The Alice Paul Center for Gender Justice hosted author and producer Meredith Walker, the co-founder of Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls organization, for an empowerment workshop on Oct. 15. Walker discussed her book “Be Yourself and Other Bad Advice: A Teen Girl’s Guide to Unlearning the Rules” in conversation with the Alice Paul Center’s Girls Leadership Council (GLC).
The GLC is an inclusive space where high school teens gather to discuss issues related to gender equity, build community and develop their skills as advocates and leaders. The GLC is for anyone interested in learning about issues affecting women and girls; meeting like-minded teens; connecting with mentors; and making a difference in their communities. The GLC meets once a month at Historic Paulsdale at 128 Hooton Road from September through June from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Visit www.alicepaul.org/girls-leadership-council/ for more information or email programs@alicepaul.org.
The discussion with Walker was moderated by Moorestown Friends School student Emily Huynh, who sits on the executive board for the GLC and has been involved with the Alice Paul Center for as long as she can remember. In preparation for the event Huynh read Walker’s book, and her favorite aspect is that it includes appropriate questions and prompts girls to look inward and get to know themselves well. Huynh enjoys being a part of any event that allows women to feel like they’re being focused on, and she appreciates female-centered spaces like the Alice Paul Center.
“It’s a really powerful thing to know that you know who you are really well and that you have a strong sense of identity,” Huynh said. “The book really asks girls to learn more about who they are as a person. For a girl to be able to say that they know exactly who they are and what they want to be – and not even in a sense of roles – but more in a sense of what their values are, what their ethics are and what they stand for, I think that’s a really important thing for young women to be able to have, and I think that’s what the book encourages them to do.”
Walker began her career in journalism at the groundbreaking Nickelodeon series “Nick News.” She worked her way up from production assistant to segment producer, traveling the country to interview kids, experts, politicians and artists for news stories. She later moved to “Saturday Night Live” where she ran the talent department before she and Poehler cofounded Smart Girls in 2008, an online community that encourages young women to celebrate who they are and who they are becoming. Through programs, workshops and day camps, Walker has helped girls try new things and discover more about themselves. That work has taken her from classrooms and regional programs to the White House, the United Nations and communities around the world.
Walker has spent years making ideas feel real, relevant and approachable to young people. Now she’s written a whole guide devoted to helping teen girls discover who they are, feel their feelings, develop their confidence and figure out what to do next. That work has taken her from classrooms and regional programs to the White House, the United Nations and communities around the world. She now lives in Austin, Texas, with her longtime love, Tom, and their dogs Banjo and Farris. Walker’s wish is for girls to know themselves well enough by the time they’re finished reading her book, and that they check in and recalibrate what they think success is, what their values are in the moment, and walk away from that being on their own side.
“Be on your own side, and the way to do that is you have to be realistic,” Walker said. “You have to find a way of wording things the same way you would talk to your best friend. Talk to yourself. Especially when you make a mistake or when something goes wrong, whether it’s your fault or not. If we could all learn to be on our own side and talk to ourselves that way, then we won’t spend so much time being worried about perfectionism and then we can all rise up.”
Keep getting to know yourself, Walker advised. Keep asking yourself questions because people change and grow and if they keep checking in on themselves and checking in on what they value, she added, we’ll be on the right track enough that we can come together. But of all the things that have helped Walker become herself more than anything are her failures.
“It’s the things that didn’t go right and having to figure out that I could tolerate them or that I was capable of getting through them, or seeing that when I didn’t really get through them all that gracefully… All of that helped me realize that what’s deep inside the ordinary, everyday me, is the most self, it’s not the things that other people are going to see or read about,” Walker said.
Author and producer Meredith Walker, co-founder of Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls organization (left), with Moorestown Friends School student Emily Huynh at the Alice Paul Center for Gender Justice on Oct. 15. Huynh moderated a discussion with Walker to discuss her book “Be Yourself and Other Bad Advice: A Teen Girl’s Guide to Unlearning the Rules.”
