Celebrating Your Girl Super Power
Though women and teenage girls are experiencing unprecedented pressures to be perfect, to be happy all the time, we girls remain amazing and there is no better time to be a woman, a girl and to celebrate.
Celebrating womanhood is appropriate any time of the year but during March, Women’s History Month, honouring and celebrating women is a daily event, not to mention the excitement of International Women’s Day, March 8.
Appropriately so, we have re-released our Identity podcast, a wonderful celebration of identifying as a female. Sisterhood co-founders Rachita and Rebecca talk about the wonderful girl cell that we ladies have.
“The girl cell is your super power. “
Ever since I heard this emancipating statement, I have been in fifth gear, encouraging teenage girls to reject the modern pressures in their lives, posing as necessary, norms that will serve them now and forever more.
Hence, our wait awhile initiative, starting its third week of life. With alarming statistics revealing that some teenage girls are actually getting non-medical cosmetic surgery, I have had endless conversations and queries about the matter. How can this be happening? Are these procedures legal, etc?
One growing concern I have is that the real point of this statistic–teenage girls are being forced to grow-up too soon– is lost on society. It some ways it appears that the story is yet another sensational piece, detaching it from real girls. Not so fast!
The reality is that real teenage girls have had their lips done several times to make them bigger, had fillers in their mouth so gums don’t show when they smile, fillers in their nose so they can contour it, had numerous injections in their bottoms, and Botox from the age of 16.
This is real life, not reality television, impacting the lives of a generation of girls who are making these choices under pressure, often blaming the social media culture in which they live. Social media has a lot to answer for, which is why we are supporting The Telegraph’s duty of care campaign and calling on the Government with as many strokes of the pen as we can to make social media a safe space for teenage girls.
But social media alone is not the only problem. Our girls are growing up under the influence of modern pressures on and off media. Our research corroborates that some of the pressure are systematic, if you will.
So change is needed inside, out if you will. Meanwhile, we are saying to teenage girls: embrace your girl cell, your super power, use it to strengthen your identity. Follow your passions and side step things that will likely lead to regret and enjoy the good stuff about being a girl and as for the good stuff about being a woman, await awhile. It will come.
For more tips on identity, check out Your Identity Inside Out and tap into your girl cell, your very own superpower.