(More Than) Grrrl Power! Girls Studies at UCF

The newest Always #likeagirl video, "Unstoppable", was released earlier this month. It features young girls similar to those in the "Like a Girl" video that made headlines after airing during the Superbowl. In the video, director Lauren Greenfield (of Queen of Versailles fame) asks the girls "Have you ever been told, 'because you're a girl', that you should not do something?" The girls give various answers, and are then told to write those things on a box and destroy it. Though some may argue that this campaign is purely for making headlines, and that Procter and Gamble are simply profiting off of pulling on people's heartstrings, it is, nonetheless, an emotional video.  Watch the video and leave your thoughts in the comments! 

According to the World Health Organization, " The proportion of births that take place during adolescence is about 2% in China, 18% in Latin America and the Caribbean and more than 50% in sub-Saharan Africa". Such was the case with an eleven year old Paraguayan girl who was raped, and subsequently impregnated by her abusive stepfather. The young girl's mother began reporting the sexual abuse in 2013, but the case was not looked into by authorities until April 2015, when the girl was already pregnant. Because of Paraguay's strict abortion laws, the eleven year old must go through with the pregnancy. Adolescent pregnancies "account for  23% of the overall burden of disease due to pregnancy and childbirth" and " In Latin America, the risk of maternal death is four times higher among adolescents younger than 16 years than among women in their twenties". Not only do these pregnancies affect the young girls, but their communities as a whole, becau...