Girls, Girls, Girls...and More Girls
Ever hear of The Girl Effect? Shame on you. Get more info here, and watch this.
It's true. It all starts with girls...including my new life as a parent it seems. Girls are more important than you'll ever learn in any mainstream western curriculum. It's not about equal rights or human rights for that matter...it's science, sociology, and plain old anthropological truth...girls are vastly more important than the world has ever acknowledged. Think about it. Even if you are a girl, even here in the western world, you've almost certainly handed over your own personal power and independence to a man at some point. You've assumed that your history lessons have told the absolute truth. You've trusted the government, the legal system, and every social etiquette you've ever practiced or trusted to uphold your rights as an individual when nearly every one of those institutions have systematically stripped you of those rights at one point or another. As a girl (woman, whatever) the discrimination you have faced throughout your life is systemic and so subtle that you've hardly noticed it, right? Of course it is. Now, subtract all of the western privileges that you've enjoyed and dump a lot of the assumptions that we embrace as comfy and safe first world consumers and wealth hogs and break life and womanhood down to it's lowest common denominators...do the math any way you like, and talk all you want in those cyclical which came first the chicken or the egg arguments but it all comes back to women, to girls. Educate, support, empower, and entrust...and the world is a better place...period.
Why am I the one telling you this? Because I'm about to have a daughter that I hope is capable of changing the world. We gotta start somewhere, one girl at a time is nice but how about just one single idea at a time. I'm man enough to embrace the notion. It's about girls...women...that's it.
My good friend Stephanie lived and worked in Guatemala and Poland and she'll tell you...it's girls.
My cousin Kristy spent a year in Kenya working in the country's largest refugee camp and she'll insist...it's girls.
I've spent my entire adult life working with children and youth living in poverty and at-risk right here in our own backyard and I'll say it out loud each and every time...it's girls.
It doesn't take that big a shift in the way that you think to imagine a world in which girls are the answer. Try... read more, ask more questions, listen, open yourself up to new ideas. It's girls. Remember that we told you that, in fact, write it down. By the time Elli is old enough to remind you of our assertion you'll already be expecting the I told you so speech that we'll unabashedly lob your way. It's girls...just wait and see.
It's true. It all starts with girls...including my new life as a parent it seems. Girls are more important than you'll ever learn in any mainstream western curriculum. It's not about equal rights or human rights for that matter...it's science, sociology, and plain old anthropological truth...girls are vastly more important than the world has ever acknowledged. Think about it. Even if you are a girl, even here in the western world, you've almost certainly handed over your own personal power and independence to a man at some point. You've assumed that your history lessons have told the absolute truth. You've trusted the government, the legal system, and every social etiquette you've ever practiced or trusted to uphold your rights as an individual when nearly every one of those institutions have systematically stripped you of those rights at one point or another. As a girl (woman, whatever) the discrimination you have faced throughout your life is systemic and so subtle that you've hardly noticed it, right? Of course it is. Now, subtract all of the western privileges that you've enjoyed and dump a lot of the assumptions that we embrace as comfy and safe first world consumers and wealth hogs and break life and womanhood down to it's lowest common denominators...do the math any way you like, and talk all you want in those cyclical which came first the chicken or the egg arguments but it all comes back to women, to girls. Educate, support, empower, and entrust...and the world is a better place...period.
Why am I the one telling you this? Because I'm about to have a daughter that I hope is capable of changing the world. We gotta start somewhere, one girl at a time is nice but how about just one single idea at a time. I'm man enough to embrace the notion. It's about girls...women...that's it.
My good friend Stephanie lived and worked in Guatemala and Poland and she'll tell you...it's girls.
My cousin Kristy spent a year in Kenya working in the country's largest refugee camp and she'll insist...it's girls.
I've spent my entire adult life working with children and youth living in poverty and at-risk right here in our own backyard and I'll say it out loud each and every time...it's girls.
It doesn't take that big a shift in the way that you think to imagine a world in which girls are the answer. Try... read more, ask more questions, listen, open yourself up to new ideas. It's girls. Remember that we told you that, in fact, write it down. By the time Elli is old enough to remind you of our assertion you'll already be expecting the I told you so speech that we'll unabashedly lob your way. It's girls...just wait and see.
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1:00 PM
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