Girltopia for Seniors

Girltopia Journey Workshop Series for Seniors

Girltopia Journey Workshop Series for Seniors
Grades: 9-10 4 meeting series Click here for current schedule & registration deadlines.

Girl Scout Seniors know the world is not ideal. This journey is their chance to imagine a perfect world—for girls. They’re invited to create their vision as an art project—in any medium they choose. Then they’ll take action to make their vision a reality. Leaders, after all, are visionaries!

Journey Awards
GIRLtopia invites girls to consider how the world is far from perfect for girls around the world. As girls take in this reality, they are invited to envision an ideal world—a society that consistently respects their needs, values and interests. In GIRLtopia, girls have the option of earning a major award, an important step on the Girl Scout leadership ladder:

The Senior Visionary Award – To earn the award, girls complete 3 steps:
Create It – an artistic representation of an ideal world to share with others;
Guide It – lead a discussion or group activity that engages other girls in thinking about visionary leadership; and
Change It – complete a Take Action Project that moves the world (or a community) one step closer to ideal
*Completing a Senior Journey is a prerequisite for the Gold Award.

An essential component of a Take Action Project is that the girls take it out to the community. The final steps of the Award Take Action project will be completed outside the workshop series. . During the workshops, the girls will choose & work on their project and make a detailed Take Action Project plan. You can pre-purchase awards from us for your convenience, but please hold on to the award until the project is completed. The requirements will be explained in detail during the workshops.
For more info on Take Action Projects the pages under TAKE ACTION PROJECTS

What Happens on a Girltopia Journey?

Create-it Art project
By thinking about & creating an artistic version of their "ideal world for girls" they start to think about what changes they would change to make it ideal.

My create-it project is a drawing of Susan B Anthony. I drew her in a more modern pop art style. to make her more modern. I thought it was important, in our modern world, to remember some of the original feminists in the Women's Suffrage movement who fought for women's right to vote. .

For our create- it project, my group and I drew different traditional outfits for a variety of cultures. This will allow young girls to embrace their culture and ethnicity.

Our Create-it project shows a girl's thoughts of what she wishes a girl can have in an ideal world. These are the key words that we think are the best features put together for an ideal girl to achieve.

My drawing is about the importance of learning around the world.The wonder of what is behind the cover of a book inspires learning.

This rendering of the iconic Rosie the Riveter is inspired by the face of the world today. We are not just one culture. We are a blend of different women, strong women, and women who are proud of their background. Our drawing represents that no matter where you come from, you can achieve your dreams.

Our poster represents a girl’s thoughts about an ideal world for a girl. It shows a different part of her brain for each word that she believes would create the perfect image for the life of woman in the future. She believes that a girl should be independent, confident, and respected. If a girl is confident in herself, she will receive all the respect she deserves. Self-image is a big problem for girls of all ages, but a head-strong, independent woman can do anything she puts her mind to. Especially if those words are engraved in her brain, much like the girl represented in our poster.

Women and girls should have the right to do a "mans job". They should also have the right to equal pay for doing the same job as a man.

Our drawing is a representation of the different sides to abusive relationships -- how the abusive partner says both cruel AND loving things. Abused people are often stereotyped as weak, but when you're being confused and manipulated, it isn't that easy.

My Create-it shows a girl reaching to the stars. The stars have different jobs showing that girls can do anything they want to if they don’t give-up and stop trying.

My Create It shows my Utopia of men and woman being equal within the workplace. The fact that they are shaking hands shows equality. Additionally, in my Utopia, depicted by this picture, men and women's equality would also bring equal pay for equal work.

The girls aren't limited to the visual arts for their Create-it project.

Music playlists

My Create-it is a music play list with songs that are inspiring to girls. I chose a variety of different music to try and reach all different music genres. I hope this music makes girls feel that we are just as good as boys. I created my playlist on Spotify & am reaching out to gain followers. This art piece contains excerpts of the lyrics.

Poetry

JUST AS MUCH
An original poem by C E
I can fight just as hard
And I can be just as smart
And when they laugh, won’t let it hurt
‘cause I am strong and I have heart
Caged birds can sing
And so do I
You can’t ever clip my wings
I will always soar and fly
Work twice as hard
Get half as much
With recognition like this
I am always second best
All you want
Is to give up
But you push through
Because you tried so hard
And all for naught
So here I am
With all my friends
We fight together
Hand in hand
Sisters of the world unite
So we can win the fight or right.
Never over, never won
But then again…
We can prove them wrong!!

This poem is about how much harder we have to work to be able to prove ourselves to society. Everyone tells us to give up and then criticizes us if we do. I wrote this to show people that we need to work, fight, and stand together to prove to the people that hold us back, that they are wrong. Because we are stronger and smarter than they believe.

Note: The gallery view below crops the pictures. Click on the photo to see the entire image.

Looking for Girltopia Inspiration ?
Check out the Workshops4girls Girltopia Pinterest page
The following are a few of the pins added by Girls on the journey

http://www.pinterest.com/workshops4girls/girltopia-journey-ideas/

What do Girls think belongs in their Girltopia ?

This quote demonstrates the true ambition of Mary Wollstonecraft as well as the purpose of Girltopia. As men ridiculed Wollstonecraft and her book, she summed up her dream in this quote, which proves the simplicity of her (and others') desire of freedom for women rather than superiority over men. Despite this, she struggled to persuade men of her justified intentions and women's equality was pointedly removed from the political agenda of the French radicals. Thus, her experience and wishes reflect the purpose of Girltopia and the great need for female empowerment globally.

I chose to share this video because it depicts they way society shapes the minds of girls over time. The younger girls in the video have yet to be exposed to the parts of society that change the way they see the phrase "like a girl". Instead of seeing the phrase as a derogatory line, as the older girls did, they just acted as they normally would when asked to act out certain motions. When the older girls were asked to act out the motions "like a girl" they moved slower or with less form; awkwardly. To the older girls, "like a girl" meant weaker, less capable.
"Like a girl" most likely originated from boys insulting each other by saying that they did something "like a girl" when they did it badly. The phrase insinuates that girls are less capable than boys. It makes it seem as if it is a negative thing to be a girl. This has a major impact on the self-esteem of young girls as they go through puberty and are trying to understand and love themselves and the changes that have happened to them.
Girls should grow up understanding how lucky and awesome it is to be a girl, instead of being ashamed. Being a girl is a beautiful thing and more girls should be told that as they grow up.

I believe this is so important. women often push each other down; we make fun of each other for being not perfect enough. it's often in the context of relationship jealousy, and now it's standard -- whether in the context of a funny joke about being ugly/pretty compared to others, a subliminal feeling of dissatisfaction in yourself when you look at someone beautiful, talking about other girls negatively -- every form of this hurts someone, even if it's you. you might notice that men don't do this in the same way, and that's why it's so harmful to girls and women to constantly compete for attention and affection when we could get it from OURSELVES and our own sense of self-worth.

What do girls on the Girltopia journey believe in or care about ? This page is full of contirbutions by girls taking the journey. Like these.

Girls tend to cover their whole face with a lot of makeup and put away their flaws but if they don't have makeup they show their true selves which means everything.

In my Girltopia, this is something I think all girls should have access to.

There are many reasons I choose this phototo represent Girltopia. The first reason is the idea that the world is in your hand. You have the power to mold it and shape into the ideal world. The second reason being if you have some small actions and lots of people that creates a big change for the world. One small action might help a little but it won't change the world. But if you have other people helping you and supporting you the more people want to see it change. If one person can do one thing that helps maybe only five people. And if two people do the exact same thing that would help ten people and if a third person helps it can help 15 people and so on and so forth. The more people helping to change the world the more it will change and stay that way for years to come. And then there you have it. A WORLD. A WORLD where people can't even remember a time where someone was better than the other. Everyone is just equal.

As an active Venturing Crew member, which is a co-ed branch of Boy Scouts, I got to participate in a skills competition between Boy Scout troops in the Orange County Council called Camporee. We took home first place overall the two years we competed. Almost all would dedicate a good portion of this win to the fact that we had girls. Girls are naturally different than boys and there is nothing that can be changed about it. Having girls in the crew brings in new aspects, such as planning, that would not be as highlighted in an all-boy setting. Instead of ignoring differences, we recognized them and used them to our advantage. Having girls is not a challenge, but an advantage.

This painting depicts a woman with her sole attention on her child. In the Victorian Era, around the 1830s to 1900s, society expected women to stay at home as housewives and do chores, cook, take care of children, etc., while the men were the breadwinners of their families. Although current society still gives more favors towards men, the Victorian Era was more harsh. Women were looked down on as weak, to the point people thought women couldn't handle things on their own. This explains why in stories written/taking place in that time period, women were always depicted gossiping and talking while men went into a separate room to discuss important matters, saying women weren't able to handle issues like the men. But what is society to assume that? So the painting is another sign that women were expected to give up their lives for their children because all the pictures drawn that time have mothers looking at their children.

Also check out our main Pinterest page.
Look at the boards we are following, especially the Stories Worth Reading Board
with links to hundreds of stories of women making a difference in the world !
https://www.pinterest.com/workshops4girls/

Visit Workshops4girls's profile on Pinterest.