Rising Up on Women’s Day
by Maddy Roth
My smart friend Google recently told me that that the world is searching for gender equality more than ever before, specifically, how to help gender equality, how to support gender equality, how to measure gender equality, how to improve gender equality in the workplace, how to talk about gender equality.
And one of the top-searched ‘gender equality phrases’ in the last year was The Future Is Female. This phrase struck a particular chord for me this International Women’s Day (March 8th), a day where we not only cheered the women who have laid the groundwork before us, but also asked ourselves what we could do to commit to girls and women worldwide moving forward.
I am beyond fortunate that my day job allows me to meet some of the world’s most incredible activists and organizations, many of whom are showing up in your Google answers, whom are taking the big, scary intangible buzz-words like “global gender equality” and breaking down their architecture to tackle their multi-layered obstacles head-on. Together, we are all trying to work towards real, tangible solutions for generations of women to come.
Girl Rising is among these organizations. Their goal: to ensure that girls around the world are educated and empowered. When every girl is free to reach her full potential, their work will be done. They began with a film about the power of girls education, and over the last five years have used their power of storytelling to change the way the world sees and values girls through media-driven campaigns and grassroots programming with on the ground partners in the United States, India, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Results of these interventions have included adolescent girls re-enrolling in school, parents deciding against early marriage, girls better advocating for themselves, and teachers actively reducing gender bias in their classrooms.
CAA is lucky to have known Girl Rising from the start, back when they premiered their first film in our office 5 years ago. We’ve watched our incredible clients Freida Pinto and Meryl Streep go from narrating that first powerful film, to joining Michelle Obama and her Let Girls Learn Initiative in Liberia and Morocco for the Girl Rising produced We Will Rise, which showcased stories of girls overcoming barriers to education.
And this International Women’s Day, we celebrated the Girl Rising’s Fifth Anniversary Edition of their film at CAA’s office in Los Angeles, and we welcomed clients and education activists David Oyelowo and Andra Day as Girl Rising’s newest ambassadors.
Watching the girls in these films is our fuel, to remind us that our fight for women doesn’t end in our backyard. Let’s take full advantage of this re-energizing wave of feminism in the US to remember our sisters abroad who face extraordinary barriers every day, who are victims of child marriage, gender-based violence, extreme poverty, war, and who are left behind with zero access to education.
Let’s use our collective #TimesUp power to make sure all female voices are heard and all stories are told, worldwide.
Watch GIRL RISING or arrange a screening now: https://www.girlrising.com/film
