When Megan Barry was prepping for the YWCA’s Mayoral Forum earlier this year, she reached out to me to ask what I thought the biggest challenges were facing adolescent girls in Nashville from the vantage point of my work at Act Like a GRRRL.
I thought it was a sign of great leadership: to seek counsel in areas where you are not an expert and to credit those who advise you (she graciously gave me a shout-out at the forum).
After noting the obvious challenges of sex trafficking, the right to choose when to start a family and pay equity, I turned my focus to self-worth and the pervasiveness of bullying among women and girls.
This is part of what I shared with our now Mayor Megan Barry:
What I see as the biggest issue facing the teenage girls with whom I work is Girls Knowing Their Worth… and actually Feeling Their Worth in Their Bones. Because:
- When you know your worth, you stand up for yourself.
- When you believe in your worth, you take the risk to stand up for others.
- You don’t enjoy humor at another girl’s expense.
- You don’t choose future-limiting behaviors.
- You don’t operate from a position of scarcity, as if there is a limited supply of beauty, talent, intelligence that you have to fight for.
- You can genuinely celebrate someone else’s success because you know it doesn’t steal anything from you.
The numbers are staggering:
- 7 in 10 girls believe they are not good enough or do not measure up in some way, including their looks, performance in school and relationships with family and friends. (Real Girls, Real Pressure: National Report on the State of Self-Esteem, Dove Self-Esteem Fund)
- 1 in 4 girls today fall into a clinical diagnosis – depression, eating disorders, cutting… On top of these, many more report being constantly anxious, sleep deprived, and under significant pressure. (The Triple Bind, Steven Hinshaw)
- By age thirteen, 53% of American girls are “unhappy with their bodies.” This grows to 78% by the time girls reach seventeen. (National Institute on Media and the Family)
Bullying is so pervasive. Bullying in school gets talked about a lot. But, the kinds of bullying that most concern me are the subtle forms that girls see enacted by their mothers, teachers, mentors… the kind that passes for normal interaction. The kind that teaches them that:
- it is funny to make fun of and belittle another girl/woman (to be funny is to get attention).
- trash-talking someone behind their back is the standard way women and girls interact (you can’t trust another women/girl).
- competitive slurs are a sign that you are “driven” or “success-oriented” (we reward survival of the fittest).
- you are really “doing a favor” when you point out someone is fat, ugly, acne-prone, out-of-fashion (someone had to tell them).
These are the subtle behaviors that lead girls to doubting their worth because they are getting the message repeatedly that they are not enough: not smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough, popular enough.
If we really want to stop bullying, mothers need to stop trash-talking other mothers (or themselves) to their children. We need to stop using conflict as a means of attention-getting. When all that parents have to report at the end of the day is who-did-what-to-them, kids learn that’s what life looks like.
“You can’t be what you can’t see.” This adage is a guiding mantra for us at Act Like a GRRRL. Most of our grrrls tell us that ALAG is the first place in their life where they have seen adult women modeling real friendship: supportive, not competitive, interested in each other’s success.
When I tell them that “Act Like a GRRRL can be the sisterhood you’ve always dreamed of,” and ask them to describe what that means to them, they always describe a place where they can be fully themselves without fear of being made fun of, cut down, sabotaged or discredited. Then, they say they don’t believe it is possible because they have never seen girls or women behave this way.
That truth is terrifying to me: that girls rarely have examples of healthy female friendships. Without trusted friends, girls are much more likely to participate in self-sabotaging behaviors like risky sex and drug abuse or self-harming behaviors like cutting and disordered eating. When the future looks like an adulthood full of more-of-the-same, there becomes little reason to try or care.
As parents, leaders, sisters, mothers, we are in the unique position to embody what collaboration and encouragement and solidarity among women looks like. Girls rarely become what they don’t have an example for.
At Act Like a GRRRL, we believe in the concept of “both/and.” You can be both smart and beautiful, competitive and compassionate, strong and kind. Adolescence is “either/or” territory. Girls often feel they have to pick one and lose the other. As I watch GRRRLS come into their power and trust their ability to create the world they want to live in, I see them naturally choose to be both kind to others and fierce in their opposition to bullies; both wicked smart and super silly; both beautiful and tough; but, always confident of their intrinsic worth.
Act Like a GRRRL has a great track record. In our 12 year history, there is no reported drug use, truancy or unwanted pregnancy among our participants. There is a reported increase in self-worth, academic excellence, intolerance for bullying and improved relationships with family and friends. Most importantly, our participants report a huge increase in hope for the future. They know their worth. They feel it in their bones.
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