Let girls be whatever they want to be

The international day of the Girl is celebrated every Oct 11 to celebrate and empower girls and reading is one way a girl can grow her mind and develop opinions.

IN my girlhood, my most treasured reading was a book about a room full of books. I was entranced not just by the charming stories, but also the foreword by the author who described the beauty, mystery and wonder of books. Also deeply inspirational to a young girl was a story of pirates and buried treasure on a Caribbean Island. It made me want nothing more than to be the captain of my own ship. I also discovered a series of books, that told a story about an omnipotent and god-like lion, four young children and the blight of evil things. It made me understand ethics and morality better than any religious book.

Such was the wonderland of my youth. I read voraciously, emboldened by a family who valued books as the backbone of character building. What I read during my girlhood conditioned my mind to be open, questioning and creative. I know that this gave me the push to overcome my own fears, older people’s skepticism and other seemingly insurmountable hurdles. It made me what I am now.

Most girls I know tell me about their pressing struggles and challenges, all of which, carefully dissected, can be traced back to one thing – the struggle for the control of a girl’s mind. Our society conditions girls to fit in to confining gender roles. For girls and women, this means being subservient, being obedient and definitely not being themselves.

I moved to a new school in a different state in Form Five. I brought a book to school which was confiscated. It was a biography about a world leader. The teacher told me that “novels” are not allowed in that school. I cried tears of anger and frustration in the school toilet. The feeling of my mind being held back, of being controlled and being told what is acceptable to read was more than I could bear at that time. Also around that time, a book about teenagers in love was all the rage among my peers but so many of my classmates were forbidden to read it by their parents. They were told that reading about love would soil the mind.

I am aghast when I learn about the poor selection of books available in most school libraries. Local libraries are equally bereft. All children must have access to a range of books, different subjects, different authors, different languages. Book reading is critical to mind building. It is an absurdity that we want 21st century prodigies among our youth but do not give them the tools to reach that level of excellence.

My message to parents and schools is this: Please do not shackle the young minds entrusted to you. We want girls to be brave, strong and educated.

We want youth to become the enterprising adults that can give our country a happy, healthy and prosperous future. How can we achieve this if we cuff a girl’s mind and condition her to conform to stereotypes that demean, demoralise and demolish her independence.

Make it possible for a girl to understand and grow her mind, even if it means she develops opinions different from yours. Learn to accept this.

My message to all girls out there is this: Read. Read and never stop reading. In books you will find not just comfort, not just useful points and arguments to confound your detractors, but most importantly, the germination of your independent mind. Find yourself in books. Read what enchants you, what excites you, what moves you, whatever makes you want to conquer the world.

Conquer the world, you can and will.