- On this edition of IQ: Smartparent, don't let stereotypes in the media undermine your daughters.

Today we'll tell you where to find positive media that promotes self-esteem, celebrates diversity and empowers girls to create their own uplifting media messages.

Explore the difference media makes, good and bad, and find out how you and the girls you love can leverage media instead of just consuming it.

That's coming up on IQ: Smartparent, and it starts right now.

(soft music) Welcome to IQ: Smartparent.

I'm your host, Darieth Chisolm.

From television shows, to advertising, to video games, females in the media are far too often portrayed in weaker roles.

They're the victims waiting for a man to come to their rescue.

Or the focus is on beauty over brains.

But we know those stereotypes don't represent real girls.

So today we're asking two very important questions.

First, how can we spot the media stereotypes that stifle girls growth and development.

And second, how can we replace the negative media with more positive messages and role models?

Our first guests to help us make sense of all of this is Nancy Gruver, the Founder of new moon girls.

Nancy, thanks so much for being here with us.

- I'm delighted to be here.

This is a great topic for parents.

- It's a wonderful topic for parents and for girls.

And let's start by looking at the advocacy group that you work with and how you work with helping girls manage some of these negative images in the media.

- Right.

The group is called brave girls Alliance, and it is really a coalition of people who are concerned about girls' development, particularly concerned about media images that girls see and the messages they get from them, which are all about the stereotypes that you talked about.

- And what are some of the most common stereotypes?

- Well, the things that happen in media that girls see, whether it's featuring girls or featuring women, are lots of sexualization of females, treating them as people who really don't have any purpose for being there other than to look good, and things like, female scientists are totally missing, women who have ambition and who are actually honored for their ambition and respected are totally missing.

- So it's not so much about just the stereotypes that we see that are negative, it's the lack of the stronger role models that young girls don't have the opportunity to see.

- It's the combination.

Because not only are they getting undermined by what they're being told to become or be, which is in a very narrow, narrow range of behavior and aspirations, but they don't see, and it's very important for kids to see the things.

They have great imaginations, but it's very important for them to actually see women who they could imagine themselves being, doing all kinds of things.

- So, where does this change start?

Is this the top down in terms of filmmakers, producers, people in television film, online media and changing what's there, both good and bad, or- - Definitely.

- is it more grassroots like with your magazine or your advocacy?

- Has to be both.

It has to be both also.

What happened when we started New Moon Girls magazine was, it was me, and my daughters, and my husband, and a bunch of other girls who knew nothing about making media, knew nothing about the business side of publishing, but knew that there was something missing.

Now, when you have people who are professionals like you are, and everybody here is in making media, they bring something that's also very important.

So the change has to happen both places, and the change has to happen also in girls themselves becoming and thinking of themselves as media makers.

- And that is a nice way (both laughing) to transition into your magazine.

This beautiful magazine is published by girls, a lot of girls work on the magazine,- - Yes.

- you're helping young girls to be able to contribute to this issue in a way that empowers them.

- Yeah, when I got the idea, which I think was some sort of like universe giving me a gift really, I have twin daughters who at that time were 11 years old, I was very concerned about their coming adolescence and thinking back to what had been a very tough journey for me at that time between the all the conflicting expectations from society and what I wanted.

They didn't meet up very well and I wanted to try and help my daughters and this idea of media made by girls where girls' voices would be the primary thing, girls' voices, girls' thoughts, girls' interests, girls' needs would be the primary purpose of what we read and what we see in New Moon Girls.

- And your work is also extended online as well where, obviously, lots of girls' eyeballs are.

- It has, yes.

Yes, we started originally a long time ago, '92, and then in 2008 we launched a membership community online for girls, where what they're doing on that community is putting in their own writing, artwork, photography, video, you name it, as well as opinions and advice.

- Do the girls who are involved in the publication in terms of writing, editing, producing, are they able to go back into that online community and scout for look for examples that they can feature?

- Absolutely.

That is exactly what our girls' editorial board does.

They get content from other places too, girls don't have to be members of the online community to get something in the magazine, but they do a lot of looking and paying attention to what the girl members online are discussing, what issues are coming up for them and how can we address that?

How can we help?

The other really important thing I think is giving girls an environment where they can support each other.

Where they think of each other as allies.

- And that's so important because collaboration, working together as allies, really supporting one another is key to helping girls understand the mission as it relates to changing the stereotype, so good.

- It's really key.

- Good, wonderful,- - Yeah.

- Great.

Well, we've got more.

We want to make sure that we keep you on the couch and continue our conversation with you.

But up first, take a look at these eye opening statistics about what girls see when they tune in to kids' media.

- Meet Jane.

See Jane.

See her?

She makes up half the world's population, but you wouldn't know it by watching kids' media.

Onscreen Jane is outnumbered by a ratio of three to one.

When she is there, a lot of time it's purely as eye candy.

And girls everywhere are watching.

On average, over seven hours a day.

If they see Jane, it's but little to say few career options and even fewer aspirations.

But we can change.

Meet Jane.

See jane?

She is half the world's population.

She has important things to say.

And she can be anything she wants to be.

But to empower girls, we need to see Jane.

- Nancy Gruver, the Founder of New Moon Girls magazine and its online community is still here with us, and we're also joined by Rebecca Gaynier.

Rebecca is the former Advertising Executive and now Founder of the social network site for girls, iTwixie.

Rebecca, thank you for joining us.

Welcome.

- I'm delighted to be here.

Thank you so much.

- Fantastic.

So as we roll along in this conversation about stereotypes in the media and how young girls are perceived and what they're seeing, let's talk about having an authentic voice in this work that you each do in helping girls to really be authentic in their expression.

- One of the reasons why I founded iTwixie was simply because I had for years worked with brands who targeted kids.

And these brands sought information about what kids liked.

But in order to get to the core of what a kid really cared about, they had to do conduct research which was timely, expensive and often really inaccurate.

So I thought what a brilliant idea if we could take a site and allow girls to authentically express themselves in a way that would help foster authentic insights to generate better products and services made for girls?

And wow, it has been an amazing experience.

- And how does that work?

And so what is that experience for young girl?

- So one of the things that we do at iTwixie is we allow girls to create blog, we have contests for girls to participate in, blogger of the month, smart girl challenges.

Different ways where we challenge girls to actively participate in some sort of activity, we reward them for that kind of participation, and we also have polls and quizzes, all kinds of different activities for girls to engage in, and then we take them into the database and really explore what do they really care about?

One of my favorite stories is that, I think pretty much everybody would agree that there's this idea that girls love pink.

So we decided to give that a go in our research database and we asked girls, what is their favorite color?

Would you believe it's not even the fifth favorite color?

- Wow.

- Most girls prefer either blue or green.

- Mm-hmm.

- So this is the kind of information that marketers just don't have there...

It's not easily accessible to marketers.

So you can understand we're kind of empowering marketers to continue to fulfill this stereotype.

- Does that data and information get back to advertisers and marketing companies?

- We definitely work with marketing companies, advertisers, advertising agencies in a very, very specific way.

And I guess this makes us incredibly different.

We only work with companies that seek to empower girls.

So if you are seeking to coach girls better, for example, what we've learned is a lot of coaches say that they just don't know how to talk to girls.

And it's pathetic because girls are involved in sports at record levels today.

And if you ask a girl, what does she want a coach to do for her, she'll say, "Teach me the skills to be successful "in my sport."

And it's so simple, and yet because of this crazy world we live in, we are not letting those authentic voices of girls be heard and we're letting our own stereotypes drive the way we treat them.

- Nancy, I'm gonna bring you back in on this because I'd asked you earlier about how do we fix this, or at least begin to better make decisions around stereotypes?

Is it top down or bottom up?

And in this case it feels like it's in all directions, whether it's online like iTwixie or your online community, really this coalition of ways to change the stereotypes, huh?

- Yeah, it is.

And it's also a lot of different groups who are working with girls locally in their communities and helping them to be part of something like the International Day of the Girl celebration.

Girls have so many more ways, certainly than when I was growing up, and also than when my daughters were growing up, who are now 35.

So it's much better.

There's still a huge amount to change.

- This age range, these tweens somewhere between 8 and 15.

- Mm-hmm.

- Why that age group for both of you?

Well, for us it's because a lot of research used to be done only about boys to define what children's development was.

(laughs) So some researcher's, well-known researcher, Carol Gilligan at Harvard, started a group with a bunch of graduate students of hers, Lyn Mikel Brown was one of them, and they did a longitudinal study, eight years, following a group of girls, the same girls, from age 8 to 16, and found that at around age somewhere between 10 and 12 many girls do what they call falling off a cliff.

Because they're starting to come up against the limitations that the culture has for women and they're starting to be expected to fit into those.

And it's a very difficult time.

- Yeah, and I guess a lot of research shows that around age nine self-esteem has peaked for girls, and then like Nancy just described, there's like this falling off the cliff effect.

And what's really exciting, I think, now more than ever is that now that we know that, we can find the drivers to positive self-esteem growth and one of the drivers is allowing girls to encourage each other, and also experience challenges, overcome challenges, and then share that experience of overcoming challenges together, which is a dynamic that both Nancy and my work definitely support, but even more so is supported by the international community's recognition of the unique role that girls play in our society.

And this is one of the things that I think is almost the saddest in our country.

Right now we have this odd dynamic where we teach our girls that they're not as good as boys.

We don't mean to, but just yesterday we had an event and the girls were telling me that the reason why they think it's important to have a day just for girls is because they're always told that they're not as good as a boy in their family, or at school, and I asked them who is telling you this?

And they said, my cousins, my coach, and my dad.

Now, come on, we can work together to let girls know that this isn't a contest.

You're a kid.

You can do whatever you want.

You're a girl, you're powerful.

We work together and let you achieve awesome different challenges and goals.

- Yeah.

- We can lift that up and let them be successful.

- And social media, when we look at just the impact that social media has on all of our lives, but particularly this age group, and their time is spent on their iPhones and cell phones and really consuming information, are we starting to see the shift there where more positive role models or are we still fighting the same thing that we're fighting in TV and film?

- I think it's getting better.

Would you agree?

- I think it's getting better, but I actually would say that I don't think the medium actually matters as much as the larger culture.

And that's the hardest part I think for parents, is we can change what we do, we can change how we treat our daughters, but they're growing up into a world that is still unequal.

Where women still make far less than men on average for comparable jobs, where there are far fewer women in high paid fields, and those are just a few, where we've never had a woman president of the United States.

- So, as we look at what success looks like for each of your platforms, online and print, your work globally, what does that look like for each of you?

- For us what we do is work with what girls are talking about.

What are they facing, what are their problems, what are the solutions?

Because they also have solutions.

They have problems, but they also have solutions.

- Rebecca?

- And I agree.

I think that the one of the things that I would deem as a barometer of huge success is when we actually see more girls on boards of businesses that are trying to cater to girls.

Because today's girl is more savvy than any time in our history.

She's learning about things that we never learned about until we were in college.

But now our today's girls, they're learning about things, and they have opinions, and they have amazing ideas.

Partner that with boys, women and men who agree that when we lift our girls up, our communities are stronger, and you've got a huge formula for success.

And I think that is the message that I believe once we all buy into it and start communicating it, that to me would be a huge, huge successful moment.

- Great.

- Yes.

- Great.

Ladies, thank you so much for joining us.

Impactful conversation, and it's one that we obviously need to have much more of, so we do appreciate all of your work.

Coming up, girls suffer when media lack ethnic diversity.

And our next guests will tell you all about the power of positive role models.

But up first, check this out.

- Unity.

- [Group Of Girls] Unity.

- [Venneasha] Once a sister always a sister.

- [Group Of Girls] Once a sister always a sister.

- Sisters e S.T.E.A.M.

focuses on empowering the middle-school girl in STEAM education.

Respect.

- [Group Of Girls] Respect.

- [Venneasha] The reason why it's called Sisters e S.T.E.A.M.

is 'cause we were playing off of self-esteem.

- [Group Of Girls] We support, we uplift, we are there.

- [Venneasha] I went out and surveyed girls to find out what they like.

We came up with a unit called beautistry.

It teaches the basic principles of chemistry through making products that they actually can use.

The girls have made lipstick, lip gloss, deodorant.

- [Group Of Girls] We love ourselves from inside out.

- [Venneasha] Once you love self, you can do anything.

- [Group Of Girls] Empowerment.

- [Venneasha] I want them to know that science is everywhere and that they too can do science.

- [Group Of Girls] Through esteem you can change your family, community and the world.

- Girls are also affected by the lack of diversity they see in media images, and that could have long-term effects in lots of areas, including when it comes to choosing a career.

Our next guest set out to address that problem.

She is Kimberly Bryant, founder of Black Girls Code, and she was chosen by CNN as one of the nation's top 10 visionary women.

Kimberly, welcome to the show.

- Thank you for having me.

- So excited about having you here.

So let's start with some basics.

- Sure.

- What is coding?

And more importantly, tell us more about Black Girls Code.

- So coding is the set of, really, ones and zeros that are translated into a language that the computer can read, and which really takes all of the things that we see in an app or website and makes it real.

And so the coding is what the computer programmer or software engineer will do to translate these thoughts, these images, and these actions into something that we use every day.

- Writing the code- - Writing the code.

- of a particular application.

- Absolutely.

- And so how did Black Girls Code evolve?

- So, Black Girls Code was really a passion project that I created in 2011 to help my daughter.

She wasn't going into middle school at that time and was really a computer geek, or computer nerd, doing everything from video games, she was always on the computer, but there were not a lot of programs that really catered to girls like her.

And I wanted to change that and make sure that she felt that this was a skillset that she could learn and excel at.

- It started with your daughter, but now- - Yes.

- you've reached many girls.

How many have the organization reached?

- Oh, we've reached probably 3000 or more girls now.

We're a chapter-based organization, so we have chapters in nine different cities in the US as well as in Johannesburg.

So we've really expanded pretty quickly with this very unique program for girls from these underrepresented communities.

- And what does the program do for them?

How does it work?

- Our goal is really to create the next generation of computer and technology leaders.

So we do that by introducing coding and teaching girls how to create video games, how to create mobile apps, robotics.

Anything that really touches technology, we're teaching them as young as six.

And we're staying with them through this program until they graduate from high school and then, hopefully, go into computer science and as they go into college.

- And this is reaching them at a very young age, but we're also talking about reaching a segment of our population, African-American girls, young girls of color, who might not otherwise have an opportunity to really invest themselves in the STEAM fields.

And as they grow up, if they're not at all influenced in some way, perhaps we're starting to see that divide.

- Yes, absolutely.

So the reason that black girls code and that what we do is so important is that we really address the issue from two different areas, not just looking at ethnicity.

So we're reaching girls of color, that's African-American girls, Native American girls, Latina girls, but we're also addressing this issue about the lack of women in computer science.

So when we look at bachelors in computer science, there are less than 14, 12% that go to women.

African-Americans receive about 18%.

But if we look at that intersection of both gender and race, that number plummets.

So African-American women only receive about 3% of those bachelor's degrees in computer science.

And Latinas are less than 1%, Native-Americans even less.

So you see in that statistic how important it is to increase those numbers of women of color that are really tapping into these skillsets because that's where the jobs are.

- And how does this translate to our overall topic today, which is young girls in the media, media images stereotypes?

- Well, it taps into a very real place because technology is touching everything.

From media images, from how media is created, every job that you see in a day has some form of technology.

So it's important to allow girls to become the creators of that because it drives the narrative of what they can and cannot be and what they can and cannot do.

So we're trying to give the girls really the keys to make the change that we wanna see in the world.

- Absolutely.

And so, as you think about some of your own personal examples that represent women of color in media, what would those be?

- Oh, without a doubt, it would be Oprah Winfrey.

All of the things that she's been able to create and the movement she's been able to support as a woman, as a leader in the field.

And I wanna really see that translated into women in STEAM fields.

So right now we only have a very few images that we can look to like the Mae Jemison's.

And we want to create more of those so that girls of color can see themselves as the innovators of tomorrow.

- Of science,- - Absolutely.

- technology, and certainly being those great innovators.

The flip side of this, and that would be how the media sometimes sends negative images about girls of color.

- Mm-hmm.

I think that's one of the things that we're trying to change the dynamic in terms of when you see or think of a computer science, we want you to think of a woman of color.

Right now the image is very static and that we think of a white male as a computer scientist or technologist.

Media drives that.

So how do we change those images so when we naturally think of a computer scientist or someone in technology, we think of a woman or we think of a woman of color?

- Give us some examples, maybe success examples, of young girls that have matriculated through your program, or associated with it, and the kind of success that they're finding.

- We are having such great success with the program even with the program only being four years old.

We've had girls that have started even as late as in their senior year of high school and completely changed their majors into computer science.

So I have a student that's now matriculating at Dartmouth.

She's a computer science major.

She was recognized by Michelle Obama this year at Black Girls Rock!.

I have another one that's matriculating at Spelman.

She was a working in the white house office of science and technology as one of the choices she had for an internship of many.

And this is just a few of the girls.

We have girls as young as 9 and 10 that have applications on the app store.

So we're really seeing the change start to happen, and we're really convinced that these girls are gonna be the leaders of tomorrow.

- And it really does start with programs like yours and programs from our previous guest on the show who equally are working hard to change these images and create a new stereotype, if you will.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah, definitely.

- Yes.

- So thanks so much for being here as part of the show.

- You're very welcome.

- Media has never played a bigger role in our children's lives than it does today.

So point out the positive messages that already exist and encourage the girls in your life to create inspiring media of their own.

Thanks for being here today, and join us again next time for another edition of IQ: Smartparent.

- Want to learn more about IQ: Smartparent?

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(soft music) IQ: Smartparent is made possible in part by the McCune Foundation.

And The Grable Foundation.