“You don’t need to be pretty, perfect or compliant to be loved.”
There’s a perception in society that being a girl makes you weaker or forces to you to be a stereotype of femininity.
It’s a nasty ideal that photographer and mother Kate Parker is trying to overthrow with her photo series ‘Strong is the new Pretty’.
Parker photographed her own two daughters, six-year-old Alice and nine-year-old Ella, to capture the essence of childhood.
Throughout the motivating photo series, Parker realised that her favourite images of the girls were when they were just being themselves. Not poised, how girls are often expected to be. Each of them were behaving “like a girl”.
Like a girl in their fun and freedom. Like a girl in their curiosity, messiness and bravery.
Like a girl in their care, intellect and refusal to give up.
Like a girl in their wonder, friendships and empowerment that being a girl can give you.
Read more: “Guys don’t like the funny girl.” Cheers, Wippa. Will remove my personality, stat.
Parker told The Huffington Post that she wanted to show her girls to “be an athlete, be loud, be a leader.”
“I was never made to feel like I needed to be “girly” to be loved or accepted, and I wanted to impart that empowering feeling to my girls by encouraging strength, confidence, kindness as well as toughness.
“I wanted to show the beauty, uniqueness and strength of my girls and their friends as they truly are: messy hair, dirty faces, angry, joyous — whatever it was, I wanted to capture it.”
Related: Jack Daly takes one thing about people and focuses his photographs on that alone.
This is definitely a message and photo series worth sharing.
For more on Kate Parker and this project, visit her website by clicking here.
