 Foreword
by Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop
When I was young...
There are few words more wistful in the
English language. I've even heard kids use them as they
look back down the years at a time in their lives that
was less troubled, before all the social pressures kicked
in. For women especially, that time is particularly
poignant. Viewed from the vantage point of seasoned
maturity, youth can start to look like a missed opportunity.
Hence the wistfulness of those words, "When I was young..."
Well, right up front, I want to say I
wish I'd had The Girl Pages on my bedside table when
I was young. Then I wouldn't have missed one opportunity
in life. I considered myself to be one of those strong,
confident, creative girls this book is aimed at, but
I still felt like an outsider. Picture it: the olive-skinned,
frizzy-haired, chatterbox child of Italian immigrants
in a tiny seaside town on the south coast of England.
Fortunately for me, I had a mother who was the most
furiously individual person I have ever met. She was
the living embodiment of the idea of being true to yourself.
And when you see that idea at work in front of you every
day of your childhood, it rubs off. But my mum didn't
have the facts at her fingertips when I was young. If
I'd said I wanted to take up hot-air ballooning (something
she herself took to later in life), she wouldn't have
had a clue how to help. Whereas any parent picking up
The Girl Pages is going to find the inspiration and
the information to help their daughters achieve their
goals. They'll also find themselves wishing they'd had
books like this when they were young.
That's because The Girl Pages is all about
making the most of yourself at a time in your life when
it is never more important - and never more difficult.
Like I said, social pressures are particularly hard
on girls. To give just a couple of examples: in 1991,
13 per cent of girls aged 13 said they had smoked cigarettes.
Now that number is up to 21 per cent. And nearly 17
per cent say they have used marijuana, up from 5 per
cent in 1991. In our data-crazed age, we have more and
more facts at our fingertips about how strongly girls
start out on their passage through life and how side-tracked
they can get in a society that has traditionally attached
little value to their concerns. Girls are much more
likely than boys to suffer from depression and worry
about their weight. But contrast these social trends
with some other equally strong ones. By the year 2000,
55 per cent of the US work force will be women. The
same percentage of current college undergrads is female.
Just recently, the National Council for Research on
Women released research which detailed the closing of
the gender gap in the fields of maths, science and sport.
Politics? Look around the world at the way women are
key players in grass roots activism - environmentalism
and human rights, for instance. Women are transforming
the political landscape with an entrepreneurial spirit
that will have an equal impact on the global economy.
Economic opportunity means much more to them than money.
It also fosters the fundamentals of self-esteem: education,
health care, cultural continuity, the chance to protect
the past while shaping a future. The fact is, women
hold a society together.
But how do we get from here to there?
How do we create a bridge between the present challenges
of girlhood and the future empowerment of womanhood?
I feel it is essential for girls and young women to
encounter images of empowerment at an impressionable
age. Instead of the idealized notions of female perfection
so often offered up by the fashion and entertainment
media, how much more inspiring it is for girls to find
role models who embody character, creativity, independence
and achievement. There are dozens of such women in The
Girl Pages. Whatever it is they do, whether it's rock
climber, marine biologist, t.v. anchorwoman or poet,
their messages are the same: be individual, be curious,
be brave, be passionate, be active. There are no better
lessons for young people to learn.
I know, because they were the lessons
that shaped my life. I learned them first from my mother
who was, in her own imaginative way, the first activist
I ever met. She would take nothing at face value, and
her defiance of the status quo got me asking my own
questions and developing my own personal vision. I'll
freely admit that I hated my frizzy hair and my short
legs when I was a girl, but in an odd way, they also
reassured me because they made me so obviously different
from all the English girls around me. And I was drawn
to strong individuals who were different, who bucked
the system. Joan of Arc was my first obsession. Later,
it was James Dean. In different ways, they stood for
the rebel spirit and roused my sense that there were
wrongs that needed righting in the world, and the only
way you could right them was by going in the opposite
direction to everyone else.
I was lucky that I had some remarkable
teachers who didn't try to squash my spirit. If I had
to isolate the one thing that more than anything else
made me what I am today, I would say education. The
denial of the right to education is still the device
that prevents girls in many countries from developing
their full potential as human beings. They are forced
to work, marry and have children at an age when they
ought to be in school. I thought about these girls while
I was reading The Girl Pages because their situation
simultaneously underlines the advances that have been
made in our own society and the work that still needs
to be done. We have more freedom than ever to be who
we want to be, but such freedom carries with it the
weight of responsibility. That's why I would say to
all this book's readers: be your brave and independent
self, but be compassionate too.
My first words were about the wistfulness
of missed opportunities, but on reflection, I'm slightly
revising my point of view. When I was young, I instinctively
understood that the world was full of opportunity. The
nicest thing I can say about getting older is that it
hasn't changed for me. Every day, there are new chances
to take, new experiences to make the most of. Consider
yourself a work in progress because, with the right
attitude, you're on a learning curve for the rest of
your life. And that's the attitude that lights up The
Girl Pages.
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