Packages and Positive Thinking

I received two packages today.  One with my latest knitting book purchase (sweet deal on Amazon) and the other, a box from Leslye Borden of Handmade Especially For You which is a non-profit organization that distributes scarves to abused women in the Los Angeles area.  I heard about Leslye on my favorite podcast, YarnCraft and decided to help out and make some scarves.  They send you the yarn, you knit or crochet up the scarves, send them back (along with a donation from the postage they payed to send the yarn to you) and they give your handmade goods to a woman in need.  

As of late, I am really thinking a lot about women and how they are portrayed in society.  Something happened to me at school a few weeks ago and it's really heightened my awareness of how women are being treated.  It seems like when I was growing up in the 80's and 90's, there was this movement to empower girls and encourage girls to do whatever they wanted.  It was like girls had no limits to what they could do!  Or at least I had some pretty positive role models letting me know that.  Now that I'm an adult (whatever that means) and teach in a jr. sr. high school, I see girls getting verbally abused by the boys, treated like sexual objects, and get their sense of self and confidence be taken away.  This  period is a very tumultuous time in a young person's life and I feel like something needs to be done in my school.  It makes me sad that women have come all this way but in small, rural villages it doesn't seem like they got that far.  I suppose I should do something but the politics of getting something like that started are enough to make anyone nauseous and hesitant.  The best I can do, is try to be a positive role model to my female students and encourage them to reach for the stars.