Brave Girls: Raising Young Women with Passion and Purpose to Become Powerful Leaders - Softcover

Radin Dr., Stacey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 145169931X ISBN 13: 9781451699319

Verlag: Atria, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

“A solid resource for parents and educators” (Kirkus Reviews), Brave Girls is an empowering guide to cultivating confident, passionate, and powerful young leaders during the most formative stage of life: the middle school years.

After years of research as a psychologist and consultant for women struggling in the professional world, Stacey Radin made a groundbreaking realization: women who become successful leaders learn how to do so in the middle grades—the most formative stage in a girl’s development and self-identification. Drawing on her own experience with Unleashed, an after-school program dedicated to empowering girls through puppy rescue, Radin has written Brave Girls­—the ultimate guidebook for anyone who wants to help girls become confident, passionate, and powerful leaders.

At a pivotal time in their lives, girls learn to advocate for others, think critically, and, most importantly, gain confidence in their ability to create change. Perfect for “anyone concerned with girls and women’s lives” (New York Times bestselling author Michael Gurian), Brave Girls shows how contributing to one cause can shape a leader for life while reducing the hazards of middle school—bullying, excessive competition, fear of speaking out—and identifying the patterns that truly make a difference. If we take initiative early enough, we can inspire today’s girls to become the next generation of strong, enthusiastic, and fulfilled leaders in all areas of society.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr. Stacey Radin was a psychologist, researcher, and consultant who dedicated her career to the development of girls and women. She was the founder and president of Corporate Equilibrium, specializing in the psychology of organizational effectiveness, a member of the United Nation’s Working Group on Girls and founder of Unleashed, a ground-breaking girl’s leadership program. In October 2019, the Children’s Aid Society of New York announced that Unleashed had donated its financial, educational, and intellectual assets in the memory of Stacey Radin to Children’s Aid, who will utilize these assets to build a new curriculum focused on adolescent girl empowerment, especially for their South Bronx community schools. Stacey’s passion for developing leadership programs designed to implement change, strengthen leaders’ ability to influence ethically, and create opportunities to experiment and think out of the box is a testament of how she will be remembered. The culmination of her experiences with Unleashed was the publishing of Brave Girls: Raising Young Woman With Passion and Purpose to Become Powerful Leaders. She passed away in 2018.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Brave Girls

Chapter 1

“Who Am I?”: The Girl Problem

Madison was your typical girlie girl, long, blond hair, giggles, and flirtation. Eleven years old when she started Unleashed, I noticed she talked—a lot—about looks, weight, and boys. She had more curves than many of her classmates, and she knew it, flaunting them in belly shirts and tight tank tops. Most girls adopt a persona at this age, whether it is “the athlete” or “the mean girl” or “the class clown,” because they are unaware of who they are. Madison was trying on the role of “sexy girl.”

As the weeks progressed, I noticed a marked decrease in her comments about makeup, eating disorders, and cute football players. She attended an animal rescue and worked with potential adoptive parents; I even named a puppy after her to honor the stellar job she did writing and organizing a skit on dog euthanasia for a schoolwide presentation. Madison began to realize the impact she could have on the world—and that that impact had nothing to do with her looks. One day she told me, “I love Elle Woods—she’s so powerful.” Elle Woods is a pink-obsessed sorority girl played by Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde, who strategically enrolls at Harvard Law School to win back her ex-boyfriend. To an outsider, Madison’s comment might seem worrisome, but I was thrilled. I told her, “I agree! Elle is a fabulous role model for girls because she’s so much more than her veneer. She was passionate about a cause and enlisted her fellow sorority girls to get things done.” Unleashed helped Madison find a way to blend her girlishness with a sense of power and, like Elle, became a modern-day feminist.

Adolescence is the stage of life most marked by identity development. The overriding quest is to answer the daunting question “Who am I?” At no other time in a woman’s life will she face as many physiological, psychological, cognitive, and social-emotional changes as during her adolescent years. Newly acquired reasoning skills, hormonal fluctuations, and differences in her social milieu thrust a young girl full speed ahead into self-discovery and experimentation. But this exciting new phase of development is complicated by other factors that make it surprisingly difficult for a girl to answer the question “Who am I?” Our society is largely male dominated, deeming men’s experiences and developments the prototypes for cultural norms. In 2015, girls and women still struggle to establish a strong sense of self in an environment flooded with pressure to conform to expectations that disregard the uniqueness of a female’s experience. The developmental theories studied in school by the next generation of psychologists remain largely based on the clinical observations and research of men such as Kohlberg, Freud, Erikson, and Piaget, who either minimize gender differences or go as far as viewing females as deviants from the norm. Erikson states, when discussing the adolescent girl, “Female identity is held in abeyance while attracting men.”1 Freud believed the superego (an individual’s executive functioning) was compromised in women, labeling them incapable of having a sense of justice as compared to men. And Piaget, who exerted tremendous influence on our educational system, discussed how girls lack respect for rules because they are willing to make exceptions if necessary (adding that respect for rules is highly correlated to morality). What meaning does this have for girls and women? As girls embark on their journey to discover their passions, values, and strengths, they confront the harsh reality that they may need to morph their identities to assimilate and succeed.

We live in a world that places great emphasis on autonomy, independence and self-sufficiency. But a relational, interconnected approach is the cornerstone of a female’s psychological health and growth. Researchers such as Carol Gilligan and Peggy Orenstein continuously report women’s and girls’ identities are defined in accordance with relationships, intimacy, and communities, motivated by a sense of connection to their world; empathy and mutuality are instrumental to their functioning. These vast differences in psychological models of health result in the distortion of a woman’s experience as pathological or insufficient. Societal perceptions dampen our females’ ability to develop authentic identities; instead of asking themselves “Who am I?” the question becomes “Who am I supposed to be?”

Worsening matters, middle school girls are not used to having leadership programs designed specifically for them. Most after-school programs focus on elementary-school children or high school and college women, rendering middle school a developmental purgatory. (According to the Afterschool Alliance, nearly 4 million sixth through eighth graders find themselves unsupervised after school.)2

There is a popular misconception about this group: People categorize middle school girls as oppositional, difficult to work with, and hard to engage. The media depicts them as self-involved, superficial, materialistic mean girls. Even psychologists and teachers confess to reluctantly working with sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade girls, easily overwhelmed by sassy retorts, vacillation from one emotional state to another, or being stonewalled with silence.

But what others tag as oppositional, I view as feisty, passionate, and eager to experiment. In my eyes, these girls are diamonds in the rough: unique, possessing great potential, and capable of shining brilliantly when succeeding. What they need is a trusted adviser to actively listen to their ideas and thoughts, empathize with their experiences, and guide and navigate them as they weather the storm. Our girls need adults who will provide them with opportunities to take risks and embrace ownership of projects for which they care deeply. Given the right tools, middle school girls will fly.

Unleashed fills a void created by society, providing girls with a forum to develop a strong sense of self. The organization is largely based upon my model of power, developed from the research I conducted studying powerful women (which will be discussed at greater length in chapter 4). The model integrates personal power, relational power, and assertive power to form a triumvirate, each component as critical as the others. Developing a strong identity and an authentic sense of self is largely contingent upon strengthening a girl’s personal power. Its basic tenets include identifying and leveraging values, strengths, passions, and needs; tapping into empathy and emotional intelligence; strengthening self-esteem and confidence; and increasing self-awareness and insight.

“What do you think Unleashed is about?” I ask the group in our first meeting.

“Puppies!” shouts back Tess, a ten-year-old redhead wearing a tank top and blue Converse high-tops. “Doggy rescue!” calls out Maia, a twelve-year-old with wire-rimmed glasses and wavy brunette hair. It is my job to fill in the blanks: “Yes, it’s all of that . . . and more. It’s about being a powerful girl and having a voice. It’s about fighting for something you believe in. It’s about a concept called social justice and why animal welfare and rights are much more...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Atria
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 145169931X
• ISBN 13: 9781451699319
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar