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girltodaywomentomorrow · 4 years ago

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Tech this out! Smart Girls Taking Over the World.

Girls are not just girls. No girls are have to be more than a girl. But they also can’t be more than one thing. For example, you a can be a smart girl but then you can’t be the popular girl. If you are the music girl, then you’re probably not the baker girl. Girls must fit into on mold only, when they are more complicated than that. Boys on the other hand, they are allowed to be complicated, They are allowed to be a package of smarts, charming and talented. They are allowed to put themselves in all the lanes and choose their destination. Boys grow up thinking they can do anything, girls grow up thinking their dreams are going to be tough to accomplish.

Let’s take a look at a specific stereotype: the smart girl. Portrayed as a known it all or stubborn, the smart girl has always gotten a tough rep. Not many girls want to be her. She puts too much pressure on herself. She has many mental breakdowns (i.e. Jessie Spano From Saved By the Bell who has a famous episodes where she takes pills to do well on her tests) She is the quiet one. She is not sexual or sexualized. And my favorite thing about her is that when she studies she has her glasses “on” and when they are off she’s a “real attractive girl”. Think Clark Kent with Glasses ! Because although women think smart is sexy, girls don’t. Boy’s don’t like girls who are smart. And if girls want to be liked they can’t be smart. And girls are taught more that its important to be liked by boys than it is to be smart.

Mark Twain has a famous quote, I am in love with: “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid” Girls grow up thinking they are not smart enough because they are judged on mistakes and failures. Boys can fail, fail, and fail again, girls fail and it is held against them forever. So girls will not try, they will settle and it will ruin more than the society of females in general but also the society as a whole. We can’t just depend on half the human race to help change the world, we need to work together, we need more smart fearless women and we start by breeding smart, fearless girls.

Change is upon the smart girl! Currently in today’s society girls are more than okay with being the smart girl. They are more than okay with helping discovering ways to solve COVID-19. They are more than okay with being called ambitious, hard working, they are more than okay with boys not liking them because they like themselves.

Pop culture needs to follow this trend. Media is absorbed by both genders growing up. If we show strong smart girls on TV we can normalize that girls can be smart, they can be funny, they can be dramatic, they can be quiet, they can be loud, they can be a mix of both, a mix of all three. Girls can be just as complicated as boys. We to start treating girls equally. We should teach girls that if you are the smart girl you don’t need to try harder to make up for the difference of the boys having it easier. Girls shouldn’t have to prove their smartness (unless they are in geometry and they have to answer a proof question, which I was never good at but hey, I was never a smart girl!).

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girltodaywomentomorrow · 4 years ago

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How The Garcia Girls Lost more than their Accents

Every time I have moved, I have lost something. From stuffed animals to friendships, moving opened one door while closing another. The Garcia girls are no different from me. Seriously, we are all Hispanic women who grew up in a Hispanic household but hid our culture from people who didn’t understand to fit in. I never lost an accent because I never had one, but these four girls who start the story off as young women lost more than just their accents.

CULTURAL IDENTIY:

The four girls, Carla, Sandra, Yolanda and Sofia, are our Garcia girls. They were all born in The Dominican Republic with blessings of fortune that many other citizens did not have. When their father resisted the dictatorship rule, they had to leave their friends, family and home.

In the first chapter, Yolanda, the rebellious tom boy writer of the family, travelled back to the DR to find a home she didn’t feel in the states. “Standing here in the quiet, she believes she has never felt at home in the States, never” (Julia Alvarez, 12). She brings up an important idea that if she was in trouble while visiting the DR, would she call “...for help...[in] English or Spanish?...”(13) At a party one of her aunt’s poet friends “...argued that no matter how much of it one lost, in the midst of some profound emotion, one would revert to one’s mother tongue...”(13) Later, when Yolanda feels unsafe with two men with machetes, the only way she can communicated with them is through English. “...As if the admission itself loosens her tongue, she begins to speak English...(20)

As stated above, Yolanda came “home” to claim her Dominican identity after having to hide it for many years with classmates, friends and eventual lovers yet when it came down to a moment where she needed her Dominican identity to help her- her American identity spoke up instead.

The poet at the party, “...put Yolanda through a series of situations. What language, he asked, looking pointedly into her eyes, did she love in?” (13) This is a question Yolanda had been trying to answer since her and her ex husband broke up. “...She could not make out his words. They were clean, bright sounds...they met nothing to her...’What are you trying to say’ she kept asking...He spoke kindly but in a language she had never heard before.”(77)

It’s unfair to put these women in boxes but it has been happening their whole life. Starting with their mother who chose colors specifically for them so she could identify them better. Each girl had to represent something. They could not over lap, they could be more than one thing.

The girls did not simply lose boyfriends, relationships with their fathers or even their accents, they lost their cultural identity.

When they moved to America they lost a home and as they grew up in America, they never really gained a new one.

INNOCENCE

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Sofia was the youngest daughter whose color was white even though she always wanted it to be pink. While Yo struggled with cultural identity, she struggled with innocence. “Sofia was the one without degrees. She had always gone her own way...she always downplayed her choices, calling them accidents...She was considered the plain one...yet she was the one with non stop boyfriends...”(28) Her and her father Carlos, “...always had problems...”(27) “I don’t want loose women in my family...he had cautioned.”(28) Sofia was the first to leave. She was pushed out when her father found letters from a man she met in Colombia. He accused her of “...dragging [his] good name through the mud...”(30)

This novel takes place in the 1980s and when Sofia becomes sexually active, it is during the sex revolution of the 1960s. So although, Sofia looses her innocence and her relationship with her father, she only gains a sexual freedom. It is important to show women exploring their sexuality but it should be noted that Sofia, although found very sexy by her sister’s partners and Otto’s friends, had few sexual partners. After being exiled from her home, she ran to find Otto and create a new life with him. This is not a judgmental statement, just an observation that Sofia is American in her sexual adventures, as she is more free to be sexual, but still Dominican in her want for a family and home to protect her.

She may have lost her innocence but she gained a freedom many Dominican women of her time would never have.

MENTAL HEALTH

Two out of the four Garcia girls sought mental help throughout the novel. While Yolanda checked into the hospital after her divorce, Sandra, the second oldest child, checked into a mental hospital after becoming anorexic during her time in graduate school. From a young age, she always had trouble expressing herself, “...I was a changed child...” after a fall broke her arm and she was no longer able to express herself through art. “Months of pampering and the ridicule…had turned me inward. I was sullen and dependent on my mother’s sole attention…the classic temperament of the artist but without anything to show....I could no longer draw. My hand had lost it’s art. (254) Sandra’s hands come back to haunt her later in life when she believes she is going back in evolution and becoming a monkey. “And my Sandi holds up her hands to me...and she screams, Monkey hands, monkey hands.”(55) Sandra is an artist and artist feel too much. When she came to America she was unable to express herself with English but art helped her. Once art had left her life she continued to try to seek a way of expression but never was able to. This lead to her mental break down. She spoke about losing her humanity which to her was always her art. For so long art defined her but when she lost that, she lost her self. She became overly sensitive after her time in the hospital and her mother and father would not like to talk about it. Her sisters made jokes about it. She was forever unstable because her lack communication in a world that was never trying to understand her.

FAMILY

At the center of this book is family and if you want to talk about family you should seek time with the family child psychologist, Carla, the oldest Garcia sister. Out of all the sisters, she had the toughest time in America. She was harassed in school by mean boys and had a disgusting encounter with a man in a car during puberty. Unlike her other sisters, she dealt with her issues as adult and became a psychologist writing a paper called, “I Was There Too.”(41) In the paper she talked ill of her mother’s “...color system..[which she believed] had weaken the four girls identify differentiation abilities and made them forever unclear about personality and boundaries.” (41) What really weakened the family was the quickness the mother and father had sending their girls away when problems arose. From Sandra’s mental breakdown to Sofia being kicked out of the family home. Both parents, although saying they loved their girls, could never quite take care of them. They brought them to a new country with not English knowledge, sent them away to boarding school during prime years that family is needed and when times got tough they quickly found someone else to help them. Their family became broken the moment they left the DR because the parents were thinking about what was best for their namesake not their children.

All four girls are heroes for creating a life for themselves. Their right of passage was their own personal journey with creating a dual identity as an American women and a Dominican women. Although they were not close as their parents like to think, “Did they get along?” Dr. Tandleman glanced up...The siblings…were they close? was there a a lot of rivalry between them?...’They’re sisters,’ she said by way of explanation.” (53), they each were woven into each other’s life. They each went through a personal experience of lost of cultural identity, lost of innocence while also all having mental health and family problems. Their journeys were unique to themselves but one universal to their family because at the end of the day they were not individuals, they were The Garcia girls and that individualism is the greatest lost they had.

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girltodaywomentomorrow · 4 years ago

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Superstition-Raven Symone

I was nine years old when I heard Raven Symone sing Superstition on Disney Channel. Her voice- her dance- the whole aesthetic- I was hooked. I spent all of that October to learn that song. At the height of my love for this song- my mom picked me up from school. We turned on Radio Disney and the song played throughout the car. At the same time, we sang the song. We both turned to each other shocked- “How do you know this song?” my mom asked. “How do you know this song?” “Raven Symone-duh,” I say offended. “This is her song.” ‘No sweetie” my mom shook her head, “This is Stevie Wonder’s song.” It took me maybe five more years until I heard Stevie’s version. It was in another movie and all I could think was - Raven did it better. I continue to think the same thing when it comes to girls and supernatural powers vs. boys with supernatural powers. Girls just do it better. They have been for a while. As a child of the 90s, Sabrina the teenage witch, Wendy from Wendy meets Casper, and Marnie from Halloweentown outshine the only boy supernatural kid I can think of-Harry Potter. Girls have always ruled the supernatural genre mostly because I think boys (and men) know that girls are magic. Supernatural women have been a thing since the Salmen witch trials. Young girls and young women were “witches” for acting out. I think creatives in media took that idea and made it more comical in the 60s with Bewitched and I Dream of Genie. Both main characters in the show were different thinkers for their time. In the 90s, Buffy the Vampire showed another type of a girl-a girl who can defend herself. To veer off from just witches, Raven Symone played a teenage psychic in her beloved Disney Channel show, That’s So Raven. There she was the main star where her comedy resembled those of the 60s but her skin tone showed others that not only white girls are filled with magic. Today, there is a Netflix show that was sadly just canceled called The Society where it was a supernatural political drama. The lead character is a teenage girl who is transported to an alternate universe of her town with the rest of her grade. The main character and her sister are the leaders of the town, while the main protagonist is their male cousin. Together they try to figure out what is going on in their world. This show putting the two sisters at the forefront shows great evolution for girls with supernatural powers because it shows that girls are powerful.

I always assumed girls had magic powers. Growing up getting a period was targeted to me as power (even though I did feel weaker at times with my period). It was like Peter Parker getting a spider bite- once we got our periods, we went through a change that made us stronger, more powerful. Magic in media seems to be all fun. You can fight creatures, zap into another country and even embarrass your bullies, but magic has always been a young girl ideal because of how youthful it is to save the world and get what you want. Too much in media, we think being young is the only time you can see the magic when that is not the case. There is magic in women today and that’s because a lot of young girls believed in magic so much when they were younger they can now channel it to save the world.

This is a Raven Symone appreciation thread only! We started this topic with Raven and we will end it with her! Her show, That’s So Raven was a major hit as explained before and she had a song for the show in the last season called, “some call it magic.” https://youtu.be/184nhhp0K44. In the song, she talks and says, “ Some might call it magic But I don't know it's just a special gift that I have” which speaks volumes to me. Every little girl has magic they might not see it like that but it’s a special gift that's uniquely their own and they can call it whatever they want, I’ll call it magic.

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girltodaywomentomorrow · 4 years ago

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I am a Malala Stan.

When I was fifteen, the biggest thing to happen in my life watching Kayne West steal the spotlight from Taylor Swift at the VMAs. My therapist points to this moment as the most irrelevant moment in my life, but I beg to differ. That moment in pop culture history taught me that a man could steal your voice at any time. A man could easily take something a woman worked so hard to accomplish from you in a blink of an eye. Malala Yousafzai learned the same thing at fifteen also. Although, she learned it more violently than me or Taylor Swift.

At fifteen, the Taliban targeted her. A young man entered a bus she was riding with her friends and they demanded for her to show herself or everyone else would die They knew of her because she was posting blog entries online speaking out against the Taliban’s ban on girls attending school. I post a blog ever week for this class and never fear for my life. Mala posted every week knowing her life was becoming more increasingly more dangerous. “That's when he lifted up a black pistol. I later learned it was a Colt .45. Some of the girls screamed. Moniba tells me I squeezed her hand.” she writes in her debut novel about her life, I Am Malala. I would describe this book as an origin story of a hero. She doesn’t wear a cape or fly but her words are powerful and can defeat evil. How does one defeat evil? With education. “Let us pick up our books and our pens,” I said. “They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.” She started her blogs to speak out against evil, she spread her word to spread awareness. There is this old saying that insanity is repeating something over and over even though you know the same result will occur. I believe heroism is doing something dangerous for the greater good. I believe Malala Yousafzai is a hero.

While her words couldn’t travel that far, once she was shot, her story traveled around the world. Islamophobia has also reached high levels in our post 9/11 world. Malala, a proud Muslim herself, has been a positive influence for a religion that is seen evil in the media. She has become a powerful teacher in explaining her religion vs the Taliban. “I couldn’t understand what the Taliban were trying to do. “They are abusing our religion,” I said in interviews. “How will you accept Islam if I put a gun to your head and say Islam is the true religion? If they want every person in the world to be Muslim, why don’t they show themselves to be good Muslims first?” While reading her story, I not only learned of a different culture but a different religion that was beautiful and had many similarities that align with my own personal beliefs. Until I moved to New York the only religious people I had been around were Christians, some Jews and a lot of atheists. My own childhood doctor was Muslim but since I was a child we never talked politics, we mostly talked if I was too old for a Minnie Mouse band aid even though I was fifteen. Malala’s story is important to learn about Islam because there is an idea that Islam men don’t want women to have fair rights. This book really opened my eyes to what I was taught through media and what is really real.

I don’t believe in chance when it comes to heroes. I believe in the moment that would define them. From her birth Malala was raised just as boy would. Her father asked for lollipops and other gifts that only boys would receive. While others hung their head for having a daughter, he raised his head in pride. “When he went to France to collect an award for me, he told the audience, “In my part of the world most people are known by their sons. I am one of the few lucky fathers known by his daughter.” He raised his daughter and knew she was going to be someone important, that’s why he named her after a hero. There was no chance, it was always there since birth.

“If we believe in something greater than our lives, then our voices will only multiply even if we are dead.” I know there is a reason why people try to silence people. They are scared of their voices. They are scared of their power. They know that they hold the change to world. If the 160 million girls who are currently unable to learn could learn, the world would be a better place. Sometimes I think, why don’t we have certain things. Why isn’t our technology more advanced? Why isn’t there world peace? Why is there still war? And I can’t help but think its because we have wasted potential in so many people who have been given such awful circumstances and no chances to be get them out of it. Sometimes I think our world is stalled and once we decide to help each other we will be better as a human race.

My mother always told me," hide your face people are looking at you." I would reply," it does not matter; I am also looking at them.” Girls are taught at a young age, your power is your beauty-not your mind. It’s a mother instinct to tell their daughters to be beautiful and only beautiful. When I read Malala telling her Mother, “it doesn’t matter. I am also looking at them” I felt so impowered. Women are told to be beautiful and quiet. We are told to hide in the background way too often. Malala told her mother, me and all her other readers, to look at her. She told us all to acknowledge her for every part of her and that was powerful.

Malala Yousafzai’s story is not just a story. It’s a epic tale. As a movie fan, I can see her story as Hollywood Saga. This was just her origin story. There is so much more fight in her, more inspiration for her to pour out into the world. She will be known by the shot heard round of the world in the 21st century, but her life will be filled with more huge moments. This was just a beginning of her opening her country and the world of feminism for women of color and feminism in the Islam world. I’m ready for more of her story and I’m sure she is ready to tell it.

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girltodaywomentomorrow · 4 years ago

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Gone with the Spirits !

1. What is this mythic significance of the parents consuming food in an unknown place? (Think Persephone in Hades)...

No great story is original. My freshman English teacher taught me that. All good stories have influenced by other stories that we have heard before. That influence helps us connect to other stories we have read with similar aspects. The parents consuming food and becoming pigs is not original. Stories today that I have read or watched have used this trope also. Within the bible we have Eve eating something that she wasn't supposed to. A more modern example is the kids who misbehave in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, like Violet who becomes a blueberry. She ate gum without Wonka's permission and just like the parents, had to suffer. This trope goes as far as ancient times with Hades, the God of the underworld, and his wife, Persephone. She was abducted to live with Hades forever but when Armes came down to save her, she was told if she didn't eat one thing then she could leave. Hades, being an evil God, tempted her with a fruit seed that wants her to stay. Persephone ended up eating and had to stay. There was a compromise made and depending on the story, she would have to say 1/3 or 1/2 of the year with Hades just as Chihiro's parents were only in the movie for like 1/3 of it, if even that.

2. How many hybrid creatures exist in this world? What is its significance? What is significant about the liminal time frame? How many liminal spaces does Chihiro traverse?

I can not count how many hybrid creatures exist in this world. The animation capture a whole new world that introduced us to many different types of creatures. The diversity of them is important because the spirit world is a whole universe. The world is not just centered in an abandoned amusement park, there is a whole world out there that we see in Chihiro's journey. Some are bad spirits, some are good, and we were introduced to all of them through a beautiful adventure.

3. What is the significance of Chihiro losing her name? What does losing her name symbolize?

When slaves came to this country, they were not only stripped of their clothes but also of their identity. If they had a name, they would forget it under harsh and inhuman circumstances. Their family line would have no connections back to their previous life. Chihiro was not punished as harshly as African American slaves, because this is a children's movie, but the connection can be made that she was becoming a slave to Yubaba just as Haku had. He even told Chihiro do not forget your name, "I did and now I can't remember". He also told her to remember who her parents were. Those connections back to her real world are what kept her going during the movie and what also allowed her to leave. That shows when people try to take your most important parts of you, as long as you keep them close, they will always still be yours no matter what others tell you.

4. Does this film fit with the Warrior Girls pantheon?

Chihiro is a kind, Warrior. Never is she fighting with swords, using martial arts, or needing to fight violence with violence to save the day. She is using her compassion, her manners, to help fight evil. It was too easy to say she is a scared little girl, which she is, but clearly, she's a smart scared little girl because she was too scared to eat the food that her parents ate and they turned into pigs unlike her. Some girl says her yelling at the boilerman for a job was her throwing a tantrum, but both he and I saw it as her standing up to him and demanding a place in the Spirit world. The same voice got her a job at the bathhouse. While she was at the bathhouse she was continually mistreated and felt scared but she persevered. When Faceless was throwing his own tantrum, she sat down and spoke to him gently and then used her quick wit to get all the evil out of him. This film showed that warriors girls aren't always wearing shield and sword, some of them are wearing a heart on their sleeve.

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girltodaywomentomorrow · 4 years ago

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MEAN GIRLS 2004 | dir. Mark Waters

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girltodaywomentomorrow · 4 years ago

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1. What is breakthrough and change-making about these speeches?

Girls having voices is not new. People listening to girls' voices are new. Girls choosing to speak louder than then the hushes being thrown at them is new. Today’s girls are creating change through speeches and protests more than the past because they are coming together for the greater good. In all of these speeches there is a unity of one girl speaking up for another. For so long the girl hate girl narrative ruled too many girl’s minds. Today, there is such a great girls supporting girls movement that while some boys and men can say these young bright girls are “talking too much” or speaking “on stuff they aren't about” because they are “too young” other girls are standing up for these girls. When you see these speeches you can see so many young girls standing with Naomi Wadler and Emma Gonzalez. While people want to quiet these activists, their supports, young girls, stand up for them, they fight for their voices to be heard and that’s why we are hearing so many young girls speak out more and more-because girls are fighting to come together to have their voices being heard.

2. How does their presence on the public stage expand the definition of 'Warrior Girl'?

As a former teenage drama queen, I can say with confidence that the stage is the most powerful place in the world. It is also the scariest. You are being your most vulnerable. You are saying words not everyone will agree with. You are putting yourself in front of the world to speak from your heart and have tomatoes thrown at you, but you keep speaking your truth while these things are being hurled at you. Young girls who are taking a stand against adults are Warrior Girls. Adults all over our country sit and stand still while our country continues to crumble. They will talk about it over a dinner table, complain, and then not do anything to help create a change. These girls are young, they would much rather be worrying about “normal kid stuff” but they can’t. They can’t because the adults in their life won’t make a change to let them live a “normal” life so instead they have to take a stand. They have to think outside of making a normal lemonade stand and think about making a stand for gun control, climate change, affording college! They have to act as an adult as the adults that have power to change their lives for the better act as children. They never started the fight but they continue to fight because that’s what warrior girls do!

3. What continues to be relevant about these speeches today?

Sadly, these issues are still around. These great speeches created a change in community with young girls starting to make a difference in the world but we still have a lot to do to create a bigger change. Their speeches have inspired so many more girls to become an activist and participate in change but we need to do more but sometimes putting so much pressure on ourselves can wear us down. That’s when we can look towards these speeches. These speeches are so powerful even three years later, we are still being taught of their importance. Their speeches will go down as some of the important speeches in America history for the impact they had on activism in America and in American women.

4. Choose one photo from this gallery and comment (one sentence): https://wordcitystudio.com/march-for-our-lives-2018

Second amendment: right to protect bear Cubs.

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girltodaywomentomorrow · 4 years ago

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No-no-notorious.

(photo not mine-thank you Google)

As a one time political science major (it was 2012 and everyone was doing it!), I should know more about RBG, especially because she has become an icon to our generation in recent years, but honestly, it wasn’t until her movie, “On the Basis of Sex” came out that I found out about her. The film help me see her as more than a judge. She was a student, a wife, a mother, an American citizen who demanded equality. She was a powerhouse in a small package.

It sounds kind of wrong to call RBG a bad bitch-but she was one. She stepped on people’s toes and challenged society’s way of thinking when it came to equality of sexes, race and religion. She was fighting against what was deemed “right’ at the time and although notorious is a word that describes a bad deed or action, everything she did wasn’t bad. It created a better life for the future of American citizens. And I think that’s what makes an inspiring legacy. She created change for the better of America by going head to head with people who doubted her because of her gender and religion. At some point her way of thinking became the norm, as it should be, and the notorious ideals she had were not longer “bad” but finally right. So I would never call RBG notorious, I would call her what she is- a bad bitch (that may be me showing my team Tupac side. I didn’t want to get political but as they say-everything is political) !

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girltodaywomentomorrow · 4 years ago

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Captain Planet, he's She’s our hero,

Gonna take pollution down to zero,

He's She’s our powers magnified,

And he's She’s fighting on the planet's side

1. Likeability is stupid, I type as I check to see how many likes the picture I just posted on Instagram has received. I am lying to myself, as I am sure Greta Thunberg is. She is quoted as saying, “I don’t care about being popular, I care about climate justice.” Sure, a part of me believes that but, Greta Thunberg comes off to me as that girl in class who challenges the teacher’s lesson. While everyone else is class is simply absorbing the information in front of us, she is questioning it. She is excessively smart for her own good and because she has something that sets her apart from others, I am sure she feels ostracized. I am sure her parents sat her down once or twice, told her being different will change the world someday, you know the whole after school special on bullying that Nancy Regan would approve of! I can tell by her speeches that I have read in her book, No one is too Small to Make a Difference that she truly believes herself to be “… just a messenger…” as she says in her I’m Too Young For This speech. However, in the same sentence she also says, “…and yet I get all the hate…” So yes, Greta doesn’t care about being popular, her passion right now is climate change, but the hate is affecting her and how could it not? Greta Thunberg is just sixteen years old and she is carrying the weight of the future on her shoulder. Her parents, if they believe it or not, were right, her differences are changing the world for the better and people hate that. Once she made the decision, herself, against the judgement of her family and friends that she would protest for climate change she put herself in a position that made her vulnerable. Greta, again, is an intelligent girl. She knows she will not be someone’s favorite person, she knows bad names will be thrown her way, and that others will speak down to her. If she were a normal teenager, the change she is bringing to the world would not be occurring right now. She knows that being popular isn’t her main objective-its climate reform. If Greta Thunberg put popularity over climate change, she could not be the messenger. She was a born messenger and I am thankful for her message

2. A year ago, September 2019, thousands of young people marched with Greta Thunberg in New York City for #climatestrike. I was not one among them but I have since researched the event and even watched the live stream. This movement had started 3,919 miles from where the march was occurring. This march would not have happened if one girl, Greta Thunberg decided to take a stand. Her perseverance created a movement. Although I wasn’t marching with her, the aftermath of her strike had repercussions that are still hitting us today. I look at all the posters that were made and they speak volumes for what that day meant, here are just two that I liked:

Greta Thunberg has a gift. She has Asperger’s syndrome, which helps her see things in “black or white”. In October 2018, Thunberg said something I find very profound about herself, “I think in many ways that we autistic are the normal ones and the rest of the people are pretty strange.” The way Greta views the world is powerful because if she viewed it any other way, I believe she would not be able to speak on such an important topic. “There are no grey areas when it comes to survival.” She sees the world so simply that when something does not make sense, she needs to make sense of it. Honestly, I grew up thinking climate change was too difficult to talk about. Reading Greta’s speeches, having her teach me in the simplest terms helped me a lot. Some people over complicate things and it not only confuses people but also makes them loose interest. Greta’s simplification really helps get her message across. We needed someone who can see this as a cut or dry situation because it then showed us how intense this situation really is.

Everything was put on hold when the pandemic occurred on March 16th, 2020. Understandably, to many the world was ending, but what few people forget is that the world has been ending for a while. During the first weeks of the pandemic as we stayed inside we saw how animals were going back to their natural areas, how China’s air become cleaner with people stuck inside. We saw directly how much humans are the problem to this world. Although it felt as though we were in a long game of freeze tag, the pandemic has been great for raising awareness for many causes. The Black Lives Matter movement had a massive shift of support during the pandemic and climate change is right on its heels. In June, at the height of the pandemic, where no end seemed in sight and the world as Greta loves to tell us, was “on fire”, many were dismissing 2020 and calling for its end but on Instagram one post started being reposted and it struck me right in the heart: “What if 2020 isn’t cancelled? What if 2020 is the year we’ve been waiting for?....A year that screams so loud, finally awakening us to from our ignorant slumber…declare change…become the change…a year we finally band together…2020 isn’t cancelled…[it’s] the most important year of them all…” There is no time like the present and no other time then now during this pandemic where we can really make a difference in many issues we are having around the world.

5. Greta Thunberg and Beyoncé have a lot in common, my favorite thing that they have in common. They both know who runs the world-girls. Greta famously said, “…if a few girls can get headline lines all over the world…imagine what we can do together if we wanted too?” The power in this question is so profound. Unity is our best bet in saving this planet and in fixing many other problems in this world. At sixteen, this young woman knows the power females hold. Although we support anyone trying to make the world a better place, seeing such a young female take center stage is important to many because they can look towards them and think, “Hey they did this! I can too!” In Hamilton the musical, there is a famous line where, two immigrants say, “immigrants-we get the job done” and I believe in her own way Greta is saying, “Young women- we get the job done!”

“…I don’t want your hope. I want you to panic…I want you to act as you would in a crisis...” Millennials and Generation Z are constantly told that they are the give-me give-me generation. We have everything we could ever want and yet we “still want more” We were put on this planet when it was started to burn from other people’s mistakes but instead of them putting out their own fires, we have too. Except we are “too young”, “not experienced enough” and we “don’t know what we are talking about.” I think they just don’t understand. They have idea of what being “young” is like but their experiences are different than ours. They were not given a planet that was burring as badly as it is now. They were taught how to stop drop and roll but instead of doing that as our world is burning up, they have stopped caring and dropped this subject when we bring it up to them. They “hope” for the best for us as they still there and enjoy the fruits of their “labor” That’s why Greta Thunberg’s closing statements in her famous “Our House is on Fire” speech are so important. We do not need your hope. We need action right now because what they choose to do or not do directly affects us. They want to be protectors but they are not. They are acting like nothing is wrong when we are in a crisis. The younger generation is acting like it why can’t they?

Every great moment in history is lit with one spark. World War 2 was sparked by the assassin of a duke while today’s current BLM protests were sparked by George Floyd’s murder and our climate change reform has been sparked by an incredible young women, Greta Thunberg. Again, all these sparks were needed for actions to occur but to keep momentum for racial injustice and climate change we need to keep going we need to be the “wildfires” as Naomi Klien said. I have just joined the wildfire. Prior to quarantine, I really didn’t put much effort into saving the planet. I didn’t have time. I know that sounds selfish but I had school, two jobs, an internship and I also wanted to sleep. With quarantine and even just reading Greta’s book, I was able to become more aware of things going on in the world and what I can do to help. The simple things I do is recycle more, I have meatless Mondays and I have started making my baked foods to be vegan. Its with these small steps that I am making an effort to be a wildfire.

Autumn Peltier- A 15 year old indigenous girl from Canada who advocates for clean water around the world

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girltodaywomentomorrow · 4 years ago

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“I am a voice yet waiting to be heard;I'll shoot the shot Bang;That you hear round the world...I'm a one girl revolution”-One Girl Revolution;Superchick

Black lives in America have been counted differently since the birth of the nation. The 3/5th compromise of 1787 set a precedent for America and her historic mistreatment of black lives. It is an honor to be living in a time where the demand for this injustice to end is loud, strong and paving way for true change. Like so many others, the BLM has impacted me. Because of this movement, I donated money, spoke at family dinners that had racist undertones,I asked really tough questions, many would not ask, but I needed answered. Most importantly, I shut up and started listening to people who are affected by this treatment everyday. The conversations I have listened too and the scary and hard conversations I participated in taught me the importance of empathy. And with this new found understanding I used it to make small differences in the way I could. I marched along doctors and friends one day in June right before my birthday. It was very honestly, dumb luck as I was leaving Central park with my friend, we saw the march and looked at each other and couldn’t help think, we have to march with them. We had no signs just passion and belief we had to make a difference. The goosebumps I had that day will forever be imprinted on my arm, knowing I stood with fellow people who expressed what I have always known: Black Lives Matter.

Tianna Day, a 17 year old protest organizer from the Bay area said it best when she was asked what “propelled” her to be a leader in a time of change: “... this movement lit a life in me.” And how could it not? Our generation has been apart of the 24 hour news cycle our whole life. We are the generation that demands too much, because we are overstimulated. It is because of the older generation’s need for a “gimme now society” that we whine for things at a certain time with a certain quality. What other generations fail to see is that while they think we are whining for too much materialized items, we are actually “’whining” for a equal society for all and yeah screaming “Gimme! Gimme!” but what we want is more important than an iPhone or new sneakers, what we are demanding is not something that only certain people should have, it’s something everyone should have -basic fundamental human rights.

Millennials and zoomers use the term “lit” to describe their fun of an experience. While fighting for social injustice isn’t exactly the most lit experience, its the most defining moments of our life. The spark of George Floyd, lit a fire for a new experience we as young Americans were about to experience and true to our generation we made it “lit” with amazing young women leading the revolution. The New York Times profiled four young American leading the cause of change (Tianna Day’s quote is from this article https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/style/teen-girls-black-lives-matter-activism.html). Their ages rages from 15 to 19 and with each answer I sat in aw of all of them. Never would you find me from the age of 15 to 19 speaking so eloquently about something so important. Shayla Turner, 18 said something that I think sums up our youth’s revolution today versus other young revolution’s in the past: “I feel like I’ve always had the drive, but until recently, I was too afraid to speak out.” We live in a time where “children” are no longer not seen and not heard. With social media, our voice matters. Shayla’s mom actually found out about her protesting from seeing her face on the cover of the Chicago Tribune! We don’t need our parent’s permission to speak out, we just need our voice and an internet connection to connect to others who feel the same. We hold more and more power as the tides turn on people who refuse to change with the time. We are creating the change they want to see with no one’s permission, just with passion. They continue on the tradition of America’s civil rights movement being lead by youth America and just like that movement, this one will impact us all for the rest of our lives.

Again, I am lucky to not only be alive to see history form before my eyes but be apart of it.

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