Girlhood Read online

  Desireé lives in Dubai with her mom, her mother’s husband, and her dog, Pixie. Her parents are divorced, and her father lives nearby.

  Dubai, a city in the Middle East, is known for its glittering skyscrapers (it is home to the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building) and its diverse population.

  The life Desireé describes in this big city includes going to events and studying hard. When she’s not at school or doing her homework, she likes spending time with friends going to concerts and the mall, or staying home with her dog.

  “I have a large family,” she says. “But not many live nearby. The majority of my family stays in India and the rest in Canada and Australia.” Desireé’s immediate family migrated from India to the United Arab Emirates, or UAE, for work. ◊

  Desireé’s family is part of a large migrant population in Dubai and the UAE. People from all over the world come to Dubai for jobs—more than 90 percent of the population is non-Emirati.30 A significant percentage of these migrants or expats come from South Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Some come to Dubai as office workers, with jobs in finance or oil and gas companies, while others come to work as construction workers, drivers, or housemaids.31

  For many of the people who come to Dubai from other countries, life can be difficult: reports from the city regularly document exploitation of migrant workers, many of whom have faced forced labor, horrific working conditions, and assault.32 ◊

  Tuesday, February 12, 2019

  The weather was amazing today! Before going to school I checked the weather forecast and it said it was going to rain a lot. So I was hoping for a half day at school. It ended up raining a lot, but we had a full day of school. It even rained during break! Aida, Minnah, and I were standing in the rain during break. After school Nazneem came home. She was helping me with my dance for PE. We changed the song I was dancing to. I was really tired by the end of the day, so I didn’t do much in the evening. After Nazneem left, I studied a little and that was it.

  Thursday, February 14, 2019

  Today is Valentine’s Day & RedFest. We had a secret valentine at school today. I got Anaina, so I bought her this cute heart-shaped chocolate box and put it in a cute bag. And Aida was my secret valentine. She got me a really cute candle and a unicorn pen. After school I came home and started getting ready for RedFest. RedFest is basically a concert with around 4 artists that perform on each day. There are 2 days. I went for day 1. It was amazing. Even though we had to wait in line forever. It was so hyped and amazing!

  Friday, February 15, 2019

  After RedFest yesterday I was too tired to go for the Walk for Education * in the morning. I just could not wake up. I studied some geography today. Today has been a pretty low day. I was home alone a lot, but I did study in that time which was good, but no still it was a pretty boring low-key day. I didn’t sleep until after 12 a.m. I was lazing around and watching TV after studying. My doggy, Pixie, and I cuddled a lot today! It was nice.

  Desireé <3

  PS: I also have my PE Board Exam ** recording on Sunday and I’m super stressed and worried about how things will go.

  The Walk for Education is an annual walk hosted by a philanthropic organization in Dubai.

  Desireé was preparing to take the International General Certificate of Secondary Education exams. These are standardized tests across many subjects, including physical education, or PE.

  Diza

  14 years old

  Mumbai, India

  How do you like to spend your time when you are not at school?

  I love singing and recording my voice while I do so, I like going out with my friends, and I love spending time with my twin sister, who is my number one best friend!

  What are your favorite subjects in school?

  Physics, music, and English

  What do you want to do when you grow up? What are your dreams?

  I have always enjoyed singing and would love to pursue it as a hobby, and I’m still deciding if I want to make it a career. If not, I enjoy fashion designing as well.

  Diza lives in a high-rise building with a view of Mumbai’s glittering skyline. In a room she shares with her twin sister, Diza does homework, plays the guitar, sings, and chats with friends.

  But Diza hasn’t always lived in Mumbai. Her family has moved time and time again for her father’s job, so she has grown up in cities across the world—in Singapore, Cape Town, New Delhi, and now Mumbai.

  “When I was younger, I hated the idea of shifting all the time because of my dad’s jobs,” says Diza. “Now, I’m so glad we did. I have friends from different parts of the world, I got to learn various cultures and certainly got a lot of exposure.”

  Since Diza has moved so many times—to different cities and different schools—she has had to navigate belonging, fitting in, and finding and making friends many times. Her perspective is different from those of girls who have grown up in one place.

  When she was writing her diary entries, Diza was thinking a lot about the expectations girls face—to be “cool” and “cute,” to belong to the right cliques, to be popular. These concerns are nearly universal—whether you’re watching Mean Girls or you live in Mumbai or Montreal. But according to academics who study teenage friendship, close friends are better for us than popularity.

  “My research showed that teens who had closer friendships during middle adolescence had decreased depression and anxiety in early adulthood, while teens who were more focused on popularity actually had higher social anxiety as young adults,” explains Rachel Narr, an academic at the University of Virginia. “So, it seems that although popularity affords some short-term benefits, it’s deeper, closer friendship that likely confers positive benefits over time.” ◊

  One day, a few weeks after sharing her diary entries, Diza sent me photos on WhatsApp from a poor neighborhood near her house. With narrow and winding streets and small houses cramped close together, it looked vastly different from the world where Diza lived. She explained she was visiting this part of the city because she was curious about the neighborhood, and her trip highlighted the widespread economic disparity in Mumbai and India.

  In a country of more than a billion people, it’s hardly surprising that there are many different types of living circumstances. But economic inequality in India is stark: the richest 10 percent of Indians own more than three-quarters of the entire country’s wealth.33

  Mumbai, which is India’s financial capital, is home to more than 50,000 millionaires and 28 billionaires.34 At the same time, more than 40 percent of the city’s population live in slums,35 like the one Diza visited. These are neighborhoods where the poorest people live in homes that might not have solid foundations or walls, and in conditions that are often overcrowded and lacking in formal sanitation. ◊

  April 1, 2019

  Dear Diary,

  Today has been super miserable, but at the same time exciting. Miserable because our incredible and memorable trip to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden has officially ended. However, I am extremely excited to see my friends again at school. Moreover, it’s my first day in Grade 10 tomorrow! There are definitely emotions. Nevertheless, I am up for whatever comes my way this year. It’s thrilling. In the past 2 weeks, I have spent a lot of quality time with my dear family. I am the happiest person in the world when travelling around this fascinating, diverse world, especially with my amazing family.

  Right now, I’m thinking how my life would be after I graduate and study in a place away from my parents, about 3 years from now.

  Life will come with its challenges but I’ll have to find every possible way to conquer them. Again, it’s scary, but at the same time, I’m really looking forward to doing what I love and experimenting with things throughout life. Today, I’ve learnt that all good things must come to an end. This vacation was one of the best things
in my life. However, it couldn’t last forever. Besides, there are lots more upcoming happy times yet to live.

  <3 Today’s quote: <3

  “All life is experiment. The more experiments you make, the better”

  April 2, 2019

  As a girl, especially, the words ‘cool’ and ‘cute’ have literally become a definition. It’s heard by me every single day at school. The ones who don’t ‘fit’ into these so-called definitions are not noticed as much as the ones who do, regardless of their inner beauty. I feel as though in this generation, MOST people don’t even bother considering what’s on the inside.

  It feels as though the quote ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ has suddenly disappeared. Today, I also realized at school that sticking by your truest & best friends is all you need to do. The ones who are mean don’t matter. All they want is to see is you being unhappy. We need to focus on what’s important and that is it.

  “The ones who talk behind your back are behind you for a reason.”

  I have learnt to surround myself with the people I love. The people who support me & understand me for who I am. They find their happiness in mine. And with them, I’m the happiest person in the world.

  April 3, 2019

  It’s currently 8 pm. Today, nothing special really happened. I want to tell you something that happened at school though. It was really nasty to see, to be honest.

  My sister and I are friends with some people who aren’t popular and barely have any friends at school. Today, we dropped them back home. Other friends of ours saw this and they gave us dirty looks. This happens whenever I hang out with people who aren’t so ‘cool’ and ‘popular.’

  However, I still love them as my friends and no matter what others say, I always want to be friends with them. Anyway, when I got back from school, after a few hours, I had my singing class. This is my ‘stress relief’. Whenever I sing, all troubles suddenly vanish. It makes me sooo happy <3 Right now I’m just waiting for dinner. Another night spending with my incredible family! <3

  I decided today’s quote to be this one by Eunice Camaco Infante: “In the end, people will judge you anyway. Don’t live your life impressing others, live your life impressing yourself.”

  Emilly

  18 years old

  São Paolo, Brazil

  What are your favorite subjects?

  My favorite subjects are chemistry, and I like math a lot, even though it’s the subject I find the hardest.

  Who do you live with?

  My daughter and my husband

  Can you tell us about your parents?

  My mom is sick; she doesn’t work. My dad is a driver, but I don’t talk to him or have affection for him.

  Tell us a little about your friends.

  Now, I am a more reserved person, I don’t have a lot of friends, I always like to be by my family’s side, every time we can. I stopped drinking, hanging out . . . I am a more chill person today!

  When I asked Emilly about herself, she shared a list of dreams. Here, in her own words, is her list:

  1. To become a doctor.

  2. To have a lot of money and open a lot of nonprofit organizations to help the people that need help!

  3. To give the whole world to my daughter!

  4. To make my YouTube channel bigger!

  Emilly is eighteen and lives in São Paulo with her baby daughter, Sofia, and her husband. She grew up in a favela—one of the city neighborhoods that are sometimes called slums or shantytowns. They are crowded with small houses, sometimes made of tin or cardboard. 36 Not all favelas are the same—while some have homes with phone lines and computers,37 many don’t have formal toilets or access to water or electricity. About 1.5 million people in São Paolo live in favelas.38

  Growing up in poverty and facing abuse, Emilly has had to handle a lot of hardship, and achieving her dreams will mean overcoming more obstacles, such as finding a way to get childcare support and to pay for college.

  But she has many plans for the future, both for herself and for her baby girl. Her biggest dream, she says, is to become a doctor. She wants the same for her daughter, too.

  “I am 18 years old and I thought about giving up so many times, especially because it’s such a long, hard tough way,” she says. “And I don’t have money to go to college and become the woman I dream of! But I still have a lot of faith and determination that one day I will get there! I believe doors will open eventually and I will conquer the whole world.” ◊

  There are hundreds of thousands of young mothers like Emilly in Brazil, and nearly one in five babies born in Brazil are born to teenage mothers, according to Brazil’s Ministry of Health.39

  Emilly is not in school at the moment, but she’s eager to continue her education and she is planning to take a national exam this year to earn a high school diploma.

  About three-quarters of all teenagers with children in Brazil, like Emilly, have dropped out of school. Caring for a baby takes priority over attending classes to finish their education, limiting both their educational attainment and their opportunities for jobs.40

  Teenage pregnancy can also be dangerous for both the mother’s health and the baby’s health. Medical complications related to pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death for fifteen- to nineteen-year-old girls around the world.41 ◊

  Translated from Portuguese

  I am going to talk a little bit about my life. It was a little hard, but I choose to talk about it because I imagine there are a lot, of other girls that suffered like me in a community somewhere. I am not talking about a regular community; I am talking about favelas! People running from left to right! I was born and raised in one of those.

  My mom has some mental problems, problems she manages to deal with! But she is still sick . . . And didn’t manage to take good care of me in my childhood! She was abandoned after getting pregnant by my father! She didn’t have a family to support her or a structure to take care of her and myself! She didn’t have money, nothing! But even though she decided not to abort me! And I am extremely grateful for her to have endured so much pain!

  I was raised by myself, taking care of myself ever since I was little. At 4 I suffered my first sexual harassment by my mom’s boyfriend! She didn’t believe though! After that I went to live with my aunt! I used to sleep by her foot, but I am grateful to have a roof over my head! I begged a lot for money on the streets during my childhood and suffered a lot of sexual abuses! I had depression, and every day I would eat in a different house. Maybe you are reading this now and might be imagining that I am crying while I write about my history, but no, I am not! I am happy to have gone through all of this and for being this person that I am today!

  I do get a little sad because I didn’t ask to be born and go through all that, but I am proud of the person I am today and all of this influences the way I mother today! A mother that will never allow my daughter to suffer not even 1% all I have been through.

  Despite all these things, I am well today, because I had to stay well! My faith in Jesus made me believe that everything I have gone through is now past! And that he had written something new for me!

  Believing in all that, I managed to overcome all my fears! Today I am 18 years old, I am married, I have a house, a family that loves me a lot, and a beautiful Jesus!

  * * *

  A lot of the time during my pregnancy I thought I wouldn’t be capable of taking care of my daughter, because people would put pressure on me! I couldn’t believe I would be able to educate her, love her, take care of her the way she needed! I thought I wouldn’t be able to buy all the things she would need during her life!

  But then she was born! And I did it! Because I believed I was capable! Of course I was scared but did it anyways! (Laughs)

  Then, she was born! She is a cute little girl! So dependent on me!

  And I
can manage, I learnt everything is a question about being able to control our emotional and our psychological health, and everything will work out.

  * * *

  After she was born, our house got better, the environment got better, she had all the attention, and all of our day is dedicated to her! We have to bathe her, feed her, put her to sleep, change diapers all the time! She makes my bed dirty almost every day, when we take her diaper out, especially during the night, it’s so complicated! I am usually exhausted at those times, and this is exactly the time she has to throw a party at the house! She is awake all night, and she is only 17 days old!

  But the love we feel for her makes our energy refill so fast that we don’t even know where it comes from, but we manage to provide for her. Our days with her are incredible! Me and her dad have a lot of plans! We want to travel, visit places, study, do so many things!

  Emma

  16 years old

  A Small Village by the Sea, Ireland

  What are your favorite subjects?

  English is one of my favorite subjects except I wish we did a lot more on English literature and poetry—especially poetry! I don’t know why but after studying for the junior cycle English exam last year (a serious exam everyone in secondary school in Ireland takes), I’ve started to really enjoy poems and the meanings behind them. I love the meanings behind Robert Frost’s poems—they’re so powerful.

  Tell us about your dog.

  I have a very hyper dog who happens to be called Sonic. He is so crazy and unpredictable that in ways he is like the little brother I never had. I do love him, though, don’t get me wrong!