I have to admit, I was far less supervised than my children. Times were different. There weren’t so many child protection laws. I had three older siblings who were all attending private colleges at the same time. My parents weren’t wealthy and both had to work in order to pay the bills for three tuitions. In fact, my earliest memory of my oldest brother is the day he left for college. For the most part, I was left to myself, to do what I wanted.

My seventh birthday was my first recollection of not accepting “no”. My parents had a simple rule; I could do what I wanted as long as it didn’t cost anything. Throughout kindergarten and first grade, it seemed all my friends were having birthday parties and I wanted one too. I knew if I asked my parents would say “no”. Not to be deterred, one day I took some drawing paper and made party invitations for my classmates. I invited every girl in my class of 120 students. I handed them out at school the next day. Then I told my parents I was having a birthday party at our house and I handed them the list of things – birthday cake, party decorations, prizes – that I needed. I don’t recall them saying anything, they just did as I asked and it was a great birthday party. Of course, my parents not saying anything just encouraged me. Finally, I saw how to get what I wanted!

I went to a private school for K-8 and my parents decided that I would attend the public high school. I remember having an introductory meeting with the guidance counselor. The counselor was to advise me on what subjects to take and the academic levels for each subject. In my high school, there were 5 levels, the fifth was by invitation only and was reserved for those students thought to be promising enough to attend the top private colleges. I remember telling the counselor I wanted to be in the 5th level and the counselor saying, “No, you didn’t go to the right elementary school. You should try the 4th level”. I stood my ground. I insisted on the 5th level. I graduated 9th in a class of 700+ students and I did attend one of the top universities.

My older brothers helped me get admitted to those top universities. They came home from college during breaks and told me that straight A’s wouldn’t be enough. I had to do more. So I found the city-wide science competition. I still remember researching and devising the experiments, using the yellow pages to call around and find all the necessary supplies, and enlisting my mother’s help to drive around and get them. My science teachers had to sponsor me for the competitions. Every year they just glared at me and rolled their eyes as they signed the paperwork, but I always brought back the awards.

When I applied to colleges, I applied to engineering schools. I loved computers. They fascinated me. Personal computers were just starting to make headway into the everyday lives of the average person. It was exciting times. It turned out to be a technology that would change the way people lived. Computer Science was a new field and many colleges stuck the fledgling subject under the electrical engineering or mathematics departments. I remember an alumnus of an Ivy League school coming to my high school to speak with me. I was called to the guidance counselor’s office, the alumnus said they received my application and wanted me to change my intended major. I was bluntly told that they don’t accept girls into engineering. The alumnus suggested I try the pre-med or pre-vet programs instead. I didn’t attend that college, but did pursue engineering and computer science through both undergraduate and graduate school.

These types of incidents have continued throughout my life, and they still happen today. It doesn’t stop. What have I learned both from my reflections and from observing my daughters?

The ability to stand against the tide of no’s starts early. These won’t be the easiest kids to deal with as parents or teachers. As children, the ones that will change the “You can’t” into “Yes, I can and I will” will drive everyone around them nuts. They are uncontrollable. They are independent. They don’t give in – ever. These traits don’t just suddenly appear in adulthood.

There will always be naysayers. Until you are successful, the naysayers will vastly outnumber those that encourage you. To succeed, one must fail first and likely many times. Those naysayers will be quick to point out, “I told you so”. Once you succeed, no one remembers all those failed attempts. Once you succeed, those naysayers are quick to point out again, “I knew you could do it.”

If you can, disassociate with the naysayers. When you are constantly bombarded by people saying you can’t, your mind begins to focus on failure instead of success. Instead of planning how to achieve your dreams, you start to concentrate on contingency and risk management plans, imagining all possible failure points and what-if scenarios.

Just ignore the people who tell say, “You can’t do that”. As long as you are not trying to break the laws of science, you can.

Cynthia Kocialski is the founder of three tech start-ups companies. In the past 15 years, she has been involved in dozens of start-ups. Cynthia writes the Start-up Entrepreneurs’ Blog www.cynthiakocialski.com.

Cynthia has written the book, “Out of the Classroom Lessons in Success: How to Prosper Without Being at the Top of the Class.” The book serves up tips, insight, and wisdom to enable young adults and parents of kids to know what it will take to forge a successful career, no matter what their academic achievement.

June

Strongly interested in the womens movement, June founded the Institue for the Musical Arts - a teaching, performing and recording facility for women and girls.  The IMA teaches everything a musician needs to know from playing instruments to managing the business side.

Their music is genuine and catchy.  I would describe them as a cross between Heart, Bonnie Raitt and Tracy Chapman with a little India Arie thrown in for fun. It’s very rock/blues/folk oriented with a few twists.

Their latest CD features a track called “Play Like A Girl.” I usually run the music at my girls’ sports events and I am soooo going to play this one.  Check out this new tune in the video below. These ladies rock! This should be on every girl’s playlist…

What did you think?

You can find out more about June and Jean from their web site.

Girls Can’t WHAT? salutes their efforts and we’re excited to be a part of that growth!

Say what? What did we do?

Each month Girls Can’t WHAT? invests 20% of our earnings into micro-loans through KIVA.org to help other women reach their dreams. The loans are used to purchase needed supplies to enhance their businesses and generate a larger profit. The women we help are using their extra earnings to improve family life and help their children to receive better education. Check out our portfolio to see who we’ve been able to empower.

This month we were able to help …

Caroline, Kenya

Caroline is aged 27 and has been in farming for seven years in her home area of Nkubu, Central Kenya.She is married with one child aged five and produces maize, potatoes, beans and wheat for her local market.

Caroline has requested a loan of 40,000 KES from Juhudi Kilimo to buy a water tank for irrigation purposes as well as to supply water for her dairy farm. She says their production for produce like beans is frequently hampered by inconsistent rainfalls and the irrigation system would help in alleviating the problem. She says the income will help her educate her child in future and improve the living standards of her entire family.

Caroline sees high costs of inputs like pesticides as the main challenges.

Barno, Tajikistan

Barno is married and is a loving mother of four children. She is a smart and hardworking woman. She has been involved in fattening up livestock and growing agricultural crops for over 16 years.

Barno primarily grows wheat, onions and corn. She wants to expand her business in order to make a desired profit. Barno wants to obtain this loan for the purchase of cattle and onion seeds.

Georgette, Philippines

Georgette is married with 6 children. She is a very hard-working entrepreneur. Georgette is 52 years old and has 5 children who are in school.
Georgette has a room rental business in the Philippines. Georgette requested a PHP 28,000 loan amount through NWTF to buy materials for the upkeep of the rental rooms.

Georgette has been in this business for 5 years. In the future, Georgette would like to build and expand her business to support the financial stability of her family.

Want to make a difference in the world?

Find out more about how microlending works and join the Girls Can’t WHAT? lending team to get started. It’s easy!

But in many places around the world, girls are still unable to make choices for themselves or do what they want to do. The following video tells the story of a Yemenese girl who walked into a courthouse by herself at the age of 10 and asked for a divorce.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is a good reminder of why Girls Can’t WHAT? exists and a somewhat frightening example of why we still have so far to go in achieving equality and respect for our gender.

For more information on this topic, visit the National Geographic Live! channel on YouTube and see their series titled “Too Young to Wed”.

Special thanks to Cynthia Gorney for her work in raising awareness of these issues.

This site is very popular and I get a lot of emails from young girls asking for advice.  A pretty decent amount of these are more or less complaints about not getting to play in a sport or being discriminated against based on their gender.  Most women have encountered this in their lives at some point, correct?

So what are our options? In my mind, we have 3 choices: complain, educate or just do nothing. I’m certain we can all agree that doing nothing isn’t a solution. So that leaves us with…

Complaining

Where does that get us? Actually, complaining can work in many cases. Remember the 14 year old girl that was upset there were no female hockey characters depicted in her video game?  Well she complained and look where it got her. Complaining does work. It requires finesse and just plain being nice about your complaint, but it does work sometimes.

But what about when it doesn’t?

Education

I have said many times before that education is the key to changing gender bias. So how do we educate? Too many times when we think “educate” we associate that with school. I’m not talking about creating social programs or adding to the curriculum. I’m talking about lifelong one-to-one teaching each other to see gender as something that makes us different but does not divide us. And it certainly doen’t mean that female = weak.

So here are my thoughts. When people are learning something new, they often look for examples. Most folks are visual and like videos or images. When they can picture what we are trying to teach them, they education is more likely to stick.

So what can we do?

I’d like to see Girls Can’t WHAT? be an educational tool for women everywhere. Let them come and search for topics and learn from the experiences of others as well as see proof that women are playing professional football, becoming firefighters, riding motorcycles and skydiving.

The Share Your Story section has become wildly popular on here.  I get tons of submissions every week and I generally have to sift through to pick out the best ones because there are so many. I love these stories and I’d like to see them continue, but with a little added twist. How about some more videos or photos of women doing extraordinary things…things women aren’t likely to be seen doing. Let’s create an archive of “teaching materials” that can be shared with family, friends, teachers, camp counselors, etc.

This is where you come in…

Do you know of a great video, interview, web site or any other truly inspiring resource that can feature on the Girls Can’t WHAT? site? Please send it my way or add it to the share your story section so I can post it. I know there’s way more information out there than I will ever have time to research. Can you help me?

Another way you can help is by sharing the Girls Can’t WHAT? site with other women you know that would benefit from a little encouragement or who might have a great story or video to share with us. The search function on Girls Can’t WHAT? is really super. Here are a few sample searches you can use to find information to share: Football, Wrestler, Firefighter, Drummer, Military

Want to be interviewed? Email me. I’m open to any and all ideas. Let’s hear from you…what else would you like to see on here?  Leave your ideas in the comments below.

You can read more about Meghan in her story on the Washington Post.

Well it’s not. And this feat is definitely something guys can’t do.

On Sunday, Amber Miller completed the Chicago marathon.  She was 39 weeks pregnant and just 8 days shy of her due date. Yes, she was fully aware that she was pregnant and her doctor released her take on the challenge. This is not some crazy “I didn’t know I was pregnant” story.  This is a legitimate achievement and a true model of what women can do while pregnant.

Oh and this was not the first time she has run a marathon while pregnant.  It’s her third time running the big event with extra cargo. It is, however, the first time she has given birth on the same day as running one.

Her usual non-pregnancy time for a marathon is around 3.5 hours. At full-term, her time came in at around the 6.5 hour mark with the extra weight and random contractions slowing her down a bit and forcing her to alternate between walking and running.

Arriving at the hospital just hours after completing the marathon, Amber gave birth to a healthy baby girl named June who weighed in at 7 pounds 13 ounces.

Amber says she thinks the marathon run triggered her labor. Gee, ya think?

Sisters Brittany and Brienna Delgado began their wrestling training a little early this year when they chased down a suspected hit-and-run driver Saturday and used wrestling moves to hold him until police arrived.

“We do several moves where you stop your opponents,” said Brittany Delgado. “My sister and I are very proficient wrestlers and also played football in high school, so we know about tackling.”

Brittany Delgado, 21, is going to be a senior and starter for the women’s wrestling team at Oklahoma City University. Brienna Delgado, 19, is an incoming freshman and will also start for the team.

Read the full story…

I bet the suspect doesn’t believe that girls can’t. Way to go ladies!

Click here to view the embedded video.

For three days, I laid in intensive care while doctors discussed the options with my parents, who despite broken ribs and other various injuries, had continued to travel with me from one medical facility to the next. The doctors taking on my case had seen similar injuries before. They worked closely with the race car drivers at the Indy 500 track and handled a lot of “high impact” injuries before. However, in most of the cases, the injured persons were left paralyzed from the waist down. Things weren’t looking so good for me.

Although most of the events from that time (20+ years ago) are fuzzy, there is one thing I remember fairly clearly. No one ever told me that the odds were impossible. I was simply told they were improbable. I remember thinking that impossible and improbable are two different things. I figured I at least had a chance, even if it was a slim one.

On the fourth day, I was taken in for surgery and the doctors fused together what they could from the bone fragments scattered around my spinal chord. They grafted some bone from my hip and then screwed in two metal plates from the vertebra above and below the fractured one, leaving me with a scar on my right hip and an 11″ incision down my back. That was the best they could do.  Whether I could walk or not was still unknown.

A few days later, I was scheduled to start physical therapy. Doctors were baffled by my responsiveness to their tests. I had no feeling in my legs from the thigh to the knee, but everything below my knee was normal. It was the weirdest feeling, but I figured it would eventually go away. I was able to wiggle my toes and move my legs so there was hope I could eventually walk again, but it could take months.

The first task at physical therapy was to just sit up. That was the easy part. Next was standing and then eventually I had to try to take a few steps. My first session was probably only an hour long, maybe even less. I had been bed-ridden for well over a week by this point and I was in pretty weak condition, but I took that first step. I adjusted my grip on the handrail and took another. And another. After what seemed like an eternity to me, I reached the end of the rail and slowly turned around to make my way back. It seemed to take forever, but I made it.

Each step became easier and easier until within a week I was walking slowly, but somewhat normally. My full recovery took several months and to this day I still don’t have all the feeling back in my legs. I have back pain from time to time and my right foot turns to the outside. I can’t cross my legs for more than a minute without hip pain, but I can walk, run, jump, swim, play drums and do just about everything the doctors told me I “probably” wouldn’t be able to do – or at least do “normally”.

My journey was not impossible, it was simply improbable. There is a fine line between the two, but I’ve come to think that most things are simply improbable. Next time you see something that seems impossible, take a closer look and determine if it’s really impossible or improbable.

Improbable just means you have to work a little bit harder to get there.