"May Her Memory Be a Revolution"
This week we lost an inspiring, powerful woman. Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away at the age of 87. Over the course of her life as a lawyer and a Supreme Court Justice, she fought over and over again for women's (and men's) rights. But despite the fact that she is gone, her legacy has continued on in so many women that are fighting for equality and pushing to make sure that future generations will have it even better than we did.
“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you."
The girls at Hawking Middle School have formed a group called the "Red Club." Every week they get together and talk about issues that affect them as menstruating women--cramps, pads vs. tampons, and how embarrassing accidents can be. It's a great women empowerment group for these girls to bond together. They even have a secret locker stocked with supplies to help each other out.
But when the school tries to shut their club down for being "inappropriate," these young women won't take it lying down. They decide it's time to fight back for their rights as women to gather and talk about something that is NORMAL. They even push back against the dress coded--wear boys have no restrictions but girls can't even wear leggings.
Riley Dunne is one of the leaders of this crusade and she spends the book learning the balance between fighting for what you want and compromise, speaking up for yourself, and leading in a way that others will want to join you.
"A gender line... helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage."
Pretty soon after I read Revenge of the Red Club, I also had the chance to read Dress Coded by Carrie Firestone.
"Rage and shame have set our headquarters on fire. It is all ablaze. There are pieces of Jasmine's soul in the bits of ash that fly through the air. Pieces of all of our souls. When ash falls to the ground, it grows gardens."Molly Frost is fed up with the school dress code. Their school dance gets cancelled because one of her friends was wearing a tank top and had taken her jacket off to cover the blood stain on her new white pants. Molly decides to start a podcast about all the injustices that she and her friends experience at the hands of the administration all while boys are being told that "they'll get distracted by girls' shoulders."
Molly's rebellion starts to grow as her podcast gains more and more of a following. Even high school students who went to their middle school want to share their stories and empower the girls who still have to deal with the restrictive dress code.
Like Riley in Revenge of the Red Club, Molly has to figure out just how far she will have to push to make her voice (and the voice of hundred's of girls) loud enough to be heard. As a teacher, I hear these discussions all the time about dress-code and what is appropriate for students. But I'm also aware of how we over-police women's dress at the expense of their education at times.
I loved both of these books. The female characters are strong-minded young women who have a vision for not only changing the way things are for them--but of changing the future so that other girls don't have to struggle. I think they perfectly embody what RBG was all about.
The characters experience contrasting opposition. One has parents who support her protest while the other's feels like what she wants to do is inappropriate. It was interesting to see how having a support system at home might make things different.
With Ruth Bader Ginsberg's death and my reading of these books, I'm reminded of just how important it is as women, to advocate for ourselves--in our homes, in our communities, in politics. We have to speak up on behalf of ourselves and all the young women out there who are not yet old enough to have a voice.
"May her memory be a revolution!"
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