The Haviland Story: How It All Began

Haviland writing, ALAG Year 1.

We always honor beginings. It’s important to remember where we came from in order to articulate where we want to go. As we head into ALAG 2015, I’m thinking about my grrrl, Haviland, who is the reason I started Act Like a GRRRL.

How Act Like a GRRRL Began

When my niece, Haviland, was 12 years old, she shared her poetry with me for the first time. I told her it was good.
“No it isn’t. My teachers say I’m too dark.”
“You’re 12. Of course you’re dark. And, you are a great writer.”
“I think I’d like to be a writer when I grow up. But, I know a woman can’t make a living as a writer. So, I’m going to be a teacher or a secretary.”

I was stunned. This was 2004. For my niece to think these were her only career options horrified me. Don’t get me wrong; teacher and secretary are both excellent career paths, but for an intelligent young girl to believe that those were her only choices sent me reeling.

I had to do something. I was in the process of leaving my “day job” to run the theatre company I had co-founded a few years earlier. With more time to focus, could I create an opportunity to blow Haviland’s mind with all the options her future could hold? Could I create a place for Haviland and girls like her to be both dark and light; angry and joyful; little girls and grown women as they journeyed to discover themselves?

Out of those questions, Act Like a GRRRL was born overnight. ALAG is a month-long writing and performance program for girls ages 12-18. The program is augmented with visits from guest artists: empowered adult women living creative lives. The “GRRRLS” write every day and read what they write in our circle, giving each other supportive feedback and encouraging each other to go deeper. The program concludes with a public performance where friends and family witness the GRRRLS in full voice speaking their deepest truths.

We chose the name “Act Like a GRRRL” to reclaim language that is often used as an insult. In our culture, it’s never a compliment to be told you do anything “like a girl.” But a GRRRL is something entirely different! It’s a fresh word that allows each individual to define what those “extra Rs” mean for her: “A GRRRL is ready to take on the universe.” “A GRRRL is a burning fire in the middle of the ocean.” “A GRRRL takes all the hatred in the world
 and smiles as she buries it with all of her truths.” We are also tipping our hat in gratitude to the Riot GRRRL Movement of the 1990s.

The research is clear: 70% of girls believe that they are not pretty enough, smart enough, or popular enough (Real Girls, Real Pressure: A National Study on the State of Self-Esteem). At age thirteen, 53% of American girls report that they are “unhappy with their bodies.” This rate grows to 78% by the time girls are seventeen (National Institute on Media and the Family). In 2004, the Centers for Disease Control reported a “dramatic and huge increase” in suicide rates among young people. Rates for girls ages 10-14 rose most significantly: 76% from the previous year.  Suicide rates among teen girls ages 15-19 shot up 32%.

In my experience, the way to connect girls is to remove competition and give them an impossible task that can only be accomplished if they work together. Today’s culture tends to give girls the idea that there is a limited amount of beauty, intelligence and attention in the world, and they have to fight for it. This leaves them feeling separate and alone. Act Like a GRRRL exposes the competition myth as an artificial construction that distracts us from realizing our true potential. When we decide to create our own reality in an intentional way, we get to make our own rules.  We all get to be beautiful, talented and intelligent.  The GRRRLS get to create the “sisterhood” they’ve always longed for.

These young women come from the most diverse backgrounds and lifestyles, but they have two important things in common:

• they believe in the power of stories to change lives, and
• they fiercely support each other.

They begin on day one of the program with a blank page. Three weeks later, they have a finished script complete with original monologues, dances and songs through which they take the massive risk of publicly declaring:

This is who I am. This is what I believe. Here is what I worry about. This is what I dream of becoming.

By the end of week four, they have a polished performance in which they each take a turn at being the star of the show. They play to sold-out houses, and the city buzzes about their work for months.

It’s rigorous work.  I run a professional theater company, and I hold these teenage girls to the same standard I demand from professionals. They have never disappointed me. As the lights go down on the final performance, they realize that they have completed a rite of passage. Their truths have been publicly witnessed. They have been heard. They are transformed, and the audience is reminded that it’s never too late to reclaim one’s own potential. I’ve watched it happen many times.

In March, 2011, the GRRRLS performed at the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day in San Jose, Costa Rica.  Act Like a GRRRL had been chosen to be the U.S. representatives for the gala and the only teenage performers. I was a little worried about how their work would be received, but as soon as they took the stage the crowd leaned in, talked back and responded with a deafening standing ovation. Our fellow performers from around the world applauded madly from the wings and embraced the GRRRLS as they ran off stage.

The next day a visual artist from Costa Rica who now lives in Vienna came to us with tears streaming down her face saying that in spite of all the success she’s garnered as an artist, her mother sees her as a failure because she doesn’t have a husband. “I wish I had this program when I was a girl. It would have helped me learn to stand up for myself at a younger age.” She told the GRRRLS that when she becomes a millionaire, she’s going to send them into every school in Costa Rica.  Since then, we’ve conducted a bilingual, multicultural version of the program in Bolivia, a 3-week intensive in Washington, DC.  We’ve created successful versions of the program at the Tennessee Prison for Women, in Metro Nashville Public Schools. The adult women’s version of the program is entering its 5th year of life-changing work.  The message of hope and empowerment is warmly welcomed wherever we go.

What happened to Haviland?  She graduated magna cum laude from Agnes Scott College with a double major in astrophysics and philosophy, was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and is now completing her first year of a PhD program in atmospheric chemistry. She was just awarded a National Science Foundation fellowship. A far cry from that girl who thought her only options were teacher and secretary.

This post is updated from a piece that ran in The Feminist Wire in 2012.

Haviland and Vali.

Three Forrister GRRRLS: Hav, Jen, Vali