Today is International Day of the Girl Child. This day may not have a long history to it, but treating girls the way our society does and priming girls for certain things while making them believe they are unfit for or incapable of other things has definitely been around for millennia.
It all starts in the childhood – no access to education for the estimated 62 million girls, child marriage, abuse of all kinds, but most importantly the ‘traditional’ upbringing that instills in the young minds of both girls and boys an unsettling idea that girls are somehow inferior and therefore subordinate to men, that there are things that are rightfully out of their reach, that they’re not supposed to dream about and that they shouldn’t aspire to.
As it is with any global long-standing problem, this may not be easy to change with a single effort – such problems are rooted too deeply in the very foundation of our society. But there is a lot one can do as an individual. Stop teaching girls to underestimate themselves, stop supporting those people and those institutions that do this, spend some quality time looking inwards – learn how your customary beliefs may frustrate the progress that girls make in our society. Stop being a part of the problem yourself (the vast majority of us are guilty). Make sure the future leaders, inventors, entrepreneurs, scientists, mothers, sisters and daughters inherit the world where they will realize their full potential and will be able to live the productive lives we all deserve to have. Be the change!
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