way through the situation. Ignoring that authentic voice was difficult because I did feel she had a point, so I learned to state the obvious rather than shriek it. Today, I listen to that voice and then move on. All women have the ability to hear that voice. We choose to listen to it, often with modifications such as mine, or we ignore it in varying degrees. But the news is that if you think you own a sole proprietorship, you don’t, you have a partner. Even if you live alone, you have a roommate. We bring our Russian doll with us wherever we go. I spend a great deal of time talking with women who really want to pass on valuable and hard-won information to girls, but they’re more used to listing the obstacles to making it happen than considering the rewards. I understand the impulse because time is an issue (46 percent of American adults say their lives are more stressful today than five years ago); and there’s no support in the media, in the business world, in college, in most places for thinking about, much less doing something positive about girls’ for healthy development, even for our own daughters. We’re human, and some of us hesitate to reach out to girls because we fear being triggered by them. We’ve been told that grown women have to cut out painful girlhood memories the way we eliminate transfats. The belief that it’s good (and possible) to permanently bury part of your true self still circulates despite the fact that we probably take it with us even when we’re actually dead. Fortunately, when women do make the time and connect with girls, they learn what research has shown to be true: working with girls is inspiring and reinvigorates valuable parts of women’s true selves. How about bringing a girl (or girls) into your world? When we started Girls Speak Out, I was the mother of a son and an unknown teacher in northern California who stayed in a rural classroom after graduating from law school; while Gloria was famous, single, childless and a leader of a human right’s movement. Girls Speak Out was our level playing field. Both of us had been girls and remembered what we needed and wanted to share with girls today. If you can listen to what a girl has to say and share experiences that she has the freedom to heed or ignore, then you have the basic tools to make a difference in her life — whether or not you know her before she walks into a room. After all, we live in a male-dominated world; that means, among many things, that females must try harder to find ways to take control of our lives and reach out to change what’s unfair. Connecting from the inside out to empower girls is exhilarating and life changing. One by one, females have changed history, sometimes by sitting in the front of a bus. I encourage you to talk openly and respectfully with a girl. Remember how much you knew at her age that you couldn’t talk out loud about? Create actual, safe spaces for a girl (your business office on a weekend?) to express her true self; and whenever possible, include girls from different backgrounds and make these meetings intergenerational. Offer her a smorgasbord of resources she can use to challenge sexist obstacles and to see herself as strong, happy and resilient. Females of all ages have the strength and wisdom to make the world a better place for everyone. It’s our birthright, our time in history; and no matter where we are, what we’re told, or how old we are, we are angels of change.

Copyright © 2006 Andrea Johnston

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