Malala is a fantastic role model for girls - but why aren't there more?

[MumsnetGuestBlogs]

Happy International Day of the Girl! We would have loved to have been able to congratulate Malala Yousafzai on being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but unfortunately it was not to be.

But this is no way diminishes her extraordinary achievement. Threats from the Taliban couldn’t stop her writing - nor did the appalling, cowardly attack on her and her school friends. Standing tall at the UN earlier this year, she spoke powerfully and movingly for the rights of girls to an education. The fact that she was considered for the Nobel Prize for Peace – taking her place alongside Aung San Suu Kyi, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Shirin Ebadi – is, I hope, testament to the fact that global equality for women and girls is edging closer. What a fantastic role model she is to our girls - and to our boys.

And heaven knows they need it.

From a young age, children are given the message that girls like pink, dressing up, make-up and hairstyles, princesses and horses. Boys are pushed towards cars, tractors, planes and adventure. Campaigns such as Let Toys Be Toys have been successful in highlighting how damaging this is for children – but the media landscape in which our daughters are growing up presents just as many challenges to those of us who want our children to be whatever they want to be.

Our girls are bombarded with images of seemingly perfect celebrities, and feel pressured that they don’t live up to the images portrayed. They are as yet unaware that this perfection is only achievable with the assistance of a team of stylists, flattering lighting and photoshop to smooth the skin and vanish blemishes.

In March 2012, I started a thread on Mumsnet asking if anyone would like to contribute to a preteen magazine for girls. The idea was that the magazine would offer an alternative to magazines like Girls & Co, Go Girl and Hello Kitty, which offer such a narrow range of options for girls to aspire to. This magazine would focus on fun articles and creative craft ideas, personal and school/career advice, insights into careers that they may not have considered, articles about children around the world and interactive content, some of it written by their peers. We wanted to feature female role models – not celebrities, but sportswomen, archaeologists, engineers, counsellors and councillors.

With the assistance of dozens of Mumsnetters, Jump! Mag was born.

In the year since, we’ve published over 200 articles on a wide range of topics, hosted two writing competitions (the second is currently underway) and featured over 60 articles written by our young readers – everything from being a vegetarian to coping with bullies to what it is really like to live on a boat.

In the coming weeks we’ll be launching a Kickstarter crowd-funding project to develop the magazine further – so do keep an eye out on Facebook and Twitter for announcements. The new Jump! Mag will be a unique online magazine for preteens - a one-stop-shop to inspire and entertain kids, in a safe, girl-positive environment.

We’ll feature games and interactive stories, news and reviews, peer-to-peer counselling, advice on bullying and health and using social media safely – and we’ll be working with other organisations to inform our readers about science, technology, engineering and mathematics – traditionally subjects that are not promoted to girls.

Our hope is that we can be online mentors, guiding the way for thousands of girls around the world, showing them that there are fascinating careers that they might not even know about- and opening up the world for them by showing that there are many more roles available to them than the ones they see in the other girls' magazines on the newsagent's shelf.

In a world that celebrates the bravery of Malala Yousafzai - a girl who is determined to speak out about what she wants to be - we think it's time to give all girls the confidence to stand up and speak up, and to know that their voice will be heard.

[alexpolistigers]

I am very surprised by this thread.

I have contributed some articles to Jump. To those who think that these are subjects covered by education in school, I can assure you that my subject was never ever covered by even so much as one lesson in my school.

And even if it had been, would that make it less interesting? What is wrong with reading further articles on a subject you may have touched on briefly at school?

And as to the complaints about using Malala to promote Jump - I think her experience is entirely relevant to the point about providing girls with healthy role models. The fact that she may be a product of her culture does not detract from that.

[Portofino]

I feel really sad that despite the comments from others and MNHQ some posters have been so negative about what Lynn is trying to achieve here. This is an initiative that sprang from MN and this blog post was aiming to celebrate International Day of the Girl. Last year for example the stuff that Lynn posted encouraged me to sponsor a girl in Vietnam through Plan International.

If anyone wants to think I am being sycophantic and overly nice, well I am not generally "nice" on MN. I don't suffer fools gladly. But Lynn has bloody good credentials re the MN Blogger thing. She has been to Africa with the Gates Foundation. She has spent months of her life trying to set up something for our tweenagers. MNHQ actually asked her to make this post. Bloody shame on you who do nothing, care nothing, for criticising her for it.

[Hullygully]

How dare you try and improve the lot of gels, Lynn, AND try and earn a living.

You should be taken out and shot.

You are a disgrace to your SEX.

Isn't tatting good enough for you?

[Portofino]

Hully, you always put it so well, damn you.

[Growlithe]

Before anyone reports me to MNHQ, this is a voluntary, non-profit making blog that I am thinking about creating.

Sorry to be quoting another thread, but you linked to it on this one so it was obviously relevant.

Anyway, the focus of it has now clearly changed into a business. I thought this was clear in the OP actually and now you have confirmed your aim is to make a living out of it, and employ others. You have done research and identified a target market.

And that market obviously doesn't include my family, because we like other publications , well another publication - First News, which in my opinion presents news to the preteen market without extra agenda. And which has been around for years.

I can and will object to you using Malala in this way. You say you aren't, and that you were invited by MNHQ to write about International Day of the Girl and they suggested you mention her. I think this could have done this without mentioning the magazine. So I think she, and the occasion, are being used in the OP.

But, as MNHQ were happy with what you wrote, then it was promotion for the product and the need for investment around the venture, I suppose I can't blame you for taking the opportunity. I wouldn't have done it myself, but as I am not driven to launch such a site myself I suppose it is fair that I cannot comment on the motivations and actions of those that would.

You obviously have many supporters on MN, including MNHQ. But as your focus is to empower girls to become women who will not be afraid to stand away from the crowd and speak their mind, I will do so on this thread.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Ok, for the slow-of-thinking:

SHE WAS ASKED TO. MN KNOWS ALL ABOUT JUMP! AND SUPPORTS IT.

Crikey.

So, no, not sure how she'd have done that without mentioning the magazine. Also, could you explain to me how, precisely, it'd be helpful to Malala's own message about education to not post about a similar message aimed at UK children?

Sorry, but I think this is ridiculous.

And like porto, I don't think I am habitually sycophantic on MN. I've never met Lynn in real life. I just read what she writes.

[GoshAnneGorilla]

"The fact that she may be a product of her culture does not detract from that."

FFS, would people stop describing her like that, it is hugely, hugely racist.

If anyone has bothered to read anything Malala has to say, you would see that she is proud of her culture, her religion and her country and that's why she wants to fight and oppose the Taliban for their misuse and mistreatment of all those things.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

We're all products of our culture.

I agree with goth.

[Growlithe]

Ok, for the slow-of-thinking:

SHE WAS ASKED TO. MN KNOWS ALL ABOUT JUMP! AND SUPPORTS IT.

Crikey.

So, no, not sure how she'd have done that without mentioning the magazine. Also, could you explain to me how, precisely, it'd be helpful to Malala's own message about education to not post about a similar message aimed at UK children?

Well, I'm not a writer, but I would have approached this by going back to Malala's own iconic UN speech. Lynn said she wanted to promote mentoring. Malala mentions in that speech a number of key recent historical role models that have shown her that peace and love should be her most important motivations, and that her own mother and father have taught her forgiveness.

I would have been enthusiastic about this. I have grown up with people like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela in my own consciousness (which must have come from my parents) and tried to instil the same in my own children.

I'd have honoured her by talking of her own role models, not least her parents who must have been beyond many of us in terms of courage to not only send their beloved child to school in those circumstances, but to teach her it was her responsibility to get an education. All against the background against they were living.

That would have been my own take on it, because yes I think she should have been mentioned this year.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I am fairly sure you'd have criticised Lynn if she'd done that too.

It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to claim you'd have been fine with that, and you weren't fine with what Lynn did.

In fact, I'm not entirely clear why you don't apply the same standards to your own posts, and feel shocked that you've just 'used' Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela to score points on the internet. How does that work, exactly?

Given you're clearly in the UK, don't you feel 'exploitative' citing King and Mandela as models for your own children?

[AnyFucker]

Uggh, do some of you even understand what constructive criticism looks like. ?

[Growlithe]

Well, LRD, I did use those examples not to score internet points but because they had tied Malala's life to my own, Western upbringing. The fact she had mentioned them as relevant to her own life hit a cord with me, because they were relevant figures in my own adolescence and early adulthood, through to today.

I liked that she had mentioned them. She gave me a little point of reference and I think the fact that she can do that to a 45 year old in the UK when describing her own teenage life in Pakistan is actually quite remarkable.

[Growlithe]

Oh, and I don't think it is exploitative to cite Mandela and King as models for my own children. Why would I not when I want them to be able to recognise injustice in the modern world?

[Growlithe]

What "extra agenda" are you on about fgs Grow? Are you wearing a tinfoil hat?

From a young age, children are given the message that girls like pink, dressing up, make-up and hairstyles, princesses and horses. Boys are pushed towards cars, tractors, planes and adventure. Campaigns such as Let Toys Be Toys have been successful in highlighting how damaging this is for children – but the media landscape in which our daughters are growing up presents just as many challenges to those of us who want our children to be whatever they want to be.

This is the extra agenda. The fact that we are somehow wrong as parents because we allow our 5 yo the princess phase, and we let our 9 yo experiment with her hair in the morning before school. The fact that they are wrong for wanting to.

[MmeLindor.]

Blimey.

I'm at a bit of a loss, tbh.

I don't believe I've said that girls shouldn't be allowed a princess phase or that they shouldn't be allowed to experiment with your hair.

I believe that it shouldn't be the default, or expected of them. You don't know me, or my family so you can't know that my daughter did indeed go through a very pink princess phase and that she now spends hours watching YouTube tutorials and copying them to do her hair.

She also just as happy climbing trees and her newest ambition is to climb Ben Nevis.

I'm not trying to stop any girl doing anything she wants to do. Or any boy for that matter.

I want boys to be able to wear pink without being ridiculed. I never want to hear 'boys will be boys' or 'big boys don't cry'. I want boys to be able to like drawing and ballet, football and adventure.

Do I have an agenda? Yes, I suppose I do. I want kids to be able to live and express themselves freely, without the confines of gender.

I quite like First News, but it also exists so I can't create another one. Do you get cross when someone starts a new chocolate brand cause there is already Cadburys on the market?

I do (kind of) get your point that I'm trying to sell something but don't see why it's so terrible. I'm just a woman from a small town in Scotland with a big idea. If you don't like that idea, I'm fine with that but I don't see why I should apologise for it.

I'm not some corporate monster and have constantly been looking for ways in which I can give back to the community (such as offering free access to libraries or in developing countries so that girls can use Jump! Mag to learn English).

Thanks to all who've spoken up in my defence. I'll go back to crocheting now, Hully. Sorry about that.

[Growlithe]

It wasn't my point that you are trying to sell something, it was my point that on this OP you used Malala and the International Day of the Girl to do it.

[VeeVandTeaDrinkYourBlood]

Mnhq, I think it is a bit of a poor show that you had Lynn working her arse off on something that you asked her to do and then just allow her to get slagged off six ways till Sunday for it.

Artex - I completely agree.

Grow, I suspect that you would have been up in arms about anyone lynn used as an example role model. She has every right to try to use this post to promote a site which is aimed at young girls. International day of the girl - check. Young girl who fought back against societys expectation/role model - check. Magazine aimed at young girls who don't wish to conform to gender stereotypes - check.

You have taken what couldve been an interesting discussion about role models for our daughters, and turned it into an attack on one poster and a whinge about advertising. Bravo.

[Hullygully]

This is how it goes:

MNHQ1: oh look, it's international day of the gel, we should do something.

MNHQ2: Yeah what? I know, let's get thingy, that MNer who does the magazine aimed at gels that isn't sexist an that.

MNHQ1: Yeah, good shout. Get her to write something on that Malala and role models for gels cos that's what her mag is all about, innit?

MNHQ2: Yeah.



Thingy: Yeah, that'll work cos I want gels to have positive role models AND it's Gel Day And you've asked me AND I myself am then an example to gels AND it promotes the mag which can only be good for gels AND maybe I might earn a living one day.

win win

Everyone happy except Grow.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

'Oh, and I don't think it is exploitative to cite Mandela and King as models for my own children. Why would I not when I want them to be able to recognise injustice in the modern world?'



I'm terribly sorry it's only your children who're entitled to 'recognise injustice' by reference to figures not part of their own community.

I would be finding this all terribly sad, though hully scripting MNHQ as written by Jilly Cooper is brilliant.

[MmeLindor.]

When reading Twitter last night, I came across a tweet that said 'What Malala Yousafzai teaches us about business'

Now, that I'd have huffed about perhaps, but it's actually not that uncommon for a company to take the news issue of the day and write a more or less article around it.

At least my company (it isn't actually even a company yet) has some connection with girls and education.

I don't think anyone at MNHQ would have expected this thread to go like this, but I do like Hully's screenplay.

Anyway. Anyone got thoughts on mentoring girls? And boys?

Did you see that Our Carrie MNHQ is involved in a project to send women into schools? That would be fab for MNetters.

[MmeLindor.]

More or less relevant - that should be

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Have you the link, lynn, or am I being dopey (no coffee yet), for Carrie's project? It sounds great.

With regard to mentoring - something that's been playing on my mind is how MN basically provides peer-support with DV. And every time we discuss it we end up agreeing that if children (boys and girls) grew up with a better sense of the signs of a healthy relationship/the red flags where they could say 'no', things would be better. I wondered what you thought about mentoring children with an eye to teaching them to peer-support each other?

[MmeLindor.]

Miriam Gonzales Durantez on mentoring.

That was actually in the first draft of the blog post and got bumped in honour of Malala, as there were too many stories for one blog.

It's a really interesting concept - the other group I've been talking to are wonderful too. Will link. Hang on