(More Than) Grrrl Power! Girls Studies at UCF

Jeliza Rose is all alone in a barren Texas landscape, far from the house where she's been staying with her father. She trots through tall grass, talking and singing to herself, her companions the heads of dolls she wears on her fingers. She finds an overturne d, burned out school bus and eagerly climbs inside to talk to the fireflies floating inside of its charred husk, and when a train roars by mere feet from the bus, she screams in joy as the she is rocked by the wind and fury of the passing loco motive. Terry Gilliam's Tideland opens this way, presenting to us a preteen girl who is simultaneously typica l and wildly unusual. Since she was born, Jeliza Rose has been falling down a rabbit hole, and as sh e falls, she does not try to climb back to the normal world. Like Alice Liddell, she wonders what the next curious sights she will encounter will be, and falls and falls and falls. Alice i n Wonderland was the starting point for Jeliza Rose's story, but the film, bas...

My name is Virginia McCarthy, and I am an artist. Being a girl has informed my work of all mediums, has permeated what I do in ways both overt and subtle. I will let my images speak for me, and allow you to draw your own conclusions. It is my belief that every girl should create images and reflections of herself and her inner world. To feel that you 'cannot draw' or worse, that you aren't pretty enough to be depicted in art- That is the greatest tragedy. My heart breaks every time I see a girl disguising her true self when she draws an unrealistic self portrait or takes a high-angled picture for Facebook. I challenge everyone reading this to draw their self portrait! It need not be literal, it need not conform to any method of image making that's been used in the past. A self portrait can be made through cooking, through dancing, through writing.. Through architecture, landscape or song. A self portrait communicates your inner self with utmost honesty.