Girls and Sport : A Project by Audrey

When people think of sports, the majority think of boys. It's just how it is. In this project, there are photographs of girls playing sports, and playing very well too. The whole point of this was to show that girls playing sports is important, it empowers them, helps them feel confident in their bodies, helps them be fit and healthy and live a long life.

(photos by Manasi and project credit to Audrey)

Educating Girls in Rural China

A lot of us, when we think about girls' education, our mind automatically goes to girls in Africa. We aren't wrong, Africa does have one of the highest rates of low literacy rates within women, but we need to keep in mind that places like China or India are important too. Education is for everyone, right?

Tien Ching, founder of the charity organisation Educating Girls in Rural China, is doing exactly this. Her experience during the "cultural revolution" that took place from 1966 to 1976, her teenage years changed her life, and with her, came hope for hundreds of girls in Gansu, Guizhou and Qinghai provinces. The provinces that have benefitted from the education project created by her. 

Tien Ching who currently resides in Canada was 17 when her life changed course after she was send to work in a factory in rural Gansu. She used to study in one of Beijing's most famous schools but, from there, she went to work, suddenly giving up on her education. After 8 years of work, returning to the capital and not being able to find a job, Tien Ching emigrated to Canada for a chance at a better life. 

Her life went on, she started a family and never looked back but when a fundraiser for girls education was held at her daughter's school, she had her 'light bulb moment', and from that, came Educating Girls in Rural China. 

"That event reminded me of my own life in Gansu and the poverty and limited resources that girls face in rural areas of China," she said. "It showed me that just one opportunity can change your whole future." 

See more at: http://news.asiaone.com/news/education/girls-education-project-proving-massive-success#sthash.hJTvner8.dpuf

The idea was a seed, and it only continued to grow. She started by raising $30,000 that was used to pay for 150 elementary school girls and 24 university students' tuition. But when the Chinese Government made the rule that no tuition is required for students from Grade 1 to 9, she focused her attention on university as that was the real stepping stone for girls.

2015 is the ten year anniversary for this project and the success of it is quite remarkable. With 300 of the sponsored girls already graduated, 150 in university, and over a 100 in high school.

Tien is said to be extremely proud, as she should be, for this project is truly one for the record books. 

Everyday Sexism Project.

The everyday sexism project is an initiative started by Laura Bates, it is a website which collects stories from women all across the world about everyday incidents that they come across that objectifies women.

She writes, "The Everyday Sexism project aims to take a step towards gender equality, by proving wrong those who tell women that they can’t complain because we are equal. It is a place to record stories of sexism faced on a daily basis, by ordinary women, in ordinary places. To show that sexism exists in abundance in the UK workplace and that it is very far from being a problem we no longer need to discuss. To provoke responses so numerous and wide-ranging that the problem becomes impossible to ignore. To report the way you have been treated, even if it has not been taken seriously elsewhere. To stand up and say ‘this isn’t right’, even if it isn’t big or outrageous or shocking. Even if you’ve got used to thinking that it is ‘just the way things are’.
Women who complain about disrespectful comments being made to female members in the House of Commons are accused of ‘overreacting’, yet only 22% of MPs are female. Those who object to the sexist portrayal of women in the media are branded ‘killjoys’, yet nearly 70% of speaking parts in Hollywood films are taken by men, (though female characters are five times more likely to strip down to sexy clothing.) Women who object to the over-sexualisation of female celebrities are told ‘it’s a choice’, yet it is almost impossible to think of a modern female singer who hasn’t bared all. Women are told that modern ‘equality’ means career girls can have their cake and eat it, yet only around 13% of FTSE 100 corporate board members are female."

Laura Bates, speaking at a SouthBank Centre conference. 

You see, on a daily basis, there are incidents that happen to women, these are things that are so normal to them that they don't even bother to report it, or even think about it. The fact that so many
women put up with such horrid incidents and don't even think twice about it really shows the place where our society is at these days. This project gets hundreds of women posting to their website everyday with incidents such as this one from a women named Bryony,

"Last summer I went on a school trip with my drama class to London. One evening after we had been to see a West End show I went back to a friends room to watch TV for a while. I sat next to a boy from my class on the floor and frequently throughout the evening he would grope my bum and breasts when no one was watching (He had done this on another school trip the year before). It made me feel very uncomfortable but I tried to ignore it. When I asked him about it the following morning he denied that anything had happened and that I was just "looking for attention". Not only this, but I found out once we returned to school that he had groped several other girls in my year.
I was 14 at the time."

This being just one of the millions of incidents reported, some even more horrifying, so it really brings us, as a society to question, are we really winning the fight against gender inequality or are we just convincing ourselves that? If incidents like this happen everyday, why do we call ourselves a "pretty equal" society?

Dress Codes

appropriate

adjective

əˈprəʊprɪət/

1. 1.

   suitable or proper in the circumstances.

Recently, I took a trip to Bangalore, in the south of India to spend a few days with my brother who goes to a boarding school in the city. I spent 6 days, I stayed with my aunt, her two sons, my uncle and my brother who took a few days off school to stay with us.

Me, personally, I'm very much into women rights, it's a matter that is very personal and very important to me. I work in a global service called Daraja Academy which partners with a girls school in Kenya. But mainly, I think that equal rights across genders is important. This trip that I took really opened my eyes to the gender discrimination that exists in my own home country of India.

First incident that I want to talk about is the current "clothing policy" that exists for girls in Bangalore and other cities across India. Living in Singapore, I have had the privilege of being able to wear whatever I want. I have been able to wear shorts or tank tops or dresses without someone saying that it is inappropriate. But even if, there are still "dress codes" in my school that exist only for the girls. There still is a very gender biased dress code in Singapore, which is a fairly westernized country with little gender discrimination.

It was a Friday, my mother, brother and I were getting ready to visit my moms brother, his wife and son. I got dressed and I put on a maroon dress with small black dots all around it. It was fairly long, ending right at my knee, and it had spaghetti straps. Also, I put on a black cardigan that covered my arms and shoulders well because I was used to being told that what I was wearing was not suitable for India. I was taught from a young age to cover up my body, especially in India. After putting the outfit on, I thought that I was well covered and I felt comfortable in what I was wearing.

But regardless of my feelings, my mother told me, gently but sternly that I couldn't leave the house in that. Immediately I got annoyed, I was happy with my outfit choice and I wanted to wear it out. But she insisted that I change. So I did, just to make her happy but I wasn't happy myself.

India, no secrets, is known for its high rates of rape and sexual assault against women, though it is decreasing slowly, it still is there. It has become a more clear fact that women cannot wear what they please without having a man look at them as a sexual toy. It is known to women that they must cover themselves up and to not dress "inappropriately" so men look at them with respect. I'm not saying that this applies to every country, because it doesn't but it does to certain countries, and India is definitely one of them.

But my problem is that women get blamed for feeling comfortable. I've read many YouTube comments, tweets, comments on news reports about sexual assaults, and quite a few people have said things like, "she was asking for it, dressing like that", "look at what she's wearing, of course she was going to get raped" and other comments that I wouldn't like to show in this post.

Are these people really going to turn the blame around and say that a woman was asking to get raped for wearing clothes she is comfortable in? Are they saying that if a woman was wearing a short skirt or a short dress, that makes sexual assault okay? Because that's exactly what it looks like.

If its hot outside, if it's 30 degrees celsius outside, why should I spend the day wearing jeans and a full sleeved top when I can feel comfortable and wear shorts and a tee-shirt?

Girls should be taught to love their bodies and feel comfortable in what they wear. If a girl feels comfortable in a short skirt, then she should be allowed to wear one and not be constantly shamed for it. The idea of clothes being a distraction is purely underestimating the male population. If a boy is distracted by a girls shoulders or a girls thighs, and cannot focus of his own life, then that is his problem. It's not the girls fault. By telling girls that it is their fault, you are indirectly contributing to rape culture with victim blaming.

Why are there rules that girls can't wear these things but boys can? Basically, you are telling a girl that because they're a girl, they have cover up. You punish girls by saying that "they're a distraction". You are saying that a boy's education is more important than a girl's. Girl should not be shamed and humiliated and held responsible for boys' reactions to their bodies. Girls are more than distractions. Why must we point the finger of blame to girls when they are viewed sexually? Boys can control themselves well enough and if they can't, then it's their problem, not mine. We should teach boys that girls are not sexual objects instead of telling girls to cover up.

We should teach girls to be confident. So many people say that they are all for gender equality and they think that women deserve to be treated equally and yet, they do nothing to fix the daily issues that women face.

Practice what you preach, think before you speak and stop the discrimination.