The Festival of the Girl: Confronting gender stereotypes

The Festival of the Girl is celebrating its sixth year by launching its own Awards to promote the importance of collaboration, friendship and inspiration.

The Festival was set up by entrepreneurs Abi Wright, Laura Mulvaney and Jen Toll and aims to ensure girls reach their full potential by countering the gender stereotypes that hold them back before they become too ingrained.

Designed especially for girls aged 7-11 – and their families – the festival, now spanning two days at Islington’s Business Design Centre, give girls access to a line-up of female role models, workshops and activities, providing a safe environment where they can have fun, try something new and boost their self-confidence.

This year sees the launch of the Festival’s first Awards, covering three categories:

• The Inspiring Girl 2024 Award
• The Loyalty and Friendship 2024 Award
• The Leader and Change-maker 2024 Award

Wright says the team is keen to create more of a culture which promotes girls supporting girls. “I hear a lot about bullying and people commenting that ‘girls will be girls’, but it’s not about that. It’s about how we move away from a society that pits women against each other and how we show girls that it is good to support each other,” she says. Everyone nominated for an award gets a beautiful certificate and that awards themselves have been very carefully designed to inspire girls. Wright some of the nominations have been very heart-warming.

The Awards are not the only new thing at this year’s festival. There is also a SEND session with reduced attendance, reduced noise [attendees will also be able to use ear defenders or sunglasses] and the main stage will feature yoga by a teacher who has worked with SEND children regularly.

The Festival, which runs on the weekend of 5th and 6th October, is supported by sponsors including Mastercard and Hitachi. Wright describes it as a ‘passion project’. She admits the current economic climate is difficult, but says the Festival has plans to grow and recently held its first big strategy session to think about how to build on its impact. The plan is to launch various pop-up festivals around the country at different times of the year in addition to the annual London one, which celebrates International Day of the Girl on 11th October.

Wright says the most popular aspects of the festival vary according to the child, but she mentions a session last year on friendship, a pit stop challenge, boxing and a session with drones and VR as being very popular as well as a bead bracelet making activity.

Gender stereotypes

The festival gets some good feedback from attendees – girls who have taken up different sports, have got stories published, have written to their MPs, pushed back on stereotyping at school or done a show and tell activity at school as a result of being at the festival.

Wright says that, despite progress in areas like women’s football and great Olympics role models, stereotypes continue to have a limiting effect on girls, particularly in today’s image-conscious society where social media rules. She adds that she thinks parents also need a lot of support to help their daughters – and their sons – negotiate the world. Wright has two daughters, both now at primary school, and says it can be hard to know how to fight the overwhelming pink/blue divide. Last year, the festival did a panel event for parents about how to talk to your children, particularly your daughters, about body image. “Some of the questions asked were heart-breaking,” she says, adding that the festival would like to roll out more support for parents.

She is also keen to catalogue the impact the festival is having better, but adds: “If it makes a difference to one girl that is job done. There’s a lot of pressure to conform to stereotypes. We can’t change the world, but we can have a ripple effect and that is the beauty of the festival – we don’t know what the impact will be into the future.”

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