mind of girls

POWERFUL WOMEN

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Most Powerful Women in the World 2010

The following table lists the most powerful women in the world, according to Forbes. The women range from first ladies to divas, CEOs to a reality TV star.

Rank	Name	Title	Category
1.	Michelle Obama	First Lady	politics
2.	Irene Rosenfeld	Chief Executive, Krafts Food	business
3.	Oprah Winfrey	media personality	media
4.	Angela Merkel	German Chancellor	politics
5.	Hillary Clinton	U.S. Secretary of State	politics
6.	Indra Nooyi	Chief Executive, PepsiCo	business
7.	Lady Gaga	Singer and performance artist	lifestyle
8.	Gail Kelly	Chief Executive, Westpac, Australia	business
9.	Beyonce Knowles	Singer and fashion designer	lifestyle
10.	Ellen DeGeneres	Talk show host	media
11.	Nancy Pelosi	Speaker of the House	politics
12.	Angela Braly	Chief Executive, Wellpoint	business
13.	Janet Napolitano	Secretary, Homeland Security	politics
14.	Cynthia Carroll	Chief Executive, Anglo American	business
15.	Sheila Bair	Chair, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation	politics
16.	Sarah Palin	Political maverick and commentator	media
17.	Mary Schapiro	Chair, Securities and Exchange Commission	politics
18.	Ellen Kullman	Chief Executive, DuPont	business
19.	Sonia Sotomayor	Supreme Court Justice	politics
20.	Ursula Burns	Chief Executive, Xerox	business

History-2

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Before 1970, women's history was rarely the subject of serious study. As historian Mary Beth Norton recalls, "only one or two scholars would have identified themselves as women's historians, and no formal doctoral training in the subject was available anywhere in the country." Since then, however, the field has undergone a metamorphosis. Today almost every college offers women's history courses and most major graduate programs offer doctoral degrees in the field.

The Women's Movement

Two significant factors contributed to the emergence of women's history. The women's movement of the sixties caused women to question their invisibility in traditional American history texts. The movement also raised the aspirations as well as the opportunities of women, and produced a growing number of female historians. Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, one of the early women's historians, has remarked that "without question, our first inspiration was political. Aroused by feminist charges of economic and political discrimination . . . we turned to our history to trace the origins of women's second-class status."

New Social History

Women's history was also part of a larger movement that transformed the study of history in the United States. "History" had traditionally meant political history—a chronicle of the key political events and of the leaders, primarily men, who influenced them. But by the 1970s "the new social history" began replacing the older style. Emphasis shifted to a broader spectrum of American life, including such topics as the history of urban life, public health, ethnicity, the media, and poverty.

The Personal Is Political

Since women rarely held leadership positions and until recently had only a marginal influence on politics, the new history, with its emphasis on the sociological and the ordinary, was an ideal vehicle for presenting women's history. It has covered such subjects as the history of women's education, birth control, housework, marriage, sexuality, and child rearing. As the field has grown, women's historians realized that their definition of history needed to expand as well—it focused primarily on white middle-class experience and neglected the full racial and socio-economic spectrum of women.

Women's History Month

The public celebration of women's history in this country began in 1978 as "Women's History Week" in Sonoma County, California. The week including March 8, International Women's Day, was selected. In 1981, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) co-sponsored a joint Congressional resolution proclaiming a national Women's History Week. In 1987, Congress expanded the celebration to a month, and March was declared Women's History Month.

Mutual activities.

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Young Women activities should strengthen testimonies, foster personal growth, and provide a wholesome environment where youth can make friends with others who share similar beliefs and standards.

Mutual is a regularly scheduled activity for young women and young men. Mutual is a time when youth can be together in safe places to practice living the gospel of Jesus Christ, feel the Spirit, and prepare for future responsibilities in happy and appropriate ways.

Mutual is usually an hour to an hour and a half in length. This normally includes brief opening exercises followed by an activity.
Mutual is held on a day or evening other than Sunday or Monday. It should be held regularly at the same place and the same time. The frequency of Mutual can be determined by the safety, distance, and cost of travel.

Some regularly-held Young Women and youth events include New Beginnings, Young Women in Excellence, standards events, and youth conference.

Examples of other youth activities include:

Service.
Musical productions.
Dance festivals.
Sports and fitness events.
Drama and speech.
Cultural arts.
Treks.
Camp.
Historical commemorations.

These events are an important part of a youth program because they provide a place where youth can share with others their testimony of the gospel and how to live it.

All activities should create a feeling of unity and a sense of belonging and strengthen and support the family. Activities should be varied and well balanced. They should appeal to the interests and needs of the young women and young men.

Most important, activities should provide opportunities for the youth to feel the Spirit.

Be an Example in Faith and Purity

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Be an Example in Faith and Purity

In the recent general conference, Sister Mary N. Cook invited leaders to set a clear example for young women to follow. "If we have one hand on the rod and one hand in the world, we put our children and youth in danger of losing their way on the path. If our example is confusing, then in Jacob’s words, we lose “the confidence of [our] children, because of [our] bad examples" (Jacob 2:35). Parents, grandparents and leaders, your message must be clear. Clarity can only result from having both hands on the rod and from living by the truths found in the scriptures and the words of latter-day prophets. You may not be raising a prophet as Lucy was, but you are certainly raising tomorrow’s leaders, and your actions are just as tangibly linked to their faith."

Leaders are invited to view this clip from Sister Cook and to study the full text of her talk.

In this month's Young Women Church News article Sister Dalton invites leaders to "ask the youth they lead to do hard things." As you do this, youth will "grow and rise. They will become confident." She relates the experience of one ward where the young women were strengthened as they set out to accomplish the "seemingly impossible." "These young women were not only told that they were great, but they were given the opportunity to BE great, to ACT great, and to DO great things."

Leaders can find additional messages from the Young Women General Presidency in the Church News. A new article is published the third week of each month.

Minister

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Personal Progress is a tool to minister to Young Women.
Personal Progress provides opportunities for parents and leaders to build relationships with young women. Through these relationships, young women will find support, role models of faithful gospel living, and help in finding answers to their questions and applying gospel principles in their lives.

Mothers and daughters can work together on Personal Progress. Both can earn the Young Womanhood Recognition and young women can learn from their mothers as they prepare for their future roles.
Young Women leaders can learn about the gifts and interests of young women as they work together on Personal Progress. They can then use this knowledege to plan more meaningful Sunday lessons and Mutual activities.
Laurels who complete Personal Progress can work with other young women and encourage them in their progress while continuing to progress themselves.
Other sisters who wish to participate in Personal Progress can work with a young woman on specific experiences or projects and both can earn the Young Womanhood Recognition.
Priesthood leaders can refer to Personal Progress as they interview young women, acknowledge their accomplishments, and discuss their future goals.

Strengthen

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**Personal Progress is a tool to strengthen young women.**

The value experiences and values projects in the Young Women Personal Progress program were written to help each young woman understand and apply the following important principles:

She is a daughter of Heavenly Father.
She can increase her faith in and testimony of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
She can remain worthy by obeying the commandments and living the standards of the church.
She can recognize and act upon the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
She can prepare now for her future roles as wife, mother, homemaker, and leader.
She can keep her baptismal covenants and be worthy to make and keep sacred temple covenants.

sunday instruction

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We begin on Sunday by gathering for opening exercises to create a spiritual atmosphere for the lesson that follows.

Sunday Lessons
“Young women . . . must have their testimonies built during [their] teenage years. And one powerful way to assist them is to bear your own testimony to them—humbly, honestly, and often” (Jeffrey R. Holland, in “Bishops and the Aaronic Priesthood,” Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting, June 19, 2004, 19).

How Do I Prepare?

Read the lesson early so the Spirit can teach you through the week.
Pray about what the young women need to know about the principle.
Decide what to teach from the lesson or from the resources in the Ensign, New Era, or other approved resources. Include personal experiences and your testimony.
Decide how to teach by involving the young women.

The ward Young Women presidency ensures that the scriptures and the Church-approved curriculum materials for the current year are used in class instruction. In some areas these materials are identified on the annual curriculum order form. In other areas they are provided with the annual curriculum shipment. They should be handled with care so they can be used for several years. Church magazines may also be used.

instruction to women

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The purpose of the Young Women organization is to help each young woman, ages 12 to 18, "come unto Christ".

By following the Savior's example and teachings, she can:

Solidify her testimony of Jesus Christ and the restored gospel.
Fulfill her mortal mission.
Return to live with her Heavenly Father.
(See "Young Women," section 4 of the Church Handbook of Instructions, Book 2: Priesthood and Auxiliary Leaders [1998], 211.)

Leaders of young women have a vital role in helping them learn the gospel of Jesus Christ and develop testimonies (see Guidebook for Parents and Leaders of Youth [2001], 5–6).

"Our desire is to help young women be worthy and pure and to prepare every young woman to receive the blessings and ordinances of the temple. We will work tirelessly with your daughters, with you, and with priesthood and Young Women leaders to protect and strengthen and prepare our precious young women to be virtuous and pure and live the standards that will help them be free and happy and allow them to reach their divine potential. We know that we are all elect daughters of God. We also know that each one of us has a great work to perform."

history

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Founded in 1869, the Young Women organization was originally known as the Young Ladies’ Department of the Cooperative Retrenchment Association. Brigham Young, the second President and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called together daughters and their mothers for a special meeting in the parlor. Following family prayer, President Young addressed his family. Among other things he said: “I desire to organize my family into a society for the promotion of habits of order, thrift, industry, and charity; and, above all things, I desire them to retrench from extravagance in dress, in eating and even in speech. The time has come when the sisters must agree . . . to set an example before the people of the world worthy of imitation. I want you to set your own fashions . . . and set the style for the rest of the world who desire sensible and comely fashions to follow. I want my daughters to learn to work, and to do it.

“I have long had it in my mind to organize the young ladies of Zion into an association so that they might assist the older members of the Church, their fathers and mothers, in . . . teaching and practicing the principles I have been so long teaching. There is a need for the young daughters . . . to get a living testimony of the truth. I wish our girls to obtain a knowledge of the Gospel for themselves. . . . We are about to organize a Retrenchment Association, which I want you all to join, and I want you to vote to retrench in . . . everything that is bad or worthless, and improve in everything that is good and beautiful. Not to make yourselves unhappy, but to live so that you may be truly happy in this life and the life to come.”

The Young Women organization has been referred to by several different names throughout its existence:

1869 — Young Ladies’ Department of the Cooperative Retrenchment Association
1875 — Young Ladies’ National Mutual Improvement Association
1904 — Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association
1934 — Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Association
1972 — Aaronic Priesthood, Young Women
1974 — Young Women

This international organization is the oldest and largest organization of its kind for teenage girls.

The following women have served as general presidents of the Young Women:

Ella Young Empey, 1869-1880
Elmina Shepherd Taylor, 1880-1904
Martha Horne Tingey, 1905-1929
Ruth May Fox, 1929-1937
Lucy Grant Cannon, 1937-1948
Bertha Stone Reeder, 1948-1961
Florence Smith Jacobsen, 1961-1972
Ruth Hardy Funk, 1972-1978
Elaine Anderson Cannon, 1978-1984
Ardeth Greene Kapp, 1984-1992
Janette Callister Hales Beckham, 1992-1997
Margaret Dyreng Nadauld, 1997-2002
Susan Winder Tanner, 2002-present

You may want to access the articles listed below through PDF on lds.org to view the graphics. Further information on history of the Young Women program will be posted here as it becomes available.

Girl power

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The phrase "Girl Power", as a term of empowerment, expressed a cultural phenomenon of the 1990s and early 2000s. It is also linked to third-wave feminism. The term was made popular by the Spice Girls in the mid to late 1990s.

The phrase is sometimes spelled as "grrrl power", initially associated with Riot Grrrl. "Girl power" was later utilized by a number of bands during the early 1990s, such as the Welshindie band Helen Love and the Plumstead pop-punk duo Shampoo.

In 2001, the Oxford English Dictionary added the term Girl power," defining this phrase as:

Power exercised by girls; spec. a self-reliant attitude among girls and young women manifested in ambition, assertiveness, and individualism. Although also used more widely (esp. as a slogan), the term has been particularly and repeatedly associated with popular music; most notably in the early 1990s with the briefly prominent ‘riot girl’ movement in the United States (cf. RIOT GIRL n.); then, in the late 1990s, with the British all-female group The Spice Girls.

The OED further offers an example of this term by quoting from "Angel Delight", an article in the March 24, 2001 issue of Dreamwatch about the television series Dark Angel:

After the Sarah Connors and Ellen Ripleys of the eighties, the nineties weren't so kind to the superwoman format—Xena Warrior Princess excepted. But it's a new millennium now, and while Charlie's Angels and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are kicking up a storm on movie screens, it's been down to James Cameron to bring empowered female warriors back to television screens. And tellingly, Cameron has done it by mixing the sober feminism of his Terminator and Aliens characters with the sexed-up Girl Power of a Britney Spearsconcert. The result is Dark Angel.

Dr. Debbie Ging, Chair of the BA in Communications Studies in Dublin City University, was critical of the "Girl power" ideals, and linked it to the sexualisation of younger children, girls in particular. Some question whether the concept of “girl power” is an effective media campaign to empower young women. In the last decade, it can be argued that the original Grrl Power movement has become co-opted by the media and marketing industries. Amy McClure of North Carolina State University, warns against placing too much hope on girl power as an empowering concept. She says, “An ideology based on consumerism can never be a revolutionary social movement. The fact that it appears to be a revolutionary movement is a dangerous lie that not only marketers sell to us but that we often happily sell to ourselves.” “Girl Power” may actually limit young women’s identity development. There are numerous examples of how the media presents a narrow definition of what it means to be a girl today. A common and overused example is Mattel’s Barbie. The recent “I can be” Barbie embodies this concept of “girl power”: that little girls can be anything they want when they grow up, but ultimately, it could be argued that identity options are narrowed by Barbie’s image and superficial values

BASIC INFORMATION

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A girl is any female human from birth through childhood and adolescence to attainment of adulthood. The term may also be used to mean a young woman.

There are many stages in girl's life.

1. birth littele girl
2. student
3. young adult
4. bride
5. wife
6. mother
7. grandmom

Girl has meant any young unmarried woman since about 1530. Its first noted meaning for sweetheart is 1648. The earliest known appearance of girl-friend is in 1892 and girl next door, meant as a teenaged female or young woman with a kind of wholesome appeal, dates only to 1961.