Call for stories for I ♥ Being a Girl E-book

I ♥ Being a Girl stories

I ♥ Being a Girl a project by and for girls, aiming to inspire and empower young women by offering them a place where they can freely share and exchange experience, personal views and ideas.

As part of the second stage of the I ♥ Being a Girl project, YSAFE aims to enrich its inventory by collecting short stories and creating an e-book dedicated to girls, their hopes and dreams, the challenges they faced and the victories they have conquered.

By sharing your story you can rise above the stereotype and paint the true colours of a girl’s life, your life: exiting, challenging, unique.

What is the topic of the e-book?

The topic of the e-book is Overcoming Challenges. Every person faces obstacles and hardships in their life. Those challenges are unfortunately sometimes related to gender and equality. Both girls and boys have to fight with prejudice, stereotypes and sometimes discrimination when it comes to their sexuality, job aspirations, freedom of expression or sometimes just feeling comfortable in a relationship. Challenging as they are, they can help you grow stronger, gain confidence and hopefully help you fight injustice and bring about positive change for good. That is why as part of the I ♥ Being a Girl we ask you to share your experience, express thoughts and feelings and talk about what helped you overcome difficulties and reach your goals. We are all equal in our diversity and the more we talk about our differences the more common grounds we find and embrace true freedom and equality.

How should I write the story?

There is no set frame or structure for the short stories as we hope all written pieces to be as genuine and honest as possible. You can choose any tense, narrative, chain of events or view point you like. You can use you real name or an alias. Pictures or graphics accompanying the story are welcome but not compulsory.

First, decide which event in your life was most challenging, memorable, inspiring or just helped you grow most. Make a list of the main events and the most important points you want to make and think about the structure of your story. Do not stress about language or style as no one expects you to be a professional writer. Remember that the true value of your story is in your true and unique self.

The stories should be:
• Written or at least translated in English
• Not more than 2000 words
• Written in doc./ pdf. or any other commonly used format.

Please note, any offencive, discriminatory or inappropriate language will not be tolerated. While writing your story, think how it can affect others and their feelings.

What will happen to my story?

Your story will be included in our e-book and as part of the I ♥ Being a Girl project will be distributed vie our blog, on our main events and via the e-mail. Its distribution will be free for everyone and no profits will be made out of it. Hopefully, it will inspire and give strength to another young girl around the globe.


For assistance or any free advice do not hesitate to contact us at iheartbeingagirl@gmail.com

Best regards,
YSAFE - Youth Sexual Awarness for Europe

The time of the month

Menstruation, a taboo or blessing? A story told by women, their parners and communities from all over the world. 

More stories on society, gender, growing up, love, culture, steriotypes and many more on Metropolis website

Love Your Vagina Song

Love Your Vagina song brought to you by Mooncup. In this case it's not about what you think of the Mooncup, we just find the song inspirational and hilarious!

Inspirational movies: Evening (2007)

Evening (2007) is a more than your usual chick flick... Set paralelly in 1950s US and nowadays it explores the mother-daughter relationships, female friendship, making important life choices and living with them afterwards, pursuing your dreams and trying to do what you feel like even if the spirit of your time or rational reasoning do not seem to support you.

Perfect for an august evening!

Aquadettes, my heroines (Luize)

Aquadettes from California is a place. on Vimeo.

"That's pretty much how I wanna feel in fifty years. And when facing all things harsh that hit you inexpectedly...

Resilient, active... and maybe a little high. And remembering to do things I love to do"

Luize

I ♥ Being a Girl Tea party !!!

Dear friends,

Because we had such a blast at our own I♥BG tea party at the Regional Council, we would like to invite you to organize your own. So here it is, our official invitation:

We, YSAFE, would like to invite you to participate in the “I ♥ being a girl” and to encourage you to organize your own IHBG Tea parties where you could spark positive discussion around a gender transformative approach, girl empowerment, as well as a broad range of SRHR related discussion topics to help lead the discussions, including discussion on sex and pregnancy.

Before the Tea party, please see the „I ♥ Being a Girl movie", our Youtube fanpage, and explore the blog. We are sure it will give you some good ideas or raise a good discussion.

If you want to organise your own event, please contact me, Renata, at this email address renata.daunoraviciute@gmail.com . I will send you everything you need to know about organising your own tea-party and I can answer any questions you may have.

We would be grateful if you could let us know who will be contact person for your I ♥ Being a Girl Tea party, and when are you planning to make it. Special surprises are waiting for those who decides to support the project and get involved.

Hope to hear from you very soon!

Renata

Talking about.. sex (Chloe)

Miranda is a British sitcom co-written and starring comedienne Miranda Hart. Met with much critical acclaim, the show looks at the life of middle class Miranda and her profuse social awkwardness- an example being her propensity to burst into random song mid-interview.

This episode sees Miranda dealing with her inability to talk openly about sex and relationships, taking a stance that is ‘too British’ and conservative. Her behavior is hilarious; she explains how she was given little sex education at school, which has inhibited her ability to talk about it in later life. She satirizes perfectly the feeling that some girls can have when talking about such issues. We, as girls, should feel comfortable in sharing our experiences so as to end any stigma surrounding sex and to give a feeling of empowerment and confidence.

Also of note, is Hart’s success in the comedy world, an otherwise male dominated profession. She shows how women can be hugely successful in any line of work.

Courtney Martin on reinventing feminism

Courtney Martin on actual, the generation(s) after ways of feministing
+ a lecture on how to succeed in activism in general

...you can get more of her at feministing.com

Who runs the social media? Girls, really?

Mari-Claire Price, the Executive Coordinator of the European Youth SRHR Network, YouAct, recently has raised a handful of really valid questions at Conversations for a Better World about the presence of girls in social media and the effectiveness of the social media campaigns among girls:

"I recently read an interesting article discussing the demographics of Facebook users across the world. To my surprise (and delight) the article stated that ‘women rule social networks’ with 64% of Twitter users, 58% of facebook users and 57% of Myspace users being female. A women ruled Facebook! DJ please, a request! Beyonce- Girls Run the World!

But looking closer at this study, we can see that the claim that ‘women rule social networks’ is nearly as questionable as the lyrics of that song…. do girls really run the world and do they really run social networks?"

You can read the whole thing here!

SRHR: activism and Academia (Daryo)

"Oh wow, had one of my courses on gender today and was wearing the I ♥ being a girl t-shirt, of which a student at the end asked me what was written on it, resulting in me explaining what it meant to me... both YSAFE/SRHR-wise as well as, whilst being consiered 'male', wearing a shirt like that, focusing on the whole gender and biological essentialism thing.

Anyway, point I want to make here: learned that the teacher, who was participating in the dialogue as well, turned out not to know anything about SRHR [sexual and reproductive health and rights] at all! Felt pretty strange to discover that this teacher, whilst she knows a lot about many scientific relations to gender from a lot of different angles, had never heard of these concepts, not even when fully pronouncing the names.

In other words: she knows a lot about gender history, epistemology, discourses (!), biological essentialism, social constructivism, different forms of sexualitites and identities, paradigms and you name it, but seems to be stuck in this 'scientific field'. Conclusion for today: there is more need for SRHR in universities, or it should at least be mentioned!

Not that any of you can do anything with this kind of information, but did seem like a thing to share; after all, it started with the I ♥ being a girl t-shirt."

Daryo