Looking forward - supporting girls with becoming young women

Lovely post OP.
I don't have the answer. But I do hope that as the excessive gaslighting of children by organisations, the BBC, charities and self interest lobby groups reduces (and today's judgement will help a little) girls will be allowed to talk, think, explore and grow in a safe environment - rather than be caught up in a toxic ideology that labels any thoughts or actions not in line with Stasi central as 'bigotry'. It must be terrifying for girls trying to navigate all this.

This is exactly what we need for both sexes. Thank you for the idea OP

Great idea, Keira.

I think highlighting strong role models, non-conforming women, lesbians, women of all creeds, sizes, colours, seems a good way to help.

I suppose amplifying these women who are already out there doing their thing.

I do think that moves to question sexism and stereotypes need to be gently but repeatedly made.

Supportive spaces for girls and young women online - websites, sources of good information, evidence based information, perhaps?

Er, sorry, not Keira! Name is on the brain today!

OP.

Happy to support however I can

But short on ideas through . I sort of feel that the commercial world likes stereotypes and that there is more pressure than ever for children to conform

Need to get stories out, real life stories, fictional stories , that cover

Keira's win is such good news and a victory for common sense!

One way of supporting girls with becoming women might be telling our own stories of puberty and teenage years and sharing any feelings we had of wishing we weren't female - because of all the sexism and ogling of females.

Getting those stories out there will be the harder part I imagine, given the publications that would have once carried such things have been captured. Then again there are 'blogs', self-build websites and FB groups now...

I certainly recall feeling pretty depressed when I started my periods (aged about 12), hated my breasts and wearing bras (up until my mid 20s) and around age 18 (and until my mid 20s) just did NOT want to look in any way feminine. I wanted to be tough and masculine so that no one (meaning men) would mess with me (meaning try to abuse or harass me) - and I did my best to be seen as 'a bloke' and 'one of the lads'.

Now I am a grown up (well, sort of) in my 40s I can look back on the younger me and see what was going on. I am so glad not to be a teenager/in my 20s now!

Surely loads of us have similar stories to recount?

We need to start calling out the men and boys every single time. Yes, yes, we've been doing it for years (all my life!) but perhaps more coordinated campaigns to highlight the issue of misogyny and male violence against women and girls, making more and more noise. I know it has been and is being done, but keep shouting. I know I do.

Oh, and campaigns for better mental health support for all children and young people. Let's invest in our youth

Thanks - and yes same. I hated having to wear a bra and having a bosom so much - it doesn't bear thinking about what I might have been encouraged to do if what is available on the NHS now was available back then.

I also have female friends who felt same, including one who insisted on being called Keith for many years of her youth!

We got given a book for teens by some influencer or other Gemma Someone. Never heard of her. The page on periods began - Not Only Girls Have Periods. I threw it in the bin. I’m not sending it to Oxfam - I want it safely away from young eyes.

My next goal is to call out this sort of nonsense magical thinking. Children and teens think it’s gospel. It’s nonsense. I will also not use ‘trans child’ or any similar formulation.

Waiting for the day when MN allows us to stop using TW. Only women are women and girls should be able to look forward to being women. It’s not available to all.

Also waiting generally for MN to step up on this. The tide is turning ....Helping girls become women would be a fantastic MN campaign. Its not going to happen but it should happen.

Excellent thread. I do think ultimately this all comes down to the proliferation of porn. It's the massive elephant in the room, the antithesis of women's rights, that needs to be tackled. Regulation badly needs to happen if not outright eradication.

"I think highlighting strong role models, non-conforming women, lesbians, women of all creeds, sizes, colours, seems a good way to help."

This is no different than the quote that came from Teresa May when she was an MP in the 80s, saying that in order to stop girls becoming Lesbians they needed to be given good male role models.

Same shit different decade.

Why should you care what the people do when they're older!? Yes puberty is awful and one of the reasons I hated talking about my struggles was the patronizing attitude of most people. Like 'Oh yeah periods suck but its your body getting ready for having babies when you're older.' I'm childfree, periods serve no purpose to me what so ever.

"...a welcome for young girls to the sisterhood?" Ugh sounds like a cult and I feel physically sick right now.

I have never felt like most other girls, I have never been interested in their music, their shows, their celebrity crushes, their books, their fashion. How about instead of inducting people into the status quo and conformity, we support those who fall into the cracks and are ostracised?

This is such a moving OP. I wish I had an answer. I wonder if a lot of it is an outcome of the atomised, commercialised, individualistic post-truth slacktivist world we live in. Girls need meaningful relationships and links to actual, resilient, joyful women doing real things in the real world (whether that's professional, voluntary or domestic), to ground them in solid reality and give them a strong foundation. And that, in turn, depends on a fair, healthy and family-friendly economy, among other things.

I must say I'm always a bit sceptical of the idea of offering up an array of "role models", as it's not always the best role models who push themselves forward and get public recognition, and it's only a shallow glimpse of them we get anyway, often fluffed up for public consumption with an "emotional journey" soap opera. But I do think girls need to see women at work in the world, kicking ass. Without it being made a big thing of like "look! A WOMAN, doing science, like a man, I bet you didn't know that was possible"."look! The first WOMAN to do X - aren't you grateful?". Just "here is Sarah, the CEO of X", kind of thing.

So... I realise that's not the most helpful post! Interested to read the thread.

On a personal level, I will model body positivity for my daughter, as I really am delighted with my female body and all its functions, and so she may as well see that as a counterbalance to the negativity that exists (and understandably exists in many cases, e.g. those who have hellish periods)

I don’t have the answer but I have a daughter
The problems are-the internet, keep kids off social media.
Porn
Sexualisation of girls through marketing, TV, clothes and toys
Gender woo obviously

I think pidgeon you ate missing the point

The point is that many of us did fall through the cracks , didn't fit ( don't fit ) but have nevertheless managed to find a way of living that is both true to ourselves yet without any of the potentially harmful aspects that transitioning can involve

It's almost like normal is a lot more diverse than you realise

It's yesterday's trans teenagers that we are suggesting need to have their stories more widely acknowledged. Because trans identification is nothing new, people have felt that way through all of history. What has changed is that it now has a name and how we think it should be managed has changed. Historically it has really been treated as a mental health issue not a physical one.

Changes have to happen at society levels to have any effect. I thought the new RSE would be a good start as it was supposed to tackle porn, male entitlement and male violence, but it seems to have been co-opted.