Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures

This year I am participating in GenderAcrossBorders.com Blog for International Women’s Day.

One of the questions that bloggers have been asked to address is:

How can we, as a culture and as members of the global community, involve, educate, and inspire girls in a positive way?

For those of you who follow my blog regularly, you may have noticed by now that rather than coming straight to the point, I prefer to walk my way around it with a story...

I was in up-country Uganda for about two weeks recently, working with local researchers to help train them in ethnographic and qualitative data collection. Many of you know that when I travel for work I have almost a completely different wardrobe from what I wear at home. For one it’s super hot generally speaking, so loosely flowly things are key. And secondly, in most of the places I travel there’s more of a dress code, whether explicit or implicit, than in the United States. For instance, the other day a Ugandan friend of mine asked me if it really happened that in the US, like in Europe where he had visited, that when it gets even a little hot people are next to naked almost instantly. I laughed. The idea that when it’s hot you need to be wearing as little as possible would seem strange if you come from a hot place where that doesn’t happen.

So here I am in Uganda, so most of my outfits consist of loose pants and a short or long sleeve shirt, or a skirt that is at least past my knees. So essentially no shoulders and no knees, which is a lot like the dress code in a lot of offices in the US. I feel professional but also appropriate, I throw on some local flipflops when I walk into town and think I’m doing a pretty good job, considering how totally impossible it is to blend. But then I come to breakfast one morning and one of the researchers says “You’ve chosen your outfit well today”. When I ask him what he means, he explains that we’re going to a school today, and neither women nor girls are allowed to wear pants at school. He then says “Yes, I would give your outfit an A-.” Ever competitive, I ask why I don’t receive an A. He tells me that I would have to close the cardigan I am wearing over my (very modest) short sleeve shirt. Awesome.

Something I’ve realized through my travels is that while in America, I perceive wearing pants to be more casual, and wearing skirts I connect to ‘dressing up’, which probably comes from childhood I imagine, that isn’t the case around the world. In fact when you talk to members of communities about how we can prevent abuse and exploitation of girls, one of the answers is often that they should stop wearing short skirts or pants and tempting men. Yes, ladies, little did you know that wearing pants means you were asking for it.

So how do we, as a culture and members of a global community, involve, educate and inspire girls in a positive way? Let’s start in our own and others' communities by treating girls like people who deserve to be involved and educated and inspired. Let’s show girls (and women) that boys and men who think they are too appealing to resist in pants are in the wrong, that, in fact, they have the right to be safe in their own communities, without the fear that they are tempting or corrupting someone. Let’s help girls grow up to be proud of being female and understand that they can be strong and smart and powerful if they choose to be. Let’s raise them to demand and expect inclusion and education and inspiration, and stop telling them that they are the cause of their own problems, simply for being born female.