Today’s Woman A SpECIAl SECTIon oF THE rIVErToWnS EnTErprISE
MArCH 28, 2014
SALLY BAKER
Empowering tomorrow’s women By JACKIE LUPO
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any challenges face teenage girls today, but for Sally Baker, founder and executive director of Girls Inc. Westchester, it all boils down to empowering girls to be “strong, smart and bold.” Girls Inc. Westchester, the local affiliate of the national Girls Inc. organization, has been running programs for girls ages 9-18 in the county since 2006, mostly in economically depressed communities. Their goal: to give girls the confidence and self-awareness to reach their potential, even amid conflicting messages from the media and society. The organization aims its efforts toward girls in middle and high school. “In my experience, it’s pretty hard to find an 8-year-old girl who is not strong, smart and bold,” Baker said. “Eight-year-old girls are usually strong and self-assured. Then you see that same girl at 13 or 14 and somehow she’s lost that fearlessness, that sense of self, that confidence. She starts questioning that she’s not pretty enough, sexy enough, that she doesn’t look like the models and the music videos. She starts looking at herself from a deficit perspective. We’re an asset-focused organization. We focus on girls’ strengths.” Baker, who lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, said research and her own organization’s expe-
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Sally Baker of Hastings-on-Hudson of Girls Inc. Westchester helps give girls confidence and self-awareness.
rience show that girls lose their way in middle school, where it’s all about peer pressure and conforming, having to look a certain way. “To girls who were strong, smart and bold before, that really knocks them for a loop,” she said. She added that focusing on what they’re not, and what they can’t do often leads to all kinds of problems such as eating disorders, cutting, wanting plastic surgery. “It’s just feeling like there’s something wrong with them and what they are, as opposed to having critical think-
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ing skills, asking, ‘Who’s making the messages, and why?’” she said. Girls Inc. runs media literacy programs targeted to specific age groups so girls can start thinking about the messages they are receiving from the media. “All of our programs start with the girl herself and validating what she is feeling, and giving her the skills and tools and information she otherwise wouldn’t have,” Baker said. Other programs focus on pregnancy prevention, violence prevention, leadership and
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fter a long winter, we are more than ready for spring. As we tuck away winter favorites — for a while, anyway — a new character of fashion is ready to emerge. And with it, there comes a bright new mood! Here is everything you need to know to take the season’s role and dress your part. Cute as a belly button It’s time to hit the gym and tone up those abs. Spring fashions are showing more than just a wink of bare midriff. Crop tops are being featured in many collections from this year’s runways. The abbreviated style is surprisingly versatile, spanning the spectrum from casual sportswear to chic separates to luxurious crop tops paired with for-
mal skirts. Boxy silhouettes and textural fabrics, such as linen, add formal structure and keep sloppiness at bay. This style is both confidently carefree and subtly sexy. Belly button rings are optional. Sheer drama Fabric is dematerializing. In the past, textiles were evaluated for their substance; they were praised for what they were… now, they are being celebrated for wh at they are not. Gauzy, diaphanous, barely there sheers are not heavy, not opaque and not overly modest. This season’s fashions are distinguished by panels of sheer fabric that Continued on page 8A Think of fashion as an expression of art: Art is more than something to hang on a wall. At Pamela Robbins in Scarsdale.
JIM MACLEAN PHOTO
financial literacy. Their financial literacy conference’s theme, “A man is not a financial plan,” was designed to get girls to realize they have the ability to determine their financial future and have economic stability in their lives. Baker, 52, grew up in Armonk, but when she was a teenager her family relocated to Wellesley, Mass., where she attended an allgirls private school, Dana Hall. Continued on page 15A