Empowering Girls
For many girls, adolescence is a time when self esteem plummets and insecurities rise. Mounting peer and social pressures encourage them to look a certain way, act a certain way, and be a certain type of person, force them to abandon their true selves as they attempt to fit into the few boxes society has created for them. The outcome of this predicament is a generation of girls who emerge into adulthood unable to recognize and celebrate themselves as unique individuals.
The statistics are staggering.
- Drugs: Today’s daughters are 15 times more likely to begin using illegal drugs by the age of 15 than their mothers were at that age.
- Suicide and Depression: One out of four adolescent girls has exhibited depressive symptoms such as frequent crying or expressions of self-hatred. One in three high school girls have considered suicide.
- Violence: One in five girls will be a victim of abuse during high school.
- Risky Behavior: The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate among developed countries. Approximately one million teens become pregnant each year; 50% of those pregnancies end in abortion.
For those of us who are concerned about the state of our adolescent girls there are things we can do:
- Keep them interested in the things they’ve always done, to help them maintain their own identity, not a pre-subscribed set of ideas.
- Teach them to be advertisement savvy, and not to buy into the “sex sells everything” mentality.
- Encourage girls to use their bodies and their brains, so they understand themselves as whole beings, not just attractive or sexual beings.
- Praise Girls for their interests and characteristics, not for what they look like.
- Encourage boy/girl activities that don’t include dating, so they can learn about the opposite sex in a no pressure situation.
- Get girls involved in a cause, so they understand life as bigger than themselves.
- Support girl’s athletics, and limit beauty-enrichment activities.
- By encouraging and empowering girls we can make a difference during this very difficult time of life. With each individual act that is made we pave the way for cultural change.