{"id":1811,"date":"2010-01-20T22:08:06","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T03:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1811"},"modified":"2010-01-20T22:08:06","modified_gmt":"2010-01-21T03:08:06","slug":"girl-talk-three-reasons-why-its-great-to-be-a-girl-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2010\/01\/20\/girl-talk-three-reasons-why-its-great-to-be-a-girl-today\/","title":{"rendered":"GIRL TALK: Three Reasons Why It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Great to be a Girl Today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">My daughter turned 9 this week, and she reminds me of a wave about to hit the sand, full of power and beauty at the same time.<span> <\/span>Rarely have I wanted to turn back the clock to any earlier life stage\u00e2\u20ac\u201dafter all, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m learning as I go\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut girlhood right now looks pretty impressive from my towel safely above the shoreline.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Number 1: Title IX Rules<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Title IX became law in 1972, so I am also a beneficiary of the legislation, but I think that my daughter will reap its rewards more fully.<span> <\/span>Title IX applies to both athletics and education, but its impact on athletic particpation is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.womenssportsfoundation.org\/Content\/Articles\/Issues\/Title%20IX\/T\/Title%20IX%20Q%20%20A.aspx\">especially dramatic<\/a>.<span> <\/span>In 1970 only 1 in 27 females played varsity sports; the number is 1 in 2.5 today.<span> <\/span>My daughter already plays soccer, a sport that I never encountered as an elementary school student; in fact, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have any opportunities to participate in team sports in middle or high school, either.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Number 2: Girl Power Rocks<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Three cheers for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.girlscouts.org\/who_we_are\/\">Girl Scouts<\/a>!<span> <\/span>My daughter joined a Brownie troop last year, and while I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t love everything about Girl Scouting, I do love the values of leadership and social consciousness that scouting promotes.<span> <\/span>My daughter dashes out the door to Friday meetings on dark winter evenings (when a week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth of work and school activities leave me feeling ready to hunker down at home)<strong> <\/strong>and bursts into a giggly gaggle of girls who sincerlely work\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand play\u00e2\u20ac\u201dat building community across differences.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Number 3: It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s All About Social Justice<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">My son and daugther spent last week hanging environmental responsibility signs around our house: they posted reminders on bathroom doors about conserving water during showers and decorated the hamper with a sign about wearing clean clothes more than once.<span> <\/span>Today my daughter took money to donate to a Haiti relief fund at school.<span> <\/span>To be sure these efforts are small and inconsistent (we discussed contributing to earthquake relief instead of buying birthday gifts and my daughter was not quite so selfless).<span> <\/span>Yet I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hopeful that social justice issues are woven into her home, school, and extracurricular life in ways that reflect a larger generational trend.\u00c2\u00a0 What do you notice about the girls in your lives, GWP readers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My daughter turned 9 this week, and she reminds me of a wave about to hit the sand, full of power and beauty at the same time. Rarely have I wanted to turn back the clock to any earlier life stage\u00e2\u20ac\u201dafter all, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m learning as I go\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut girlhood right now looks pretty impressive from my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1905,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21103],"tags":[46,21395,3109,21932],"class_list":["post-1811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-girl-talk","tag-activism","tag-girls","tag-motherhood","tag-womens-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1905"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}