What Girls Need

Chapter One: Help her find her voice


Natalya s note starts with the formal opening and directness of someone years her senior. 

Good Evening, Dr. Barnes. I am not sure if you remember me, but my name is Natalya and I am a junior in high school. The email continues, briefly mentioning her connection to the college that Dr. Barnes oversees before quickly turning to her reason for writing. 

I would like to report an incident that happened on your campus last night around 8:15pm.  
Natalya then describes being sexually harassed one summer evening, while walking with her friend, Mia, through a neighborhood college campus. In her letter to the college President, she succinctly depicts the art room entrance where two men were loitering. She details what the men were wearing, describing the employees uniforms down to the official school emblem on their collared shirts. And how the men first greeted her and Mia in a friendly tone, as they all exchanged pleasant hellos in passing. Then she describes the sexual harassment that quickly followed.

As we walked away, they began cat-calling us by saying Damn, you girls are pretty. Come back here,' and whistling. They made repulsive comments, she continues, alluding to the shouts that soon trailed them through campus. Observations about Mia s body, lewd comments about the casual summer dress Natalya was wearing, and predatory descriptions about what the men wanted to do to them both behind closed doors.

We feared for our safety, Natalya says, noting how the two friends sprinted to the protection of her mom s idling car, hoping they could outrun the shouts that followed them through campus. 

Natalya is sixteen years old. Mia is learning to drive but still needs to practice parallel parking. They both love singing and are tied to their cell phones. Their parents think they spend too much time on social media, though Mia speaks with pride of her summer job as a lifeguard and Natalya

Marisa Porges, PhD, is the eighth Head of School for The Baldwin School, a 130-year-old allgirls school outside of Philadelphia renowned for academic excellence and for preparing girls to be leaders and change-makers. Dr. Porges served in the Obama White House; was a visiting fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and the Council on Foreign Relations, where her research focused on worldwide counterterrorism efforts; and served in the U.S. Navy as one of eight female aviators in an air wing of two hundred. She lives in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, with her family.

"This is destined to be a powerful book about how we can raise girls to become bold, ambitious women. The ideas are captivating, the stories are gripping, and Marisa Porges is the perfect person to write it."
Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals, Give and Take, and Option B with Sheryl Sandberg

"What Girls Need shows us all how to prepare the next generation of women to confidently hold their own later in life, and to celebrate and own certain traits that will be more critical than ever in the new world of world."  Forbes

"[Porges] combines the skills and life lessons she brought to the job with what she has learned from it, and helps us understand how to better nurture young girls and young women and prepare them to succeed in a world still too often stacked against them."  Porchlight Books

"An insightful guidebook for parents, teachers, and all young women." Booklist