Slogans like ‘girl power’ and ‘the future is female’ might be prevalent among clothing staples and accessories, but the adages have little effect on actual girls.
Young women in the UK are ‘fed up and frustrated’ with empty messages of female empowerment, according to research by charity Plan International UK.
The organisation teamed up with photographer Joyce Nicholls to chat with British girls about the things they think about on topics such as public safety, body image, social media and feminism.
They found that 60% of girls aged 14-21 feel boys are still treated better than them.
Among the 1,000 surveyed, 72% noticed differences in treatment in the media, 41% said they felt it at school and 22% at home.
Many also said that they feel unsafe in public, are held back by sexism in school, and aren’t being heard on issues like Brexit.
In an effort to truly empower girls, Plan International UK – which strives to advance children’s rights and equality for girls around the world – has published its findings.
CEO Rose Caldwell said: ‘The findings in this report should serve as a wake-up call for all politicians and decision makers.
‘If adolescent girls are feeling undervalued, unheard and under-represented in public life, we, as a society, are letting them down.
‘We simply cannot continue ignoring the fact that girls still feel excluded, marginalised and overlooked and we look forward to working with those in power to end the dangerous stereotypes that are holding girls back.’
These are what some of the girls had to say:
Pixie, 14, Scottish Highlands
‘I know a lot of guys who are 19, 20, and will be messaging 14, 15-year-old girls asking them for nudes. And I don’t feel like they can say no, like it’s something they have to do even though it’s not. Cat-calling of younger girls is seen as normal.
‘This whole idea of older men with younger girls, that’s seen as normal, even though it’s really not, it’s really creepy. They could try and do more to check people’s ages on dating apps because it is really dodgy having younger people on these apps.
‘A lot of the things that people say on these apps are really sexual and inappropriate, and if you’re exposing young kids to it, that’s really weird.’
Olamide, 17, London
‘We still are fighting against expectations of, for a girl specifically, getting married, having children… what if someone doesn’t want to have children? Like with climate change at the moment, I wouldn’t blame them!
‘Who wants to bring their child into this world? It’s always there. Like your dad saying “you should get married. You should have children. You should be the nice housewives. You should know how to cook. You should know how to clean”.
‘Why can’t my brother? You’re not getting married to someone for her to be your slave! They’re there to be your partner, not to work for you.’
Tanya, 21, Birmingham
‘Growing up as a black woman, it is quite hard to actually see someone who represents you in a higher position. So, I feel like some of the standards that we do see ourselves are a bit lower. Black women tend to have protective hairstyles such as braids or twists.
‘I know that not even just in school, even in professional businesses in the corporate world, that it is seen as messy and unprofessional.
‘But if you see a white woman, for example, who would go in with, say, her bun or something like that, it’s seen as completely normal, and it does cause that divide.’
Violet, 13, East Riding of Yorkshire
‘I won the Yorkshire championships – they’re national championships. I got silver in the Tri Nations, which was Scotland, Wales, and England, when I boxed for England with the England team. And then I went to Ireland and got a gold for the Monkstown Box Cup.
‘If I tell my teachers about boxing, they’re like, “Oh, do you do boxercise? Do you train once a week or something?” I have to explain that I box for England.
‘I do think the idea of there being girls and boy sports is still around, because boys generally play football at dinner time, and girls don’t do that. I really like boxing and [watching] rugby, but I also really like doing my hair, and make-up.’
Bláithín, 16, Derry
‘There’s a big misunderstanding of what a feminist is, because people just assume, “that’s like women need to be better than men, women are better than men in all aspects, men are nothing”, and it’s just not that. They are uneducated in what it is, and before they speak, they should maybe find out.
‘[My definition of feminism is] someone that stands up for the rights of everyone and wants everyone to have equal opportunities in life. Which they should.
‘That’s what I don’t get, because as humans, I think we should all support each other. Especially as girls, we should all support each other. So why wouldn’t you want the best for the people around you?’
Tayibah, 13, Birmingham
‘A lot of things have always been taboo. People haven’t been talking about sex, rape, periods, how your body grows. … I think it’s really important that we talk about these kinds of things because where else are we going to learn about it?
‘We have to have somewhere where we can talk about it, have our opinions and not be judged. I think that it should be talked about in multiple places; at school, at home, in the media.
‘In my school there’s a lot of boys who don’t really know how to treat girls. A lot of boys in my year talk about girls like an object. Like they talk about the way they [girls] look; if they’ve got a big bum or big features or stuff like that.’
Elsa, 16, Scottish Highlands
‘Everything has to follow with a brand; you have to create your own image and your own identity, which isn’t normally true at all. It’s like a whole aesthetic, which often isn’t your real personality. Speaking to and seeing someone in person is often incredibly different to how you expect them to be when you see them online.
‘In reality I don’t have a massive amount of followers, I have 500 and something, whereas girls we know have got 2,000. It seems so bizarre to want verification, or to be appreciated by people who don’t know you.
‘You want likes from people you’ve never met before that go to other schools and you’re never going to see in your life. You want them to like your pictures and you want them to approve it.’
Eliza, 17, Birmingham
‘I think we’re quite blessed to kind of be in a place where I feel like everyone’s accepted, in Liverpool, but obviously you do face some challenges. And I think being a young woman is a lot harder. Even I used to volunteer in the shop and I’d have men coming up to me going, “How much are you?”.’
Megan, 17, Inverness
‘And they were the ones that were asking all the questions. That’s where boys are getting their sex tips from. And then, it’s just so unrealistic.’
Hollie, 15, Merthyr Tydfil in Wales
‘I wouldn’t really walk around the streets on my own now because of the stories we hear, and people being harassed in the streets, and, you know, all the different alleys. It makes me feel ashamed to not be able to go out of my own house, into my own village on my own, because it’s that thought constantly in the back of your head – what’s going to happen if we go out?’
Rachel, 15, Ards and North Down
‘The biggest challenge I have being a girl here in Northern Ireland would be pay gaps. I’ve always said I want to be a dentist when I’m older, no compromise. And then I looked up statistics recently and it turns out that there is a giant pay gap this year alone despite the fact that the majority of people going into local universities are female for dentistry.
‘It makes me feel like no matter how hard I’m going to work, there could be a guy beside me, not working nearly as hard, he’s going to get the exact same rewards.
‘I think that girls should be told from a younger age to pursue interests like technology and maths, but equally that boys should be allowed to pursue and make art and music and drama.’
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/19/what-young-women-think-in-2020-about-public-safety-body-image-social-media-and-feminism-12083411/
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