Sites That Empower Girls

As you know, Princess Parade is all about girl empowerment and believes very strongly in raising our daughters to be strong, confident and capable. With that in mind, I have been perusing the web for websites that have similar beliefs and have come across two that I would like to share with you.

The first one is called 7Wonderlicious. This site states in its about page:

"We believe every child is placed on this earth to accomplish something remarkable, something that only he or she can do.

Our tribe was created with one single purpose , to help reduce all threats to girlhood that crush our girls ' true nature and potential.

We focus on overturning the gender stereotypes that make girls obsess with body image, keep girls from taking leadership roles, that limit girls' interests in sciences and maths and cause them to feel self-aware when playing sports.

The first years of a girl's life are a crucial time when their identity and model of world are being shaped. Our goal is to provide in our 7Wonderlicious girls a group of fantastic role models; confident girls that are healthy, confident, resourceful, persistent and a lot of fun."

They share a lot of links and helpful news articles about girl empowerment and raising powerful, confident daughters. They also have some fun apps for kids.

The other site I found is called SheHeroes. The SheHeroes vision and mission statement states that

"Our Vision
■A world where young people can see themselves in whichever occupation they choose.
■A society where gender doesn’t limit one’s choice and voices of both women and men are heard with equal regard.

Our Mission
■To tell inspiring stories of female role models via free web based video interviews geared towards 3rd through 5th graders.
■To awaken youth to their potential, increasing the numbers of youth from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds who will consider entering the workforce in a variety of careers. Careers which they might not have known or thought about previously.
■To encourage positive choices and reduce risky youth behaviors through video programming which facilitates discussion between the youth and a caring adult."

They share video interviews with women role models to help inspire young girls with the knowledge of the greatness that they can achieve.

I recommend that you go and visit these sites! I'll make sure to let you know of any other sites I find that empower girls.


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Wonderful Women

"What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves." ~Paul Valery

The way we are treated or talked about, the way people see us, has an effect on us even when we don't want it to. Don't you think the world would be a completely different place if women were all confident and felt good about themselves?

I propose we all do something this month to help make that a reality. This month, at least one time every day, tell a woman or a girl in your life a compliment. Make sure it is sincere and that it is empowering. Compliment her looks or compliment her sense of humor. Compliment her skill or compliment her intelligence. Compliment her talent or compliment her kindness. There is always something wonderful to be found in every girl or woman.

Your compliments don't have to all be face to face. You can compliment someone you admire on-line too, or let your mom or sister know how great she is while on the phone with her. The point is that you somehow tell someone how great you think they are.

You can start today by telling me in the comments about a woman or girl that you think is terrific and why you think so.

I must admit, I have so many wonderful girls and women in my life that I could do this every day for the whole year!

"You've Lost Your Muchness"

"You used to be much more..."muchier." You've lost your muchness." ~The Mad Hatter (to Alice), "Alice In Wonderland" movie, 2010

This quote struck a note with me as I watched the new "Alice In Wonderland" movie last weekend. I think back to my own childhood, and I can't help but remember how confident and adventurous I was as a child. I don't know where along the way I lost those parts of myself, but somewhere along this journey of life, some of that confidence and my sense of adventure seeped away.

And as a mother of daughters, I feel a responsibilty to analyze where my "muchness" went and what caused me to lose so much of it. I can't help but want my daughters to keep all of their confidence, all of their sense of adventure, all of their belief in themselves, and not to let anyone or anything in this world take any of it away from them.

I grew up eager to please. I wanted to be liked. My parents taught me to be nice to others. I was expected to behave and be a good girl. I was taught, probably unintentionally, to subjugate my desires and my needs in order to fit in and to please others. I was a talkative, bubbly, confident child who believed in herself and had no doubts that I could change the world. But I was taught from the world around me, from my elders and my peers, that I talked too much, that I had many flaws and that no one person could change the world.

It took me many years to mature enough to finally start gaining back what I lost of myself over the years. I do not want that to happen to my daughters, and I don't want it to happen to anyone else's daughters either. We do our daughters a disservice when we expect them to conform to society, to be nice, to be "good girls" at the cost of being themselves.

My favorite quote from the movie "A Little Princess" is when the character Sarah Crew says,

"I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren't pretty, or smart or young. They're still princesses. All of us."

I like this quote because I want every girl in the world to believe it. If a girl can believe she is a princess, then she can believe that she has value.

I want girls to maintain the same confidence and belief in themselves and their abilities throughout their lives that they have when they are two years old. How many two year olds do you know that don't say what they think? Tell a two year old that she is pretty, and she will, more often than not, answer you with, "I know," rather than the conformist "Thank you," or worse, the confidence-sapping "No, I'm not!" that I hear so often when I compliment any female.

Why do we lose our "muchness?" Why is it that we feel we must be something other than who we really are in order to be liked and loved and accepted? And what will it take for us (and our mothers, aunts, nieces, sisters and daughters) to truly BELIEVE in our own awesomeness?

So I have a challenge for you. This week, do something that you have been putting off out of fear. Speak to someone new, even if you are feeling shy. Try out some rock climbing, even if you don't believe you are strong enough. Send out the manuscript you wrote to a publisher, even if you are afraid of rejection. There are millions of things you can do to fulfill this challenge, from small, seemingly insignifcant things (like making a point to smile at the cute mailman who delivers your mail) to much bigger things (like singing on stage on front of a crowd). It's up to you to decide what to do. But do something brave.

And it'd be really great if you came back here and let us know in the comments what it was.

The Little Princess Trust

I recently lost a lot of weight, and I promised myself that when I got myself down to my goal weight, I would celebrate by getting my hair cut and styled. I haven't had my hair cut in over 8 years, so it is really, really long.

I always intended to send my hair, once it was cut, to somewhere like Locks of Love, a charity that provides wigs for children who have lost their hair due to alopecia and cancer, but that is based in the US and I am in the UK. Fortunately, there is a UK counterpart to them called Little Princess Trust.

I've decided to send my hair to them. And I believe that it is a really worthy cause, so I am also running a short fundraiser to raise enough money for the full amount of creating a wig from the hair. I was told it would cost $455 (£300) to create one wig. Please help with this worthwhile charity! Once we reach the target amount, I will be videoing myself getting my hair chopped off (probably to just below my shoulders, and I'll post that video here.

Every little girl deserves to feel like a princess and to feel pretty. The amount of suffering a lack of a positive self-image causes in girls can have lasting effects. Just a little bit of help from all of us, and we can help prevent some of that suffering from happening and brighten a little girl's day.

You can donate below.


THANK YOU!

EDIT: The ChipIn widget is working in that it is taking donations and sending them to the Trust, but it is not working properly in that it is not showing the donation amounts. To date, $30 has been donated. I will update this edit to add any future donations to the total (until I can figure out how to get the widget to work properly.

Edit: The ChipIn Widget is working now! Hurry and contribute!

Why Would You Want To Be A Princess?

I have it on direct authority (meaning my 4 year old daughter informed me) that being a princess is a really wonderful thing. And apparently, the main reasons it is a wonderful thing is because, as a princess, you get to wear pretty dresses that twirl and you are automatically beautiful.

As my four year old told me this, she motioned with her hands and a bit of a twist of her body to show how a dress would twirl, and then she batted her eyes at me in that way that only pretty little girls know instinctively to do when she spoke about being beautiful.



Unfortunately for my 3 year old son, being a prince is apparently not as wonderful as one would hope. As far as he can tell, it consists mostly of being bossed around by the princess.

Princess Isabella

My 4 year old Isabella is fascinated with everything having to do with princesses. A little bit before Christmas, we were on our way to see Santa Claus and I asked her what she was going to ask Santa for. She told me, "A pretty dress, so I can be a princess! I want a dress that twirls."

And Santa gave her what she wanted.


(Yes, her hair was still a mess as she had only recently woken up, but it was important to her to put the dress on and show it off as quickly as possible.)


(That's her 3 year old brother Connor in the photo with her. He often is forced to stand in as "Prince Charming" when his sisters Gabby and Bella play "pretend princesses." The background is a mess too, because they had all been opening their Christmas presents and everything was just strewn about the room.)

What Is So Great About Being A Princess?

Little girls all over the world are fascinated by Disney's ensemble of princesses and dream of being one. Teenage girls find dresses resembling the most elegant of princesses when they go to their proms. Every bride wants to feel like a princess on her special day.

So what is so great about being a princess? Why do so many girls daydream about being one? Why are we enchanted by stories about princesses such as "The Princess Diaries" and "Enchanted."

First off, let me assure you that the princess that most of us dream about being has nothing to do with reality. Little girls (and admittedly, even grown women) see a princess as someone who gets to wear beautiful dresses and dance at the ball. What little girl doesn't like pretty dresses and parties? And Disney inspires girls to see princesses as being able to talk to animals even! (Because you can't find perfection without pretty little birds singing to you and friendly mice to do your bidding.) And let's not forget that the princess gets to marry the prince.

Why do we want to marry the prince? Well, he's not just any prince. We're talking about the mythical Prince Charming who thinks that his princess is beautiful and loveable and will risk life and limb to save her. He slays dragons for his princess. He can sing with a gorgeous voice; he's athletic, handsome, rich and, well, charming.

So, in the dream world of princess life, what's not to love about being a princess?

10 Rules For Being a Princess

1. Princesses always wear dresses.

2. Princesses always keep their tiara sparkly.

3. Princesses love the color pink and wear it frequently.

4. A princess is always polite and considerate of others’ feelings.

5. Princesses see everything as beautiful and exciting.

6. Princesses always share with those less fortunate.

7. A princess is always learning new things.

8. A princess always tries to do her best at school.

9. A princess is confident, but not a snob.

10. A princess believes in herself and believes that dreams can come true.