GIRLS NEED POLICYMAKERS, ACTIVISTS, AND OTHER OPINION LEADERS WHO:

• Understand that support for girls requires social and institutional change, and that a focus on individualistic strategies to raise girls' self-esteem or label girls as "at risk" can mask underlying societal inequities.
• Challenge popular images in school curricula, program materials, and the media that promote gender, racial, and ethnic stereotypes.
• Develop and support programs to counteract messages that promote harmful behavior such as smoking, drug use, unprotected intercourse, and excessive dieting.
• Develop and support affordable, confidential gynecological and other health care programs that are accessible to all girls.
• Support policies and legislation that provide adolescents with access to a wide array of reproductive health options, prevention and treatment of STDS, and sexuality education programs.
• Challenge welfare reform policies that restrict or deny needed benefits to teen mothers and their children.
• Educate the public about the prevalence of violence against girls. Ensure that girls benefit from programs and other advocacy efforts on behalf of women who are survivors of rape, battering, and harassment.
• Expand public awareness of rape to acknowledge the large number of rapes committed by family members and acquaintances, and the high proportion of survivors who are adolescent girls.
• Support teacher training and professional development programs that help educators to cultivate classroom practices that promote girls' achievement. Encourage them to develop and use curricular materials that highlight the work of all women, and men of color, and promote understanding of non-Western perspectives.
• Increase awareness of the impacts of poverty on girls and their families. Expose the racism and sexism that underlie the large discrepancies in income, employment, and poverty rates between white families and families of color, and between married-couple families and female-headed families.
• Support job training programs for teens and their family members, and provide quality, affordable daycare that allows parents to work and/or continue their education without compromising the well-being of their children.

This site was last updated on 11/24/2004.

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