Trish Allison - How to Teach Girls Theyre Just as Worthy as Boys

"Gender equality begins at home, and families are on the front lines of change." - UN Women

Introduction

T he progress that's being made to ensure women can excel in their chosen field is absolutely fantastic and crucial. Equally important however is equipping a generation of girls with the confidence needed to grow, without intimidation, toward the opportunities that are finally becoming available to them.

It's up to us as adults to make sure girls experience new and more equitable gender norms as they grow toward their full potential.

To help, its imperative to maintain ongoing gender awareness and to be open to girls choices in learning and development as they grow.

It takes time to acquire a habit and parents need to be patient with their children. Keep repeating these habits every day so the child inculcates it more promptly. Sometimes, parents are not aware what habits they should teach their children.1

This guidebook provides practical, day-to-day tips to help parents teach sustainable gender-equality habits to girls. Here are some examples: how to help her discover and explore her interests, how to build her confidence about her social worth, how to help her make connections to like-minded people, and how to help her find the right role mode.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you're reading:

• Tips apply to all combinations of the modern family.

• Tips are written for parents of elementary-school children but theres a wide spectrum of maturity at every age. Some 6-year-olds are mature way beyond their years and some 10-year-olds are learning at a different pace than their peers. That said, keep in mind that tips are intended as suggestions only ; you know your child better than anyone.
• Tips are not intended for a single teaching moment. Instead, theyre structured to be carried out in manageable chunks throughout the entire length of your girls growing-up years.

• The chapters themselves are not organized in a straight line. That is, they're intended as a non-linear collection of building blocks to increase girls gender-equality confidence. For example, you might need to help your girl find a suitable role model before you're ready to explain 'consent.' That's perfectly fine. There's no prescribed order.

• The content inside each chapter is linear; the step-by-step instructions are meant to be carried out in order. For example, when you're helping your girl find a suitable role model, it's crucial that you help her understand why role models are important and how she can learn from them before you guide her toward resources for finding one.

• While theres no one-size-fits-all solution for raising equality-minded girls, this guidebook provides suggestions for scenarios that you can tailor to fit your own situation. The ultimate goal is to help you raise a confident, resilient woman.
  
• Many of the tips assume that you and your girl already share a fairly solid foundation of mutual communication. The tips are doable without this foundation, but they'll be much harder to implement successfully without it.

• You'll find a 'self-discovery' technique used throughout. This is because simply telling your girl she needs to be more confident isnt nearly as effective as guiding her toward discovering confidence on her own. For example, you'll find suggestions for guiding your girl toward options for discovering her passion on her own. This strategy will give her the ownership and confidence she needs to continue exploring what she loves, instead of pursuing a skill because that's what she thinks you want.

Finally, as history has shown us, the movement towards equality for girls and women is slow and long and arduous.

The good news? We can leverage that hard-won knowledge by preparing girls for the future that centuries of courageous women before us envisioned. Lets start implementing step-by-step strategies to achieve their goals.

Chapter 1: Help her Understand Where She Fits into Girls and Womens Rights

T heres no need to be a hardened feminist here. This chapter is solely intended for you to get an accurate understanding of where your girl thinks she fits in the gender-equality movement. Getting this information is vital for you to get the full benefit from this guidebook.

Once you feel like you have a solid understanding of where your girl and her peers stand on womens rights issues, use that information to shape the strategies and language you use to implement the rest of the suggestions in this book.

Use the backdrop of girls and womens rights to bolster your stance. This will make more sense (and sound less cumbersome!) as you keep reading.

Step 1. Listen to her perspective

This first step is to measure your girls understanding of womens rights. Maybe shes already well-versed in all aspects of current and past movements.

Or maybe she knows very little about it and youre starting with a blank slate. Either way, youll never know until you ask.

Ask her opinion of some hot-button gender-equality issues. Womens marches? Arranged marriage? Female politicians? Equal pay? Women in STEM fields?

Or you could ask her opinion of some of the young girl activists like Greta Thunberg (climate change), Emma Gonzalez (Parkland, FL School shootings), Marley Diaz (#1000blackgirlbooks), and Malala (womens and girls education).