Strong Girls (issue #2)

STRONG GIRLS Issue #2

BOLD GIRLS, INCREDIBLE PORTRAITS PHOTOGRAPHIC ART BY BONOFIGLIO PHOTOGRAPHY

03 FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHER

05 BEING A GIRL TODAY

15 SPORT, GROWTH & HABITS

25 LOCKDOWN & CHALLENGES

33 FAMILY & COACHES

39 PORTRAITS, CONFIDENCE & PRIDE

45 STRONG GIRLS 2022

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From the photographer Every year I invite athletes, their families and their friends, to vote for their favourite image to be the cover of our magazine.

What I love about this year’s chosen portrait (featuring clay target shooter and ballroom dancer Aimee Norris) is that it embodies how girlhood is not limited to one stereotype.

Girls can choose to compete in male-dominated sports and be described as fierce and bold while also thriving wearing dresses and heels and training in a graceful dance style.

Most importantly, they can feel confident about themselves doing both because there is nothing more powerful than being able to stand proud and say, ‘This is who I am.’

One of the strongest memories of my own teenage years is feeling as if I needed to choose between being accepted or being me.

As a girl, I had short hair, a knack for sports, and loved showing my male peers how much stronger I was than them. (You’re looking at the arm wrestling champion of second grade — booyah!)

But my transition to adolescence was abrupt. The qualities I had freely expressed for years suddenly — and I truly mean in a matter of months — were looked down upon.

Between the ages of 13 and 19, I was shamed for looking masculine because of my muscles, but also for being fat

when my training stopped. And when I lost the weight, I was slut-shamed.

I went from thinking the best of myself to always being uncomfortable in my own skin, feeling my voice was disregarded, and deeply worrying about not being able to fulfil the dreams I had for myself.

But this was not a capability problem, it was a self-image problem. And it is a problem today’s girls still face.

Self-image is everything. It is the tale we tell ourselves of who we are, what we can achieve, the relationships we can have and the life we can build.

I am running this campaign for the second year in a row to help girls build a strong and positive self-image — based not on the stereotypes that society imposes on them, but on what they love about themselves.

These portraits are not all the same because these girls are not all the same. And with each image, you are going to find a snippet of their experience in this world. Because there is no one who will understand the complexities of being a young woman today better than young women themselves. This is why I am incredibly proud to share Issue #2 of Strong Girls, a project that aims to explore, understand and celebrate girls.

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— BEING A GIRL TODAY —

Hunter. Age 12.

The hardest part of being a girl is the pressure to fit into everyone’s expectations and standards.

I wish you could be who you are without getting judged.

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Cailin. Age 12.

What’s the biggest challenge of being a girl nowadays, and how do you manage it?

Dealing with others’ negative judgement or people saying, ‘Oh, you can’t do this’, ‘You are not strong enough.’ I try to ignore situations like that but if they do it continuously it can bring you down. So you need to get rid of the anger and remember you can do it.

How do you feel girls are perceived?

Girls are not seen as tough, we are seen as princesses that just want to wear dresses and make-up.

Boys sometimes will say, ‘You are not strong enough to shoot a basketball.’ They underestimate us like that, but they shouldn’t – we are strong.

What would help break these stereotypes?

Seeing girls doing what is normally thought of as ‘boys’ activities’. It helps girls build their self-confidence because it lets them know that they can be as good as anyone – there’s no limits in gender.

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Nevaeh. Age 9.

Mum: Nevaeh’s hair didn’t grow for a very long time. This is the first year it has grown below her ears. So for a while she was called ‘a boy’ at school and teased by her peers. But despite struggling a lot, she has always remained kind and helpful to other children – even the ones that were not kind to her.

Nevaeh: The teasing made me feel quite sad... and a little embarrassed.

I would tell them, ‘I’m a girl,’ and walk away. I feel happier now that I have longer hair.

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Mila. Age 13.

Sometimes teachers or judges at competitions seem to favour boys because not many of them dance, so they get more points for that. And also at school male teachers usually pick boys to demonstrate physical jobs.

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Photographer’s comment Dancer Jaymie (page 19) made a similar comment to Mila (above and left). Her quote on this topic was: ‘What I find challenging about being a girl is that sometimes we are treated differently. For example, if I am competing against a boy – even if I’m better than them – they normally get scored higher because they are a boy doing dance, which normally they don’t do.’

In my two years doing Strong Girls interviews and my past experience as a sports coach, I have repeatedly heard girls state they feel coaches, teachers and other adults favour boys when it comes to physical activities (a common example was solely choosing boys to demonstrate P.E. exercises). This messaging starts early, making girls feel they aren’t adequate to excel at physical activities.

What surprised me this time was the insight from not one but two girls in female-dominated activities that boys are given preferential treatment while girls in male-dominated sports normally need to deal with exclusion and bullying.

If we want this to change, it’s not enough to teach our girls that they are capable. We also need to educate our boys (and all kids, really) that discrimination based on gender is not acceptable. And we should demand that our coaches and teachers give equal opportunities to our kids in all activities.

We all play a part in changing this disparity.

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GG. Age 8.

The most challenging part of training in a ‘boys’ sport’ is when boys say, ‘Girls aren’t allowed here.’

Sometimes they will push me away and say, ‘I’m having another turn.’ I walk away if I don’t really like how they treat me because it makes me feel like I’m not right for it.

I wish I could train and build confidence with girls rather than boys.

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Kyra. Age 14.

At school, when teachers look for ‘someone strong’, it’s usually the boys that get the job. So I started putting my hand up so other girls know they can do it too. And because I’m strong, you know? I’m a strong person.

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Caelyn. Age 9.

Girls aren’t allowed to do as many things as boys. But we can do those things, we are just as capable.

One day I want to try and change this because it’s not fair. We should be treated the same as men.

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— SPORT, GROWTH & HABITS —

Aleisha. Age 13.

Basketball taught me to respect my coaches, to be kind to my teammates and to be honest.

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Alyssa. Age 12.

What I love about gymnastics is learning new skills, overcoming fears and cheering the team.

Every time someone is scared of doing something new, we just say: ‘You can do it’, ‘You got this’ and then they’ll get it.

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Lien. Age 15.

Three good habits I learnt through training are: 1. Not to give up. Even if I’m failing, I know I need to keep on going.

2. Listen to others’ advice. I consider what other people say even if then I decide it might not be right for me.

3. Be confident. Both in myself and my skills.

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Jaymie. Age 12.

The advice I would give another dancer is: 1. Always try new stuff – even if it’s hard. There are tricks that I had to train for years before I got them. But if I didn’t kept on trying, I wouldn’t have known I could do them.

2. Be grateful. There’s always going to be bad days, or someone better than you. You are not always going to win. You shouldn’t let any of that get to you.

3. Be passionate. When you are passionate everything is more fun, it’s easier to work hard and you feel happier.

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Aimee. Age 16.

You train in ballroom dancing and clay target shooting, which are two very different activities. What do you love most about them?

I love that despite them having such a stark contrast I can incorporate both into each other, and there is a lot of overlap. For example, my dance and shooting movements are very similar.

And while dance is a team sport and shooting is not a team sport in competition, there’s a team around you. The mindset you have to have to train in both is very similar too; you have to be confident.

In clay target shooting competition is not divided by gender or age groups. Could you tell me a bit more about that?

In shooting, women and men compete in the same category and you are also competing with people of different ages too. So I may have a junior on one side, but on the other a shooter that is over 60 years old.

You develop more when you are shooting with more mature shooters

as everyone has different knowledge.

So you can pick and choose what you like and what works for you – and you wouldn’t be able to do that if you weren’t shooting with everyone!

Could you mention three great habits you got from training that you can apply to other aspects of your life?

Discipline. Sticking to a goal when it gets tricky or you are sick of it.

I don’t enjoy training all the time but I understand that it has a purpose and that it will improve my skills.

Appreciation for those who helped me. I’ve been helped a lot through both sports. I couldn’t do it by myself.

So I really appreciate what people do to help. The coaches, my family and even just people saying ‘well done’.

Patience. You can’t get good at either of these sports – or anything – overnight. There’s no rush in dancing, in shooting or in life! So you have to be patient and understand that results are going to come.

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Cailin. Age 12.

Not being able to do something now doesn’t mean you won’t be able to do it in a month or a year’s time. Never give up.

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Rachel. Age 14.

Getting strong through gymnastics will help me in the future as I want to be a firefighter. I always wanted to be one.

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Caelyn. Age 9.

Strength isn’t something that you build overnight. You need to work for it, it’s a process.

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— LOCKDOWNS & CHALLENGES —

Brianna. Age 17.

Lockdowns were really difficult but our coaches did everything in their power so we could keep on engaging with each other and training. They made online meetings so we could all go on video and exercise together, which was really fun. And when we could, we tried to meet up just in small groups to skate... outdoors though, because indoors wasn’t allowed.

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Zoe. Age 18.

In 2020 the school band was supposed to go to New Orleans and L.A. The band was at its peak, we were going to play in a worldwide music competition, so we were all very excited.

But because of COVID it got cancelled just two weeks before leaving.

Everyone was gutted. Some people had already started packing, others had already taken time off work to go. We were all shocked, and the atmosphere was sad for a while. The memories we would have had... we don’t have.

But throughout that, our senior band conductor was amazing. His passion is unparalleled and he kept us doing band rehearsals during lockdown. He made it fun and engaging so even at home people started to come to online sessions more and more and turning on their cameras. Everyone seemed more confident and happy when we were playing together. It was a reminder that even if we couldn’t travel, we could still play our music.

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Indie. Age 13.

I didn’t like training through videocalls. It was hard to motivate myself because I didn’t have anyone else training with me.

My group is very important when it comes to training – they are always there when I’m struggling, they encourage me and they make everything fun.

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Rylee. Age 11.

Mum: One day Rylee came to me after some unpleasant situations with other players and said: ‘Well, I’m going to go prove them wrong.’ She went and trained on her own. She spent a lot of time every day practising. Nobody told her to.

Then people started realising she was improving, and she eventually got selected to compete in the team.

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Emily. Age 10.

Lockdowns and not seeing my friends was really hard; someone at my school got COVID and we were all made secondary contacts so we couldn’t go outside at all.

When we were finally allowed out of the house, I didn’t want to leave. But I had to learn to keep on going and have hope things would get better.

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— FAMILY & COACHES —

Mila. Age 13.

My mum, dad, sister and friends always support me in competitions and auditions.

This year, I was accepted into a dance program, and all the choreographies are really challenging so I sometimes had breakdowns. But if I felt overwhelmed and started crying, my mum would always come to me and tell me, ‘You can do this. Be confident.’

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Kyra. Age 14.

Dad was a gymnast so our parents thought gymnastics would be good for me [pictured at right] and my sister [Alyssa , below].

Having my dad and sister doing gymnastics is pretty good because we can do lots of training and games together. And if we need help with a skill we can always ask each other.

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Lien. Age 15.

The relationship with a coach is very important because when you are first learning skills you have to trust that your coach will catch you when you fall or do something wrong.

For example, a while back I had a mental block with backsaults. It took me a while to get over it because I was afraid I wasn’t going to jump high enough or that I was going to back out and land on my neck. So my coach and I had to break it down into little steps to slowly build it up enough to do it by myself. He was always spotting me and helped me get the confidence to do it on my own.

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Zoe. Age 18.

My mum and dad were both in the high school band and loved it. And they wanted us kids to have the same experience. So music has always been a big part of my family.

Everyone plays an instrument and on Christmas we go to my grandparents’ house and play.

It always brings a smile to our faces because we can all share our love and enjoyment for music when we play together.

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— PORTRAITS, CONFIDENCE & PRIDE —

Aimee. Age 16.

In my portraits I see aspects of myself that friends and people have described in me, such as fierce, bright and graceful… unless I’m falling off a chair. I’ve done that a few times!

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Cailin. Age 12.

Since putting my artwork up on the walls I have become a lot happier with who I am. Seeing myself looking so strong, I feel I can take on anything.

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Lien. Age 15.

I didn’t think I would like seeing myself in photographs, so I was very surprised at how much I loved them. I look really good – almost like a professional.

Since they are displayed in the dining room, I see them many times each day. They are a reminder that I have those skills and that I work hard. They have made me more comfortable trying new things and more confident. I don’t second guess myself... in gymnastics or in life!

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Mila. Age 13.

I am usually really shy, but during the photoshoot I felt comfortable to express who I am.

When my portraits arrived, I was like, ‘Oh, my god! I want them on my wall!’ I love them.

They make me feel more confident in myself.

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Kyra. Age 14.

You can’t see what you look like when you are training. So when I saw myself on the wall it was a boost of confidence because I look really good! My portraits make me feel more positive about presenting myself and my skills.

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— STRONG GIRLS 2022 —

Imagine your daughter waking up to a powerful and confident image of herself.

Every. Single. Day. Imagine what that does to a young person’s self-image.

This is what I create for each girl I photograph.

All of my work is based on an in-depth pre-photoshoot conversation about how they want to be portrayed, the skills they are most proud of and the qualities they absolutely love about themselves.

Each portrait is designed as an art piece that will make them go, ‘Wow, that’s me!’, and continue to remind them of their vast strength and limitless potential.

I am proud of every single one of them.

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DO YOU WANT YOUR DAUGHTER, GRANDDAUGHTER, OR NIECE TO BE A STRONG GIRL 2022?

Apply here

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PORTRAITS SPORT & DANCE

BONOFIGLIO PHOTOGRAPHY MARINA@BONOFIGLIOPHOTOGRAPHY.COM — 0411 510 034