being a housewife is a bad thing.
It is in fact an important role in
society. What I mean is that girls
need to know that they can be
more than what they believe they
are.
Among my friends, mostly boys
had high self-esteem. The girls on
the other hand, didn’t believe in
their potential. In addition, I noticed
that boys grew up surrounded
by famous masculine figures
as inspiration. This is because
in schools, men are mainly the
principal references in all school
books. I wondered: Where are
the women in the books? Why are
they not mentioned? What are the
effects of this on girls?
We rarely study women in schools.
The worst part is knowing that
there are many great historical
female figures. They should be
in our school books in order to
inspire girls of our generation to
believe in themselves. However,
nowadays, the situation remains
the same.
A research made by a scientific
journal called Science showed that
children between 5 and 7 years
old think that men are smarter than
women. Besides that, psychologist
Luis Saraiva from the Psychology
Institute at São Paulo University—
who studies issues related to
family, gender relations and
sexuality—says boys are invited
for strategy games, such as chess,
more often than girls.
The Brazilian educational system
is teaching only one message to
girls: “You’re not intelligent. So
why study?” It is also important
to remember the position of
Brazil in international ranking of
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married kids. According to Az Mina
Magazine and Unicef, Brazil ranks
number 4, with more than 2 million
married girls.
Considering all this, when I
was 16 years old, and with
the support from the Youth
Parliament of MERCOSUR, I
created an educational project
called “Rescuing and Valuing The
Woman.” In this project, rather
than typically learning about male
figures, we introduce great female
personalities and talk about the
inequality of gender. Where I live,
this topic is always a taboo. Since
this project started, the scenario
has changed for the teenagers
affected by this project.
Here, in São Paulo state, one of the
most typical musical genre among
teenagers is Rap. At our school,
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