Girl Scout Badge Work:

Sophia had to pose the following question to women in her life. Since most of the woman we are friends with hold less than traditional views, I ended up posing the question to some of the more tradition women we know and on my facebook page and we meshed the answers so that Sophia didn't have to spend the entire meeting defending her answers....poor kid, she really doesn't know just how untraditional we are! Honestly I felt this was a very deep question for a 7 year old to be pondering and discussing, but we gave it a whirl!

The question (in a nutshell): the 3 most important issues facing women today?

Answer (from our friends) that she presented:
1) Equal pay for equal work
2) Access to healthcare for all women and children
3) Dispelling the myth of the superwoman: we can not do it ALL!

Now, for my point here......these are the answers I would have given her to take to the meeting.

1) The devaluing of MOTHERING as a career. I would spend hours on why I think this is important, but do you think my voice would be hear amongst a troop of girls whose mothers almost all work outside the home? I don't want to sound like a grade A bitch here, and I know some woman have to work and some enjoy working, but I think that if we put the same value on the choice of mothering as a career as we do on say being a lawyer or a doctor, that women would be better off.

2) The MYTH that education must come from an INSTITUTION. OK, would you expect anything less from an unschooler? I think this view is harmful to both men and women.

3) And the third issue, not sure how to word it exactly, but it would come out something like this, "women need to quit being so critical and judgemental of other women". I think we are our own harshest critics. I suppose this is similar to the 3rd answer Sophia gave to her troop, we can't be superwomen and we need to quit beating ourselves up over it, but I somehow want to take it a step further. I think we need to encourage other women, lend a helping hand, be willing to ask for help without feeling embarrassed.

BTW, Sophia was only 1 of 2 girls out of her troop of 11 girls that even bothered to ask anyone the question.

So, if you feel up to leaving a comment we would love to hear what you think are the 3 most important issues facing women today?