Didn’t we solve this sexism thing years ago?  

 

Women in the United States have never had it so good. Today, more women than men are going to college when in some countries they can be jailed or shot just for trying to go to elementary school. Women here are free to decide if and when they get married, if and when they’ll get pregnant and how many babies they’ll have. They can work, wear pants, play sports. Women can be out lesbians, gay marriage is legal, non-binary genders are increasingly accepted and transgender people are gaining legal rights. Domestic violence is a crime instead of a hushed, private matter; rape culture and toxic masculinity is finally being legitimized and challenged. 

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While all that is true, this website is less about the outright sexual harassment and violence that we, as a society, increasingly condemn, and more about the subtle yet pervasive diminishment girls face on a daily basis. There’s a slippery slope that starts with gender stereotyping and what we often call “tradition”, slides into the muddy ooze of objectification and sexualization, and lands in the poisonous waters of sexual harassment and violence against women. The more girls understand the sexist system they live in, the more control they may have on how it impacts their self confidence and self-respect.

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Kids and teens are observant and they're aware -- consciously or not -- of the inequities in their environments. They see women being paid less than men for the same work, with women of color being paid even less than White women. They see a dearth of women at the top of their professions, in the House and Senate, and in Hollywood. They hear about (if not experience) the alarming rate of sexual abuse and rape of women. They expect to be grabbed at a bar and know it's smart to take their drinks with them to the bathroom. They watched a man boast about grabbing women’s genitalia and being elected President anyway.

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In discussing the microaggressions girls face at home, in school, in the media, in relationships, walking down the street, and at their jobs, the hope is that girls will be able to make better sense of the discrepancy between their hopes for themselves and the derogatory messages they too frequently receive from others. 

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Let's stop the soul crushing.

 

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