It is achievable...eventually.

We have safely made it to Salt Lake City!  We had some free time this morning to sightsee in Temple Square before we left for the Girl Scout Leadership Institute kickoff.  It was awesome to see so many Girl Scouts in one place!

We still haven't broken up into "majors" yet, but we've heard some great speakers already.  The keynote GSLI speaker was Dr. Tererai Trent, a champion for girls' education in sub-Saharan Africa, who was mentioned in one of my sister's earlier posts.  Her speech was extremely motivating, and she encouraged us all to find our "big hunger," or the thing we want most, and stop at nothing until we obtain it because "it is achievable."  Her personal story of rising out of poverty made her speech an emotionally-charged illustration of what girls and women can achieve with some help and a big passion.

The speaker at the opening ceremony was Alison Levine, author of the New York Times bestselling book On the Edge.  Levine climbed Mount Everest twice within 8 years, reaching the summit on her second try.  She applied climbing skills to life overall; teamwork, perseverance, and decision-making is important in being a leader but can keep be an issue of life or death on a mountain.  She told us not to fear failure or backtracking, because "backing up doesn't mean you're backing down."

All in all, today was an amazing start to what I think will be a great convention.  I can't wait to see where the rest of the week will take us.

#GirlWithABook

Hello!
I'm Lindsey.  I'm a Senior Girl Scout and I'll be attending the Girl Scout Leadership Institute at the National Convention in Salt Lake City in just a few days.  I, along with about 1500 other girls, will have the opportunity to learn about issues including:

• basic needs
• gender equality
• healthy relationships
• inclusion and diversity
• self-image
• teen violence
• education

I'll be blogging about my experiences while on the trip, but I'd like to introduce myself first and explain why attending this convention will mean so much to me.

I've been a Girl Scout for over 10 years, but it wasn't until my 8th grade year that I became involved in feminism.  I always knew that there were inequalities between men and women in society but they didn't seem very important to me.  That changed in October 2012 when Malala Yousafzai was shot on her school bus by a member of the Taliban.  She was targeted for her outspokenness about girls' education.  She survived, though, and at 17 recently became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her work.

When I heard about this, I went online to research what happened and came across the Facebook page for the #GirlWithABook movement, led by Lena Shareef and Olivia Curl.  Reading everything on that page launched me into the world of feminism.

I recently had the opportunity to talk to both of these amazing ladies about their own experiences in feminism and their movement.  Both grew up in fairly liberal areas of the country, and had privileged upbringings.  Neither was involved in feminism until college; Olivia said that she originally viewed feminists as "whiny people," and Lena was ambivalent towards the movement.  In college, however, both met diverse groups of women who made them realize the importance of feminism and women's rights.  "I realized that this is an important thing, not just in other countries, but also in the United States," Lena said.  

It was also in college that Lena and Olivia met and started #GirlWithABook.  At the time that Malala was shot, Olivia was studying abroad in rural Jordan, near the Syrian border.  Lena was living in Michigan.  They began ranting to each other over Facebook messages and came up with the idea to "collect pictures of girls with books because apparently that's scary to idiots like the Taliban."  They began to do just that.  What started as a small social media movement has led both of them to become more active in the fight for women's rights, and has even taken them to the United Nations where they met Malala.  "Malala told us 'what you're doing is fantastic and you should keep doing it,' so who can argue with that?" Olivia said.

Their stories are important to me not only because it's what got me interested in women's rights, but also because they show that even if you think feminism is a dirty word right now, there is a place for everyone to learn and get involved in this movement.  To quote d.a.s.:

Feminism, to me, means the absolute equality of men and women.  Feminism means the absolute equality of all men and women...Feminism only will succeed when all people on earth are treated as equal human beings, each just as good as another.

This kind of feminism is the kind I am invested in, and this is why I'm looking forward to expanding my knowledge at the National Convention.