Girl energy powers the world – we need it now more than ever

Our grandmothers’ time was a man’s world, but is it really better for our daughters, asks writer and campaigner Sophie Walker? On International Day of the Girl, she looks at how far we have we come and how far we still need to go

In good hands; Sophie with her daughters today (Provided by author)

When my grandmother gave birth, and was told she’d had a girl, she said: “Poor thing.” When I had two girls, I greeted their little lives like hopeful presents. I knew from my experience and that of the women in my family that my daughters faced challenges. I also knew that girl energy drives a better world.

The world was very different – in some ways – when my grandmother had my mum. Men were in charge of households, mortgages and bank accounts. Divorce was rare and scandalous. Abortion was illegal. Schools prepared girls for a life of sewing, cooking and ironing. Few girls went to university, and married women in middle-class households were expected to stay at home. Medical and law schools discouraged young women; so did parliament, the seat of all decision-making, where a total of 38 women were elected as MPs before 1945. Domestic violence was not talked about, much less campaigned against. When Nana worried about the life my mother would have, she had grounds for concern.

My nana forgot her worries when she watched musicals, and my mum inherited her love for them. As a little girl, Mum adored Annie Get Your Gun, and in particular, the number sung by Betty Hutton to a patronising Howard Keel: “Anything you can do, I can do better.” It was a mantra she followed her whole life – becoming the first woman in her family to go to university (she did two degrees, one in French and one in Russian, and is the only person I know who has read War and Peace in the original text).