By Animal Girls Magazine
If you look at your everyday schedule, life is actually pretty easy. You might wake up, and run downstairs to hug your mom good-bye before she leaves for work,grab a piece of toast, then start preparing for your day of homeschooling. After that, you might go to your soccer practice or ballet lessons. You might play in your yard before dinner, accidentally ripping your favorite pair of shorts in your game of football with your neighbor. And,of course, there are chores to do and friends to see.
Of course, this seems anything BUT easy, but you are actually very,very, lucky. A lot luckier then you would have been 100 years ago.
Imagine a life like this:you wake up, and squeeze into a super-tight corset(an olden-days way of looking skinny), with a long,fancy dress. You tie your stockings up tightly with ribbons, and then walk(not run) downstairs to have breakfast,using your best manners, and not talking, as children should be seen and not heard. Then,you might work on embroidering your sampler,or doing some other kind of practice, such as piano. You'd spend your day sitting around. You may go to school,but will probably have to wear a uniform and have a strict teacher. Then you'd go home and sit with your mother or grandmother or sister,waiting for the gentlemen to come home. Think it sounds tough? This was a very privileged life in the early 1900's,before women could vote, and before girls could do much. Other girls may be servants, working for the wealthy or in dangerous factories,with little pay. Or, you might be in an orphanage, with cruel owners and few belongings.You couldn't wear pants at all,Just uncomfortable dresses.
Let's skip back a few decades to the 1860s-a time of slavery in the USA. Your masters would punish you severely if you did even the tiniest thing wrong, and you'd be cold,lonely, and sad all day. You wouldn't be able to read or write, and you'd barely ever see your family. You'd probably sew all day,in silence, even when you wanted to talk,while your father and any male siblings worked in the fields. You'd be sold from plantation to plantation, and probably be separated from your family at a young age.You wouldn't have any friends,most likely.
Life for girls hasn't always been fair,and isn't fair today. Although Canada and the USA have oodles of woman's rights, Not everyone does. Some girls live off of tiny plates of rice and food scraps,which they share with at least nine other girls,while men get lots of delicious delicacies. There is still slavery in some parts of the world, as well as war and unfairness. I could go on for two hours about unfairness in the world, and probably wouldn't even be half-finished. But instead of looking at all the misfortune, all the tears, and thinking life will never be fair, we can focus on what we can do. Because if North America can change so much in just a century, life in other places can too. And YOU can help it change. Because WE choose the life we live in, and we are responsible for planning a future we will ALL enjoy.
Note:This article is by a reader! Submit YOUR articles at the Reader's Works page, coming soon!
If you look at your everyday schedule, life is actually pretty easy. You might wake up, and run downstairs to hug your mom good-bye before she leaves for work,grab a piece of toast, then start preparing for your day of homeschooling. After that, you might go to your soccer practice or ballet lessons. You might play in your yard before dinner, accidentally ripping your favorite pair of shorts in your game of football with your neighbor. And,of course, there are chores to do and friends to see.
Of course, this seems anything BUT easy, but you are actually very,very, lucky. A lot luckier then you would have been 100 years ago.
Imagine a life like this:you wake up, and squeeze into a super-tight corset(an olden-days way of looking skinny), with a long,fancy dress. You tie your stockings up tightly with ribbons, and then walk(not run) downstairs to have breakfast,using your best manners, and not talking, as children should be seen and not heard. Then,you might work on embroidering your sampler,or doing some other kind of practice, such as piano. You'd spend your day sitting around. You may go to school,but will probably have to wear a uniform and have a strict teacher. Then you'd go home and sit with your mother or grandmother or sister,waiting for the gentlemen to come home. Think it sounds tough? This was a very privileged life in the early 1900's,before women could vote, and before girls could do much. Other girls may be servants, working for the wealthy or in dangerous factories,with little pay. Or, you might be in an orphanage, with cruel owners and few belongings.You couldn't wear pants at all,Just uncomfortable dresses.
Let's skip back a few decades to the 1860s-a time of slavery in the USA. Your masters would punish you severely if you did even the tiniest thing wrong, and you'd be cold,lonely, and sad all day. You wouldn't be able to read or write, and you'd barely ever see your family. You'd probably sew all day,in silence, even when you wanted to talk,while your father and any male siblings worked in the fields. You'd be sold from plantation to plantation, and probably be separated from your family at a young age.You wouldn't have any friends,most likely.
Life for girls hasn't always been fair,and isn't fair today. Although Canada and the USA have oodles of woman's rights, Not everyone does. Some girls live off of tiny plates of rice and food scraps,which they share with at least nine other girls,while men get lots of delicious delicacies. There is still slavery in some parts of the world, as well as war and unfairness. I could go on for two hours about unfairness in the world, and probably wouldn't even be half-finished. But instead of looking at all the misfortune, all the tears, and thinking life will never be fair, we can focus on what we can do. Because if North America can change so much in just a century, life in other places can too. And YOU can help it change. Because WE choose the life we live in, and we are responsible for planning a future we will ALL enjoy.
Note:This article is by a reader! Submit YOUR articles at the Reader's Works page, coming soon!
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