GIRL POWER

A girl with a dream becomes a woman with vision.Girl power is about loving yourself and having confidence and strength from within. I believe in being strong even when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest. I believe tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.

When I was in primary school, my English teacher said at the beginning of term that she would give a class a test and whoever will get the highest score, you will get a badge and you will be able to supervise all English discussions, which had power in it's own. I very much wanted to be the best. When the results came, I was the best. To my surprise the teacher said the badge had to be given to a boy. She had forgotten to make that clear earlier because she assumed the best student would obvious be a boy. A boy had the second highest score on the test and was given the badge. More interesting was that the boy was a sweet gentle soul who had no interest in having the badge while I was so ambitious to have it. But I was a female and he was a male.

Equality is all about ensuring that every individual has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talent. Girls are equal to boys! I call myself a feminist because feminism is still in Africa. Sometimes people don't understand what feminism is, it's not about berating men, it's not about hating them. Feminist is a person who says give me the ability as a woman to make my own decisions without being judged just like my teacher did.

In campus, a both girl and a boy both teenagers with the same pocket, would go out and the boy would be expected always to pay to prove his masculinity. And you wonder why boys are more likely to steal from their parents. Both girls and boys should be raised not to link masculinity with money, rather whoever has money should pay. If we raise both girls and boys in the same way, the boys will not have the pressure to prove their masculinity.

My friend Muthui is a good example too. Muthui is a brilliant determined guy in our class. Sometimes we would have conversations After class and he would tell me, I don't understand by things being different or harder for women maybe in the past but not now. I still could not figure out what Muthui could not understand what seemed evident. One day while walking around the school, we met a guy who looked so depressed and when I enquired about his problem, he said he was hungry and had not eaten. I decided to share with him some money I had received from my parents as my pocket money. The guy was so grateful and happy. He took the money from me and looked across at Muthui and said "thank you sir." Muthui looked at me surprised and asked why the guy and thanked instead he could have thanked me. I realized that the man thought that all the money I had came from Muthui. I could not understand why people would see women as dependent. The worst thing we do to males is making them feel they must be heard. We leave them to have very fragile egos. We then raise girls to cater to fragile egos of men. We tell our girls to be ambitious and successful and not too successful because their success will threaten men's territory. If you a breadwinner in a relationship with a man you have to pretend in public that you are not, otherwise you will belittle him. I sometimes wonder why would a woman's success be a threat to a man? Women do not belittle men and if a man would feel belittled by me then I would never be interested in him.

I know of a story of my aunt, who sold her house during her courtship, so that not to intimidate her boyfriend. She would literally say " I'm doing that to protect my relationship." Giving up a career, a dream, a job, just to fit in the shoes of a poor guy, it's so disgusting.

Girls grow up to become women who have turned pretence in their hearts. I know of a story of my cousin who was was in a toxic relationship and she pretended to like it. When she was married, her husband kept complaining that she had changed. But she had not , she was only tired of pretending. Undergoing such a trauma just because the guy was rich. Girls should learn to be independent, they should always work hard to be independent people who can bore fruits to the society which raised her

When I was a little girl I remember anytime my dad would change my sister's diaper, my mommy would say thank you. I kept wondering why wouldn't mommy see that as a perfectly normal and natural way of any parent raising their children. Why is it that women have whole responsibility to take care of their children, or ran all errands at home? Women are equal to men, and what men does women can do it better.

In conclusion a man is as likely as a woman to be intelligent, creative and innovative. Girls should get education when opportunity presents itself just like men. Equal oppotunities should be presented to Women just like men.