Girls around the world want to be confident — and they want the opportunity to speak their minds and boldly follow their dreams. At least they do until they start scrolling through the artificially flawless images on social media and in magazines, or hear someone at school making fun of their appearance. That’s why educators from across the country are stepping up to teach girls how to challenge harmful beauty stereotypes — and they're using The Girl Collective, an empowering new sisterhood that’s part of the Dove Self-Esteem Project, to do it.
Since 2004 the Dove Self-Esteem Project has helped 20 million young people develop a positive relationship with their appearance. To further instill confidence in the next generation, last month in Los Angeles, Dove and Shonda Rhimes joined forces to launch the Girl Collective, which fosters empowering dialogue between women mentors and girls. Jane Smith, a teacher and counselor at Joan MacQueen Middle School, a 500-student campus in Alpine, California, about 30 miles east of San Diego says she came to the Girl Collective kick-off event in Los Angeles because she's seen first-hand how girls at her school need a self-esteem boost.
"Because we're a middle school, kids are totally in that spot where they're trying to find their identity and they're struggling," Smith says. "Because they're developing that identity, they're holding themselves back from a myriad of things that they could try. We really see it in the math and science classes, and we really want to make sure that they have the confidence to explore any academic area that they want to — so I'm always on the lookout for what we can do to help them with their self esteem." Indeed, research by Dove has found that eight in 10 girls with low body confidence will opt out of important activities, such as raising their hands to voice their opinion in a classroom.
Smith says she came across the Dove Self-Esteem Project curriculum two years ago and began implementing it with small groups of students. The changes she saw in their confidence made her eager to learn how to challenge beauty stereotypes.
Allison Sabb-Glenn, a counselor at Gilbert Middle School, a 700-student campus in rural Gilbert, South Carolina, says she learned about the Dove curriculum earlier this year. She also came to Los Angeles to find out how to better support the self-esteem of the girls at her school. Sabb-Glenn says she often hears girls talking "about how body image plays a huge role in the types of things that they wear. Because of their size they think there are certain things they can't wear."
At The Girl Collective kickoff event, Smith, Sabb-Glenn, and nearly 100 other female educators and mentors from across the country participated in a full day of self-esteem panels, conversations, and activities, including an hour-long workshop focused on empowering girls to spot and challenge damaging beauty stereotypes. The 200 girls at the event went home with specific actions they planned to take to challenge stereotypes and a buddy card that encourages them to invite at least one friend to join them in the Girl Collective conversation. Meanwhile, the educators went home ready to facilitate workshops at their own school site, or teach other teachers at their schools how to lead them.
Sabb-Glenn says she presented what she learned in Los Angeles to her school leadership team, but she led all of the Dove Self-Esteem Project workshops at her South Carolina middle school. That helps lessen the teacher workload, and students at Sabb-Glenn's school site are used to talking about these issues with her. "I go into every classroom once a month and work with students on some type of social skill or leadership trait," she says.
Meanwhile in California, Smith says she considered leading the workshop herself in front of large groups of students during P.E. class, "but I don't like doing it as a large group, so I opted to have my advisory teachers learn it." The educators Smith trained facilitated the workshop during their advisory classes.
Sabb-Glenn says similar to what she heard girls in Los Angeles say, many of her girls in South Carolina said beauty stereotypes "made them feel angry, hurt, disappointed that others would even think that way." But the girls were also eager to move from being victims to being activists. "A lot of my girls said the stereotypes motivated them to change things," Sabb-Glenn says. "It surprised me that they thought that. It made me think about how we move forward, and how we can push past the stereotypes. They gave great ideas."
Sabb-Glenn says her school already has a "Take What You Need" sticky-note wall. In order to challenge beauty stereotypes, "One of the things that the girls are going to do is create sticky notes pertaining to body image," she says. "They want to tell each other, 'You look beautiful, you look great, you are amazing.' They said those types of affirmations that they learned in the workshop are what they want put on the "Take What You Need' wall."
"'I set the standard' — I recall that one sticking out because we talked about how you don't have to worry about someone else's standard. As long as you're content and comfortable with you, that's what matters," says Sabb-Glenn.
Students were eager to take the message of empowerment outside the school, too. "I had to make copies of The Girl Collective buddy cards because I had students who wanted to give them to friends or neighbors who don't go to our school but they're in our district," Sabb-Glenn says.
In California, feedback was equally positive. One of the eighth grade advisory teachers wrote Smith that her students talked about the workshop for two days afterwards. The "Kids' reaction was positive and strong! We had some powerful discussions that I hope they hold onto," wrote the teacher to Smith. "They wish people would treat them as individuals rather than appearance being dictated by society… All in all, it was fantastic. I even felt better!'"
The students and teachers at Smith's school decided to make ongoing conversations about beauty stereotypes part of their activities for the rest of October since it was National Bullying Prevention Month.
Both Sabb-Glenn and Smith say that while the workshop led to some great conversations and students thinking about ways they can challenge beauty stereotypes, schools should think about how to facilitate these conversations year-round.
"It has to happen throughout the year. You have to attack it over and over throughout the year and make it part of the school culture to value everybody because those kids are just bombarded with the media 24/7," Smith says.
"Don't go in worrying about them not participating," Sabb-Glenn says. "Once they get into the swing of things and realize that others have experienced similar things, it makes the conversation flow." Once that happens, "Turn it into something that students can write about or discuss monthly in class. Give your students the opportunity to continue the conversation."
Sabb-Glenn also says she "would encourage any person, not just teachers or counselors, who works with children directly to facilitate this workshop." The materials are straightforward and easy to understand, so "Just do it," she says. "If a small town counselor can implement something like this, imagine what you can do."
Want to join the Girl Collective? Check out the Dove Self-Esteem Project to find out how you can make a difference in a young girl's life today.