Give a Little Girl Voice

What happens when you give a girl voice ? She stands up, and speaks out - for her own self and most often, for an entire tribe. Young Fearless Girls are moving the needle, one issue at a time, working to make the planet more equal, more safe, more green, more clean. After the post about the spunky 7 year old from South India, who sued her dad for not providing her with a toilet, along the way ensuring sanitation for 100 other families, I wanted to honor the girls whose moral clarity, whose fearlessness, whose voice has moved me and stayed with me, but more importantly is moving mountains one stone at a time. Malala has been part of our consciousness for so long, we forget she is just 21. She was just 14, when she stood up to the mighty Taliban for her right to go to school. Emma Gonzalez, 20, survived a school shooting in Florida in 2018 where she lost tons of her friends. Instead of mourning in the darkness, she took her tears and her anger and became an eloquent gun control activist - taking on fearlessly, the gun lobby. Her words have moved millions and she has cofounded a gun control advocacy group. If you havent heard Emma's Speech at the March for our Lives Rally in 2018, you must. I saw it on loop and couldnt stop crying last year. ( Link here : https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2018/mar/24/emma-gonzalezs-powerful-march-for-our-lives-speech-in-full-video) Greta Thunberg shot to fame in December 2018 when she took at 32 hour train ride to the Climate Conference in Poland, and took down the pants of the soft talking attendees in the room by telling them that they were stealing her future for the greed of a few. She has organized school walkouts and given a TED Talk on the urgency of climate action. She is only 16. (You can see her cutting speech at the climate conference here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFkQSGyeCWg) There are several like these, but these have not just stayed with me, they have inspired me and given me hope, that our world is in very very good hands. Fearless Girl is also a sculpture (in the midst of a little controversy now) that shot to global prominence in 2017, when She Showed up one fine morning, defiantly in the path of the iconic raging Bull of Wall Street. Suggesting it seems, that the bull would have to reckon with her, before being able to wreak havoc. Give a Fearless Girl Voice...and she will transform the world. #Fearlessgirl #HappyWomansDay

Words used to cage women

On the back of Serena William’s controversy, I got thinking about adjectives, words that are used to describe female anger vs male anger. For instance, only adult women get described as hysterical’ when angry, or have a ‘meltdown’ or ‘throw a tantrum’ ? Is it a coincidence that all these words are also used to describe toddlers ? It is also interesting how these words imply ‘out of control’, ‘unreasonable’ or ‘crazy’. Men, they get labelled ‘furious’, or ‘angry’, or worst case ‘aggressive’ or ‘bully’ I But furious and angry imply ‘justified rage’ - like the other party deserved it, maybe ? 
‘Aggressive’ is neutral in a male context, and positive when used to describe a male athlete, but an ‘aggresive’ woman brings forth the image of somebody that is ‘Unfeminine , unappealing, unattractive’ ..somebody you stay away from. 
A male bully is unattractive too, but if an adult woman were to be labelled ‘bully’ - what image of her would you carry ? 
Visible anger in a woman is almost all the time considered and described in starkly negative terms. Anger in a man - that can symbolise power often. If fact the lack of Anger (as Obama had) is often used to describe a lack of Male Potency. 
Words are powerful and the labels used to describe women in particular - end up caging them

Can you think of other such words, that are used to cage women’s personalities ?