This memorable night began it's luminous tone and intention early in the day...
.....All ages and stages of our great family strolled on the vast network of the paths spread throughout our beloved Central Park. An easy flow of delighted visitors reminded many of five years earlier when the park hosted the Saffron Artist. Our well-trained youth ambassadors, escorted by their Canine Walking Companions, stopped to answer visitor questions about the Fair in the City, about Palladio International Academies, about the Ambassador program at Palladio.
.....Research activities at our Fair in the City allowed members of the general public to release a balloon into the air over Central Park if they enjoyed their engagement at the colorful booths and banners affirming our mission and purposes. Our mission inherently networks all ages and career stages... Jeffersonian style ... on organically expanding campuses around the perimeter of Central Park.
Later this night, atop the golden sheen of two hundred year old oak floors, Nelson Riddle voiced a term none of us have heard since we were in high school reading the classics. Across the ballroom, the sudden appearance of a scantily clad high school female attracted a swarm of giggling U.S. students. Scanning the room, Dr. Riddle noticed that our international students continued in conversation and dance with their dates. Observing this dramatic discrepancy, Dr. Riddle marked the magical moment of truth, "Seems we have failed our Little Women in this relatively young country - with our focus on physical prowess, over character, over intelligence, over unity."
Stunned, we stood still -ten of us! What he had just said, rang true -and we needed to know more, that very night. Nelson led us through the text he had just reviewed as a member of his cultural research team. A spell-binding narrator as well as clinician and researcher, Dr. Riddle described the landmark scene between an enlightened mother and her four daughters. Marmee cautioned and redirected their temptation to sink into vanity with its emphasis on popularized physical beauty ...rather than rely for self-esteem on their intelligence and character practices.
"Like Marmee's Little Women, our nation's little women have much to learn about deriving their inherent value from outside themselves...from secularized and popularized standards almost unattainable without making themselves sick in mind, in heat, and for the very unfortunate segment -sick in body as well! The wise mother expresses her fear for their future..." if you feel your value lies in being purely decorative."
She further clarifies the problem need correcting: "I wont have my girls being silly over boys..."
Dr. Riddle shared research from hundreds of interviews contrasting U. S female child-rearing practices and cultural expectations with those young women from other continents:
"We need parents, teachers, the neighborhood and the marketplace to strategically determine organic ways of cultivating the natural beauty inherent in each child.
"Everyone must be on board to unveil her inherent beauty ...that mirrored in her demeanor, the way she thinks about herself, and affirm deep value in each female child -as a thinker, feeler, creator, healer, prime contributor to the health of our global society.
"We must research and revisit, generate if need be, programs that help her reflect her inner beauty in her speech, tone, word choice, choice of clothing and adornments, what she allows herself to consume, engage, participate in, accrue, think and express.
"On the whole, our international Little Women are clearly more advanced in self-respect, self-regard, and authentic self-confidence...and they have much to teach and model for our Little Women across this nation.
"So far we've conducted five hundred forty-three clinical interviews. A key element missing from interviews with females from the other continents is an early and pervasive focus on comparing physical self to other females in the media and personal encounters. Their developmental stories reveal a preponderance of the "decorative archetype."
"Girls from the US have for decades now felt social pressure to focus on their physical appearance over cognitive characteristics and character (including emotional development). These results bring to mind a series of compelling linesincorporated by author Louisa May Alcott challenging the "property value" of women during this period of time:
- "I should have been a great many things..." Jo to a table of colleagues in Manhattan, surprised at her capacity to think and articulate
- "Please yourself, my opinion is of no importance... there is more to you than this...if you have the courage to write it..." Philosopher and Professor Frederick to Jo, encouraging professional activation of her sense of self above and beyond popular expectations of her as a female property of her father, or husband.
For the rest of this New Year evening into early morning, the ten of us crafted our primary draft that became 12PowerLittleWomen-for high school age females. Our position paper is based upon research results that Dr. Riddle shared from his consortium's data collection so far, and his clinical interviews as resident school psychologist at Palladio's Dairy.
In conclusion, we want our Little Women not to beg: "...give me the streets of Manhattan...", but to rebuild these streets, sidewalks, bridges, thinking, and creating of Manhattan and beyond. Live and learn and generate in such ways that all little women are free to walk confidently, respectfully, co-creatively, and responsibly together with their brothers, fathers, husbands, partners, co-workers, mothers, sisters, and children -living their dreams in the home, neighborhood, marketplace, global society.
