the Painting Activist

8″ x 10″ oil on canvas, $350 ($50 donated to the Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana)

See all artwork available for sale.

The Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana (a.k.a. Louisville, Kentucky + Southern Indiana) recently hosted a breakfast wherein their new CEO, Terry Blackwell (pictured above), gave an intriguing presentation entitled, “Change it Up! What Girls Say About Redefining Leadership.” The presentation was based on a study conducted by the Girl Scout Research Institute (GSRI), which “serves as a center for research and public policy information on the healthy development of girls.”

Every generation takes societal norms passed onto them and molds them to mirror the times in which they live. This study is a thorough look into the minds of our youngest future leaders. With a fine-tooth comb, the study breaks down the definitions, predictors and aspirations that our youth assign to leadership.

A few highlights that especially caught my attention were:

• The number one reason girls resisted becoming a leader was that they did not like speaking in public.
• When categorized by race, Caucasians were the least likely to aspire to, or be motivated by leadership.
• Repeatedly in charts, boys’ positive responses were higher than girls only when the questions included mention of money, power and sports (altruism apparently is not as innately prominent in males).

But in the boys’ defense, one of my favorite quotes included in the intro of the study was by an 8th grade boy in Atlanta:

“I would like to be a leader some day so that I can change different aspects of the world, such as homelessness, poverty, and unjust happenings.”

To read the study for yourself, click here.