Bold Girls Finish First

Last week, New York University Integrated Technology Program professor Clay Shirky published a blog rant that was picked up and discussed throughout the internet.  Shirky, a male professor in a male-dominated academic program, lamented that women are “…bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks…self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards.”

His fear was that although his program contains roughly equal numbers of women and men, the women are less likely to take the positive risks needed to speak up, promote their projects, and propel themselves to the next level.

This rant resonated with me because it is interesting for a man to take such an intense stance on this issue. Also as a professor, Mr. Shirky is in a position to eventually impact many young women – maybe even a Girls Inc. participant. If he is aware of the challenge women face in self-promotion, he is more able to support his women students and provide them with guidance. Unfortunately, at the end of his rant, Shirky admits that he doesn’t know how to address the situation, writing that “The essence of a rant, in fact, is that the ranter has no idea how to fix the thing being ranted about.”

Lucky for him, at Girls Inc. of Alameda County, we have a few good ideas about how to support our girls so that they not only feel comfortable when it’s necessary to self-promote but they can also succeed when they take those positive risks.  First, our programs are built around allowing the girls to build skills and take risks in a safe space.  Because our programs are girls only, participants build sisterhood and a comfortable place for taking positive risks and learning from the experience. Second, our programs allow girls to try both new skills and new roles.  Participants have the opportunity to get dirty with science projects, test their technology skills, and stretch their creativity while sometimes working in teams or teaching other participants. Finally, our programs allow girls to learn from and discuss why a particular positive risk was successful (or not).  Hopefully, by the time our participants arrive in college classrooms and corporate boardrooms, they are accustomed to raising their hands and saying “I can do that and be fabulous.”

At Girls Inc., we call that being bold. And our girls do that everyday in our programs.