Without hesitation, I classify myself as a feminist. I trace this belief in equality, fairness and social justice in part to the strong women who raised me, including my mom, aunts, grandmothers, and family friends. This is exactly why I find reading materials about empowered girls so incredibly important.
When asked recently to describe where my belief in feminism came from, I recounted an experience from 5th grade in a brand new school.
We had just moved yet again (we moved a lot when I was young, which likely accounts for my own mom guilt over moving my family recently).
We moved from a fairly suburban part of Connecticut to an urban environment in Waterbury, Connecticut.
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Only the Boys Played Kickball: Where Were the Girls?!
The school was in the middle of an urban area and only had two outdoor play areas – one large square concrete yard surrounded by a chain-link fence and a small alley behind the school that backed up to a brick wall.
At recess, there was a large, organized game of kickball in the large play area. The alley was reserved for smaller, independent games, like jump rope and hopscotch.
So on my first day of school, when all the kids were let out of the lunchroom to play at recess, I immediately lined up to play kickball.
The catch: only the boys were allowed to play kickball.
Within seconds of joining the line to play kickball, a teacher came up to me and started yelling at me for breaking the rules.
I had to go play with the other girls in the alley.
When I began to protest that I didn’t like hopscotch or jump rope, the teacher threatened to write me up.
This is the opposite of empowering girls.
Empowered Girls Can Play, Too
Now, in 5th grade (much like today), my personality was equal parts tomboy and booknerd.
I placed a lot of stock in being a high-achieving kid, so the fact that I got in trouble on my first day for something that seemed deeply unfair to me didn’t sit well.
So I told my parents about it. And it was like a feminist volcano exploded at the dining room table.
My parents started shouting big words like “discrimination.”
My mother made it very clear to me that, in this case, what the teacher had said to me was wrong.
I was instructed to go back to school and insist that I be allowed to play kickball.
Then, she photocopied the text of Title XI and stapled a business card for my aunt, a local magistrate judge, to the top corner.
She told me if anyone tried to stop me from playing kickball, I should hand them this sheet and tell them my mother’s lawyer would be in touch.
Why Should I Read Books Strong Women to My Kids?
I got to play kickball every day at lunch for the rest of the year.
I tell the kickball story for a couple of reasons.
First, it operates a little like an origin story for me. I was surrounded by powerful, badass women growing up.
They had high-powered careers, balanced work and family, and would not stand for injustice when it came to me and my sisters.
This is how I learned about not just being empowered, but about empowering other girls.
Coming up through my education and well into my career in academia, there were lots of ways in which the deck was stacked against me because I am a woman.
Because I was infused with a sense of justice and defiance from an early age, I feel like this fact remains a vital part of my success, even as an adult.
Second, even though this story happened 20 years ago, we are kidding ourselves if we think that stories like this aren’t happening right now. Schools, along with other institutions around us, too often still have gender inequality structured into their policies.
Finding and recommending similar stories in children’s books about empowered women means helping pass on the message of empowerment.
Current Gender Inequality in Our School Systems
Take, for example, student dress codes in schools that regularly point to girls’ responsibility in covering up and concealing in order to ensure that boys are not “distracted.”
These structural inequalities are even more apparent when it comes to race and ethnic identity and children who identify outside of binary genders.
Dress codes can discriminate against natural hairstyles for black children or force children to conform to gender norms in their clothing choices.
Raising children to be thoughtful and empowered often means working in the face of these institutional structures. It means teaching children how to stand up to authority figures on behalf of themselves or those around them.
The best books for children on this subject often show how girls around the world have stood up to unfair institutions in the face of authority and persisted.
By showing empowered women and girls, we are providing empowering books for girls.
The Larger Impact of Empowering Girls
It’s important to remember that empowering the girls around us can ultimately have a positive effect on our larger communities, so long as we remember to emphasize the community aspects of empowerment.
By forcing my school to allow me to play kickball, this meant that all of the other girls were allowed to play too.
Raising little girls to stand up for themselves is important. Raising little girls to offer a hand up to others who are less privileged than themselves is vital.
To me, remembering that girls can empower not only other girls, but also their communities is one of the most important aspects of recommending empowering books for girls to parents.
Why Read Books Featuring Strong Women?
Reading books that feature strong women as the central characters will give your daughters a sense of how they can follow in those footsteps.
More and more books are being published in recent years that feature the stories of amazing women. These women achieved greatness but were previously left out of history books.
Teaching your children about Grace Hopper, Katherine Jonson, Bessie Coleman, Dolores Huerta, Kate Bornstein, and others can help them to see the vital impact that women have had on our society.
It becomes easier to imagine yourself as an astronaut, a scientist, a firefighter, or President of the United States when you have mirrors that reflect similarly driven, motivated, and determined women back at you.
Empowered Girls in the News 💥
Perhaps you have noticed how many strong young women have started to take center stage in highly political debates.
- Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her work advocating for education for girls in Pakistan, even after the Taliban tried to kill her. She remains a powerful advocate for children’s rights, especially on behalf of refugee populations.
- Emma González is a survivor of the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and has worked to advocate on behalf of gun control measures, including helping to organize March for Our Lives. At that march in Washington, Emma delivered an incredibly powerful speech that has garnered millions of views online.
- Greta Thunberg has become a powerful advocate for the urgent necessity of addressing climate change, starting a school strike movement that has grown into an international movement of young people. She recently addressed the US Congress and the United Nations. She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The more empowering female role models we can provide our children with–both real and imaginary, historical and current, grown and young–the more likely it becomes that girls of the future won’t have to fight over being allowed to play kickball, or to go to school, or to dress the way they choose!
Recommended Reading
We’ve been absolutely PUMPED about summer (or year-round!) reading lists over here at Undefining Motherhood. If you want a great list of books for your child(ren) to dive into this summer that will not only captivate them but also show them the value of reading about strong female characters, check out these articles for all ages and genders!
Keep in mind that boys need to read about strong women, too. ❤️
