More Than Just a Girl!: Optimizing the Privileges of Girlhood

By Ndueso Young

What The Heck Is It About Being a Girl?

Ever wondered what the true essence of girlhood is? Ever pondered if there is something more to being feminine? Ever found fault with the struggle to fit into a defined role that reduces your lifes purpose down to waiting for some guy to put a ring on your finger? Do you crave for a life of greater objectivity, value, relevance, fulfilment and personal greatness? Girlhood offers that life!

More Than Just a Girl! is an undiluted and straight-forward departure from the must-fit-in, wear-little-or-nothing-on-your-body, hook-up-with-any-boy, feel-good and have fun messages everywhere. It is a promising call to the more rewarding use of girlhood for empowering activities that stimulates the power within. In her clearly classic and practical style, Ndueso Young provides invaluable insights that will help you:
gain the courage to shred the paradigm of passive existence
interpret the events of your life in empowering perspectives
identify barriers to personal confidence and steer yourself to interdependence
guard yourself from abuse-driven proposals and shine from within
live on purpose, reach for lofty heights, and achieve personal greatness

You have in your hands a thought-provoking bundle that will shift your perceptions and stir you into worthwhile actions. Get ready to experience the lost drive for girlhood optimization, and find what will take you from mere feminine gender identity to becoming more than just a girl!

Ndueso brings a refreshing insight to girls as she encourages them to see beyond the
cover of their identity and search deeper into the content of what it means to be a girl.
from the foreword by Eniabitobi Kuyinu, Founder & President, The Educator

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449751999

Ndueso Young

Born in Odio, Ndueso Young is a dynamic award-winning social entrepreneur who holds pro girls campaigns, summits and leadership conferences. The proactive founder of TeenGirls Foundation and author of Staying Chaste, she is a pragmatic speaker with a message that transcends cultural and economic barriers. She writes for The Flame Magazine and lives in Odio, a lush community in Akwa Ibom with her family.

Book preview

More Than 

Just A Girl!

Optimizing The Privileges of Girlhood

NDUESO YOUNG

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Copyright © 2012 Ndueso Young

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means— graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system—without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Author’s Photo: Miriam Willie

ISBN: 978-1-4497-5200-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-5201-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-5199-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012908783

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/18/2012

Contents

Foreword

What The Heck Is It about Being a Girl?

One   Where Yesterday Lives

Two   Pursuit of True Success

Three   Guard Up!

Four   Towards Empowering Friendship

Five   Inside Out

Six   The Triple Reality

Seven   Everyday Refining

Eight   Painted Pictures

Nine   Lofty Girls Are Goalers!

Ten   Take Action, Own Your Glory

Eleven   Prioritise and Stay With It

Twelve   Attitude Is Everything

Afterword

Acknowledgements

About the Author

To

Nicole & Annet Usoro

Sharon Bobby & Gold Osho

Edidiong & Unen Lawrence Inyang

Uduak Donatus & Deborah Ikpe

Favour Itoro & Inemesit Young

You girls are born in the best of times, but you are not without challenges. You have resources you need in order to aspire for lofty heights, make marks, and end up with names above our gender identity. You girls are part of the reason I do what I do, and I hope to see each of you become not just a girl, but more than just a girl!

Author’s Note

This book is written on a practical and realistic premise: you are your responsibility!

It is not intended for gender strife; it is a call to everyday relevance and personal fulfilment.

If this is your copy, mark and write on it. Deploy discipline and take the Self-Drills at the end of every chapter.

Take your time and put down your thoughts on the Personal Reflections & Thoughts page so you can refer to it from time to time. Make this book your companion, for that is what it is designed to be.

Don’t stop at reading for yourself; become a catalyst for change as you reach out to others and teach.

For in teaching, you root your learning.

Be a queen. Dare to be different. Be a pioneer. Be a leader. Be the kind of woman who in the face of adversity will continue to embrace life and walk fearlessly towards challenge. Be a queen. Own your power and glory.

~ Oprah Winfrey

Foreword

The book More Than Just a Girl! aptly describes the turmoil of being a girl-child; especially in our society, where in many communities the female gender has little value and her worth is sometimes equated to what she has to offer with her body.

Ndueso brings a refreshing insight to young girls as she encourages them to see beyond the cover of their identity and search deeper into the content of what it means to be a girl. The writer describes the female gender with respect and dignity as she extols the various strengths bestowed upon the woman by God.

The book looks at the various contributions a girl can make to her society and the world at large if she decides to walk in the fullness of her purpose of creation. Ndueso debunks the idea that true success comes only when a girl meets Mr Right as she encourages girls to spend their youth developing their talents rather than just waiting and pining away for Mr Right to come by and sweep them off their feet.

The timing of the book could not have been better with the current need for all hands to be on deck, both male and female in order to positively influence the society and the world at large. Girls cannot afford at this time to take the back-burner and view themselves as second-class citizens. They must be ready to take up the daily challenges of life and optimize their God-given potentials without sacrificing their dignity and virtues.

Ms Young identifies with her readers, as she consistently addresses them as girlfriend, denoting comradeship. The narration is also interspersed with the writer’s personal testimonies and experiences with a rich collection of distinguishing quotes from a wide array of authors.

More Than Just a Girl! is not advocating competition with the male gender but for the girl-child to take her place in the scheme of things and fulfil destiny, looking beyond what her curves can get her. The readers will be motivated to find their talents, turn them into skills, refining the skills to achieve excellence and become true complements to the male gender.

There is no better time for a book like this. I admire Ndueso’s courage as she represents all the good stuff in the female gender.

Eniabitobi Kuyinu

Founder & President

The Educator

What The Heck Is It about Being a Girl?

To be born a girl is one thing. To optimize the privileges of girlhood is entirely a different thing. The latter is what makes all the difference!

Being a girl can seem complicated. You find yourself in the middle of different voices and models. Church and Mum tell you it’s not about hips and thighs, but the street says that is what it is about – and it appears they are right. You turn on your TV, and what plays on that movie station is One Tree Hill. You see girls your age running after boys and acting as if the way to the top is a combination of school lovers and school lockers. You walk out of your apartment to get something from a nearby store, and what you get is a chase from Mr Cute. Scenes of girls in skimpy dresses pairing off with boys and acting like they are on top of the world are everywhere. To put it another way, there is a sex, wear-little-or-nothing, hook-up-with-any-boy-and-have-fun epidemic that is sweeping through our world. We see puppy love on every corner, and many girls desire not the pain of hard work that leads to comfort, but the comfort of mini-pleasure that leads to pain. They hunt for pleasure, at the expense of preparing and working towards a better future.

Living in the midst of these voices has made the flaunt yourself anthem appealing. It has made studies less exciting, and it has led many girls to spend more of their time thinking about how they can own that special someone. They ignore the fact that there is something wrong with struggling to fit into a definition that limits us to mere beings that have to pair off and then wait for some guy to make up his mind to put a ring on our fourth finger. They think that if they don’t join the in-practice, they will be odd, out of sync, and lagging behind. So they go on to try forbidden things, discarding the warning signals. They experiment with drugs and sex, and they abuse themselves. As a result, they become addicted, drop out of school, contract sexually transmitted diseases, commit abortion and suicide, or become baby mothers.

This cannot be the reason for the phase of girlhood. We cannot be supposed to live our lives based on this lie, which promotes premarital sex, drug abuse, and the flaunting of our bodies, which siphons our ability to think objectively, and which has made many girls guard their hearts loosely. Girls do this, thinking they are expressing femininity, but that cannot be right. To be truly feminine is to know what to do and when to do what. It is to have positively empowering absolute values which cannot be altered by circumstances.

Every girl has the ability to thread this lane—to establish absolute values, dream worthwhile dreams, and create things that will make her world a better place. It begins with looking at life from the perspective of growth towards interdependence, not growth into greater dependence. It takes knowing that girlhood is the time to lay an empowering foundation, not to seek older boys’ attention. This is why it is more rewarding to use the season of girlhood for activities that stimulate the power within, increase our quest for acquiring life-changing knowledge, and become a person of greater accountability, integrity, responsibility, and discipline.

To be truly feminine is to know what to do and when to do what.

It is to have positively empowering absolute values

which cannot be altered by circumstances.

Girlhood is a phase of life with unique needs. It gives the opportunity for self-knowledge, self-guarding, and self-preparation for tomorrow’s opportunities—friendship, career, marriage, and community service. It gives room for great dreaming as well as great roaming. Which one you choose today determines your life’s story tomorrow. Not using it for activities that equip you with tools that enhance effective living is, therefore, leaving the outcome of your life to chance. For many of us, we think because we have hips and thighs, tomorrow will be greener. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

What we become in life tomorrow greatly depends on what we do today. It is garbage in, garbage out. Top-headed girls know this and do not play with this phase of life. They make the effort to maximize their girlhood instead of merely doing what they see around them. For many girls, this is not the case. They are in haste to become big girls, forgetting that a truly big girl is one who has a healthy perception of herself, is committed to worthwhile activities, and does not lust to be lusted for.

The question is, in this time where many are in a hurry to become big girls without increasing the depth of their knowledge base, how do you want to live? Do you have worthwhile personal dreams? Are you following through, or have you left your dreams for ice creams? You may have been abused, and yesterday may make you ashamed. It is possible there are things you have never shared, and you know they are holding you bound. Yesterday probably makes you feel there is nothing worth living for, but that is a lie. It could be that it is rocky for you, and in turn you are weak, unmotivated, weighed down, and bored – more so because of the absence of immediate help. This situation defines some of us, and as a result, many girls have yielded their bodies as willing sacrifices for abuse.

Life’s situations have a way of making people feel worthless, and in turn they put themselves in harm’s way. The reality is, we are a special breed with the potential and the will-power to make decisions that can turn our lives around and make us positive references. Many girls fail to see this and discount the truth that they have what it takes. In turn, they lose their guard and submit themselves to abuse, either willingly or because they lack a sense of gender equality. We do not need to yield ourselves to abuse or think of ourselves as the lesser gender. We are equals with the opposite gender, and we have extraordinary abilities to live beyond a limiting belief system, above abuse and molestation. Failing to see ourselves this way will encourage us to play the victim and shy away from taking responsibility for our lives.

The choice to do it right is ours to make, and there is no better time to familiarise ourselves with who we are and the possibilities that lie ahead than now while we are girls. Girlhood is the time to take a second look at where yesterday lives, to go in pursuit of