Our girls are at risk and girlhood endangered by the social constructions of our contemporary society. Through our website, we will advocate for girls by raising the consciousness, awakening the conscience, and enlisting the will of as many people as we can reach. We will call upon Americans to reclaim girlhood for our little girls. For girls to pass safely from girlhood to womanhood, their bodies and spirits must be adequately fed and nurtured, their emotional and intellectual growth gently and patiently guided, and their innocence rightly respected and protected. Until girls are old enough to advocate for themselves, it is up to us to do it for them.
In a gentle way, you can shake the world.Mohandas Gandhi
TO BEGIN
Girls At Risk was created as the culmination of our participation in a University of Wisconsin Colleges Women's Studies course. As we began to explore ideas for our web-based consciousness-raising final project assignment, a passage from Joan Jacobs Brumberg's The Body Project caught our attention: "We cannot buy time with silence" (p200).
An adolescent mental health nurse for the past 18 years, Kathy Phillips has a vested interest in the well-being of young girls, while Beth Bockes has a complementary perspective stemming from her involvement in advocacy for children as a school board member. As a result of our personal and professional experiences, we recognize that children need adults to mentor them and advocate on their behalf.
As the above quote from The Body Project suggests though, time is of the essence, as children grow up at nature's pace, with or without the guidance of a caring adult. Parents may be unprepared, unavailable, unaware, or even part of the problem. In any case, parents cannot do it alone. We hope to be a part of the village it takes to raise a child, by going live with the message that little girls need someone to watch over them, to pace and protect their girlhood, and guide them safely not just to physical but to mental maturity.
Our goal is to call wide attention to contemporary objectification of young girls and the way it imperils our girls' present and future well-being and endangers the developmental stage known as girlhood. One of the statistics Brumberg cited, that five and six-year-old girls are among the two most victimized groups of the sexually abused (along with fourteen and fifteen year olds) (191) shocked us and should likewise shock everyone who is made aware. That single piece of information solidified our project focus.
Through the course of our studies, it became clear to us that there is a link between our pop culture, its portrayal of even our little girls as sexy, and Brumberg's alarming statistical commentary on our society. We ask visitors who move through the pages of Girls At Risk to also make that connection, to consider how gender role socialization affects our little girls and shapes the women they become, allowing that awareness to guide their interactions with the girls in their lives and inform the choices and decisions they may make on their behalf. By moving beyond awareness and analysis to action and advocacy, we can make a difference for our girls.
We are especially grateful for Dr. Joan Jacobs Brumberg's support of our project and her kind permission to use the quotation from The Body Project on our homepage, as well as the important work she has published on behalf of our girls.
Beth Bockes and Kathy Phillips
November 2009
"Each new sunrise is a bonus. We have to do our
best to do what's right every day." - Kathy
"None of us alone has the power to change the
world, but if each of us works to change what
we can in our own little world, the whole
world will be a better place." - Beth
Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls.
Originally published: New York: Random House,1997. p.200.
