26
girl power + WOLFIE SUBMISSIONS +
Girl power is the strong, unbreakable resilience that comes from being woman. Society has often deemed girls to be weaker or more subdued and told girls to be seen and not heard but no longer. CURATED BY ERIN MCDOWELL / ILLUSTRATION BY LAURA FILAS / PHOTO BY MORGAN DEZURN / BALTIMORE, MD (LEFT PHOTO) i want to be whole by myself. i want to wear my yellow tee with the words “girl power” etched into the cotton. i want to see the looks on their faces when i acknowledge that women are more powerful than they will ever know. i do not want someone to have to come and fill up all of the little holes and crevices in me ( just cause i think there’s too many). i want someone to watch me pour some soil into the empty parts of myself. and then i can plant a garden full of roses and water them. so i’ll finally be able to say i made it, and i’m proud of myself. and to have no regret saying that has the roses blooming in me uncontrollably. and that’s okay. i like it like that. i like uncertainty. i crave living every day as it comes. and oh God do i crave roses. – JADEN YANOVITZ / BALTIMORE, MD A lot of things happened my senior year of high school, but by far one of the most important was my decision on where to go to college. The decision had been plaguing me for months, it was a constant stressor. After a panic attack that had been brewing for much too long, I sought advice from one of my favorite teachers. He asked me what I wanted to do and I told him I was looking at Interior Design because it was practical, but I really wanted to be a writer. He immediately made it clear that being a writer was not an impractical dream and that if I wanted to do it I needed to chase it. Now, months later, I find myself sitting in my dorm room, 1,855 miles from home, studying writing. Girls, don’t be afraid to follow your passions. Don’t consider your dreams impractical. Don’t let anyone discourage you because you’re a writer, or an artist, or a musician. And most importantly
don’t let them discourage you because you’re female. I spent a lot of my growing up years thinking I couldn’t do what I wanted because I was a girl and my dream wasn’t realistic. The world needs artists. It needs poets. It needs pianists. It needs females who are willing and able to take their talents and show them off. No dream is impractical. You want to be a businesswoman? Go for it. An engineer? Crush it. A doctor? You can do it. There is nothing more admirable than a person who follows their passions, and I for one look up to any woman who takes their dreams and makes them realities. Don’t let the ways of the world dictate your future. Your life is your own, now go make it happen. – ABBEY LAIRD / IOWA CITY, IA How do I express my inner girl power? I motivate myself and remember about all of those women out there who are suffering and feel less about themselves because they want to become the perfect girl image. But there is no perfect girl image. Just who you are is good enough. Don’t change because of what society thinks is beautiful. I always remind myself when someone says something against women. And they say for example, “Women need to be working at home and not going to have real jobs. A woman’s job is at home with kids.” I walk up to them and tell them that what they are saying is untrue. Women are more than just maids. We have a role in this world. We aren’t just things we are human beings who have emotions and we have our own opinions. Without women in this world there would be no one. I don’t let society win. And neither should you. I believe that everyone is beautiful just the way they are and if you want to change then okay go ahead but do it for yourself and not for anyone else. Women are very strong and I hope we keep on being strong and soon enough we will not be looked down at. We shall rise and show everyone that we do matter. “She needed a hero so that’s what she became.” Be your own hero. Stay strong everyone. – ANDREA A. PEREZ / CHICAGO, IL
local wolves — 27
as one large force of powerful, determined women who speak up for what they believe in and demand to be heard. the universe is ours when we combine our individual strengths to create a greater whole a collective whole of resilient females who don’t let anyone take away their power who fight every day to create change in our world and who most importantly bring each other up and rise together bring each other up and rise together in a world where that’s exactly what they don’t want. this unbreakable force, dear reader, is called girl power. – EMMA IRWIN / MINNEAPOLIS, MN
– ROCÍO FUHR / BUENOS AIRES, AR for so long they have told us to be quiet, polite, and sweet so that we don’t scare the men away and that it is not our place to stand up and be heard. for so long we have been told what to do and how to do it what to think and how to think it as if we do not have opinions of our own. for so long we have been told to look pretty and play with the flowers and that only girls cry and only girls are weak. but the world is changing we are changing and we are uniting the power within ourselves
28
Like a rose, a woman has a power to be beautiful and fierce. She has a power to bloom to her full potential. She has her thorns as a sign of her flaws. Flaws that has a power to create her independence and have her self protected. She has her petals, showing not her soft side, but her passion to bloom and grow. Everyday we can achieve girl power in simple ways. Walking to our everyday errand, to work or school and pursuing our dreams shows the world that we can. I achieve girl power by having the confidence and passion to pursue my life aspirations. – PAULINE BIROSEL / MANILA, PH (PHOTO ABOVE)
– MORGAN DEZURN / BALTIMORE, MD
Giggles on late night ice cream runs. A hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on while weathering another panic attack. Swapping lipgloss, borrowed clothes. The glance of understanding in the classroom, on the sidewalk. Girl power will never signify weakness to me. Girls continuously teach me to be soft and kind. They teach me to be loud and powerful. I trust girls to be patient, caring, and wise in a way I have never trusted a man. We hold an inherent beauty and strength within us, we are resilient. We make the world spin. – SHELBY BAUMGARTNER / WASHINGTON D.C. As I flipped through the pages of my history textbook, I acquainted myself with the image of a woman in the 19th century. Girls were merely objects meant to be admired and sometimes ridiculed, and so they were told to be submissive, to wear corsets to attain the figure which would make them beautiful. In the society I am a part of today, not much has changed. Ever so often I am told that my friend’s dress is too short, and somehow her bare knees are too provocative to be
seen after 9pm. I shouldn’t go out for lunch with two girls and one boy, because what would people think about the three teenage girls who shamelessly went out with the same guy. She shouldn’t wear the skirt because her thighs touch, and clothes like that don’t suit figures like hers. Sadly, these days it’s not only boys who pass these judgements, but girls too. We slutshame and fat-shame each other, and are constantly tearing others down to bring ourselves up, which is why girl power is so important today. We are all girls - strong, independent, revolutionary, graceful. We are all thriving together on this planet, and to be able to grow and blossom like the flowers we are, we need girl power. I figured this out when I was ten and heard women shaming a twenty year old rape victim for being out with a boy at night. Since that day, girl power has flown through my blood, from my heart to every other cell and back. I have fought, screamed, put my thoughts to paper, because a patriarchal society and regressive people aren’t enough to silence my mind. We possess the power to move mountains, why let stones stop us? – SUMONA SARIN / DEHI, INDIA
local wolves — 29
30
– ERIN YASMEEN DORAN / WASHINGTON, D.C.
I am a wild woman, a nasty woman, a “don’t fuck with me” type of woman I am robbed of my voice everyday I choose to breathe the same air as everybody else I am robbed of my morals whenever I step into the bustling streets of New York being a woman, a soft woman, a vulnerable woman, will never do me any good Kindness I have learned gets you nowhere, gets you cat called, gets you with your keys between your fists disguise your kindness, as armor do not bend your mouth upward into a smile to appease every man walking behind you, or next to you, or on top of you do not stay silent when these men try to call for your attention, or stare to hard through your clothes, attempting to find out what’s beneath them, How easy he can become a Ferrell dog, how easy he can reek of sin and eagerness, How he can shape shift himself into a wolf, the kind that wants to scrape your soul from your vessel just because he can, know that this is the first way he comes to terms with that fact that he is privileged So yell back a “fuck you asshole” and continue on your way I am a nasty, dominant, electic, and intelligent woman understand that my voice is my weapon, and not just sexy understand that this body is my fucking armor, and not just something to be fucked
understand that these hands are bullets, and were not made to be pinned to my sides, or for your hands to hold possessively If you do not fear a woman like me, I do not take it personally, you do not learn to fear something until it attacks you, until it uproots your soul from your body without asking first, until it holds your wrists in its hands and squeezes, understand that I am made up of all of these things, realize that God has prepared men for war they did not know they were fighting until they got to her battlefield understand that God has made wars rage in my body, has made me bleed for the last ten years because I chose not to have someone throw away my body God has removed all my organs and replaced them with carnage, my back garnered in shrapnel, so I can take just about anything you fucking throw at me God has prepared me for men like you, I am all nasty and all woman, Be afraid, be very afraid – NAIMAH SMITH / NEW YORK, NY
“If you could choose any one superpower, which would it be?” This was a writing prompt that was assigned very frequently throughout my K-12th grade school years. I always chose invisibility. I would fantasize of evaporating into the cheap walls of those classroom portables. Having the ability to be present in a conversation without anyone being aware was my dream. I would become a walking encyclopedia, a sponge for information, but a sponge to be left under the sink. At the time I didn’t realize my subconcious was trying to make sense of this invisibility that was already happening in my life, and to the lives of other girls around me. I was accepting societal expectations without a challenge, never giving myself a chance for a seat at the table. A boy who spoke above the room was considered assertive, intelligent, a natural leader. An “outspoken” girl was always deemed annoying, bossy, too loud, in need of an “attitude adjustment”. I want to go back in time, and tell the naive, terrified version of myself that the best superpower is the opposite of invisibility. It’s becoming the sun. Controlling light. The UV spectrum queen. I would tell her to take up all the space in the room. The world is yours. Boys don’t own the silent holes in the classroom. Anyone is free to fill that emptiness, and it should be filled with knowledge, empowering words, fresh ideas. There’s a whole universe of light inside of you waiting to escape, and being a girl is never a reason to trap it inside. – NICOLETTE NOELLE ARVIZU / WHITTIER, CA
– AVERY LUCAS / HOUSTON, TX (PHOTO ABOVE) Girl power changes the world, one girl at a time. I spent the past year recovering from depression and en eating disorder. I am getting better and I’m really happy to be able to say this. Girl power is what made me bloom. Back then, I felt really alienated and hopeless. It was tough, I’m not gonna lie. I’m not saying everything’s perfect, but what has changed is that now I’m a part of an amazing community that glows with girl power. I have gotten to know a lot of amazing girls, girls that support other girls instead of tearing them down. I cannot express how thankful I am for having them. So, to anyone who is struggling right now: reach out to other girls. Be vulnerable, show them your true self. They will shower you with support. And you will bloom. And then you’ll help other girls bloom too. Because this is what girl power is: an amazing never-ending connection between girls, a connection which helps all of them grow and feel worthy and loved. It literally changes the world. It starts with you - by giving you your voice back and making you feel empowered. The cycle continues when you, feeling empowered, begin to support other girls. – WERONIKA ZIMNA / POZNAŃ, POLAND – KAYLA MENDEZ / WEST PALM BEACH, FL
local wolves — 31
– EMILY LYONS-WOOD / CHARLOTTE, NC
– AMELIA CHARLEEN / PRESTON, IA
32
– KIANA ABAD / LOS ANGELES, CA
– AIRA E. DE LEON / MANILA, PH
– JENICA LLANES / CAVITE, PH
I fucking love being a woman. I’m a part of it all. Girl power? Hell yeah. Riot grrl? Well, if only I lived during the 90s. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a revolution, and it’s going to be until we get what we want. But I’m not just a woman. I’m a person who has different chromosomal makeup and genitalia than half the population, just like every other woman like me. Huge difference, right? That was sarcasm, the answers actually no, it doesn’t really make that much of a difference. Not when it comes to what I want, my dreams, my ambitions, my rights. Except, people don’t know that yet. That’s why we girls have the term girl power. We need it. We can all use our girl power to be assertive and strong and brave and definitely dangerous, the kind that’ll make people look- because that’s what it takes to make a difference. We can use our girl power to make it acceptable for anybody to be feminine and/or masculine regardless of gender, because we can. With girl power, we’re not just fighting for women’s rights, but gender equality, and that’s why everyone needs it. Sure, unlike men, we have to fight for our rights, but it’s not anything we can’t do. Why? Because we all have girl power and trust me, that’s all we need. All of us, we’ll keep using our girl power to break boundaries and create a world where all women and men can be as powerful as they can and want to be. – ANUSHKA DAKSHIT / TAMPA, FL
Expressing girl power has always come natural to me. I was born with the privilege of a loud voice so, I have gained the techniques to help girls who aren’t aware of theirs. Girls my age often are told that they are supposed to sit, be quiet and accept the man’s voice. I quickly told myself that I was not going to be silent. I use photography and written word to try and show that we are more than the image in your mind, but the voice in your head. I hope that as I grow with my art and my words get longer I can teach myself and other girls my age what society is not telling them. Us girls need to engrave in our powerful minds that the best way to show our strength, is that we must support each other and not tear each other down. We are too powerful to tear ourselves down, hurting is not a way to move forward. Hurting is a step backwards which is what society wants, they want us to be pinned against each other. Using photography can show us women helping each other up and loving one another, over being envious. I hope my words can inspire more young women to enter the process of picking each other up, jealousy is human nature but hatred is not. Hatred is taught. Nobody can take your power away from you, no matter how hard they try to silence your voice. – HALEY FECHER / CINCINATTI, IA
– MIA GILLING / ARIZONA, USA
local wolves — 33