The girl effect is real


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Haven’t heard about the girl effect yet? That’s cool. Watch this first then:

I feel immense gratitude for my life.

 

I live in British Columbia on Vancouver Island.

I chose the man that I share my life with. This choice is vital for a woman.

Our relationship meets my need for respect, consideration and love.

We support one another and our dreams.

We have a dog.

I have a university education. I’ve traveled the world. I don’t have any children.

I got to make all of these choices. My life is beautiful and extremely precious to me.

My roots and the women before me –

 

At least three generations of women in my family were born and raised in a small developing South American country called Guyana. I don’t know a lot about my family history, but here’s some of what I do know:

My great grandmother worked in sugar fields. She did not know how to read or write. She never went to school. She married young to survive, had three daughters.  Having daughters or being a daughter wasn’t a good thing.

My grandmother’s marriage was arranged. She was 15. She had five children. My grandfather was an alcoholic and left my grandmother when all the children were very young. He never paid child support, so my grandmother had to find ways to survive and care for these children. My mother grew up in this family feeling desperate, unsafe and hungry (for food and love). Probably how my grandmother also felt.

My mother was the second child and the eldest daughter in the family. She went to school until she was 12 years old (considered to be a woman now), then started to care for her siblings full-time. Her mother arranged for several marriages, but my mother refused each time. This started when she was 15. My mother’s refusal was short-lived though as her mother threatened family abandonment if she did not comply. She married my father from a wealthy family and immigrated to Canada with him in the 70s. My mother and father had two children together. Then my father left my mother when I was four. He never paid child support.

I was born in Toronto near access to health care, education, safe places.

The girl effect is real.

make. believe. for real.
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