Ed. note: this speech was originally given at our Day of the Girl celebration in NYC on October 11, 2012. Priscilla Guo lives in New York and writes with Girls Write Now.

by Priscilla Guo

I am girl. I could be your sister, your daughter, and one day a mother. I am girl. And you say I ought to play with dolls and wear a dress. I am girl. And you say I only ought to make 70 cents to a man’s dollar. I am girl. And you say I ought to forego my education. “Because it don’t matter,” you say, “Why would you need to go to school? You’re a girl.”

I am girl and I am powerful. We are powerful. We will lead this world.

I am so fortunate. I have a safe home, a family, friends, and an education. But there are girls with nothing, with no fighting chance to change that. I fight for those girls. I speak for those girls. I write for those girls.

I’ve begun to teach some girls at my local community center and it’s been one of the best experiences of my life. Since my first visit, they all run up to me and hug me the moment they see me. My legs are trapped in between their tiny hands. When I first started teaching them, I had them do a writing exercise, where they would explain to me in one paragraph what they wanted to do when they grew up and why. One of the girls, Giselle, runs up to me: “Ms. Priscilla. Ms. Priscilla. I want to be a doctor!” Another girl, Cinthia, tells me: “I want to be a vvvet-narian. How do you spell it?” Once I helped them through those words, they were at their desks, furiously scribbling away. Once they finished, they gave it a quick look over to make sure they’ve dotted their ‘i’s and crossed their ‘t’s and wrote everything that they wanted to write.

When everyone had finished, the girls were all jumping and squirming about in their seats. This was their favorite part: They were going to read aloud what they wrote to everyone. They really did make it a grand performance. I asked: “Who wants to go first?” Their hands shot up in the air and they did that thing that kids do, where they jiggle their hand in the air and give you an earnest look that say: “Me, me. Please, Please call on me.” Once I chose someone, she went to the front of the classroom. She peered over her paper and made sure that everyone was looking at her and everyone was quiet. Then, and only then, could she can begin. When I listen to their paragraphs, I realize that they are so proud of their words. They are spilling their dreams to me and it makes me push them more.

And so I have taken the tools I have gained at Girls Write Now and I’ve passed them down to those girls. Girls helping girls helping girls. So that Cinthia and Giselle can be whatever they want to be.

I fear what the world has prepared for them. When I was their age, being a girl didn’t have grave effects on my life. It meant that I would just go to the bathroom labeled with a stick figure that had a triangle dress on and hair curled up on the sides of her face. I was also supposed to accept stereotypes that girls were dainty and not rough like boys. Then, as I got older, I realized that girls don’t become President. Our culture lets us know that girls have a proper place in this world, tracing all the way back to the Cult of Domesticity in the 19th century. A bias permeates that girls are too emotional to be able to hold important decision-making roles in corporations and government. Show me a girl who hasn’t heard a “stay in the kitchen” joke or doesn’t know what they mean. Even to this day, girls don’t get an education because it would be better for the boy to get it instead. Why? Why don’t girls get a choice?

Just a couple of hours ago, Malala Yousufzai was shot by the Pakistani Taliban for asking the same questions. She was fourteen. What Malala recognized at fourteen is what is fair and what is unfair, what is just and what is unjust, and what is her right. She was fighting for her education. It was her right as a human being.

She once said in an interview: “They cannot stop me. I will get my education.”

The point where we deny girls human rights because they are girls is the point where we make rights privileges. Being a girl makes you no less human. We are equal and our lives matter.

I started my school’s “Girl Up” club to make sure that all girls, no matter where they live, have the opportunity to become educated, healthy, safe, counted, and positioned to be the next generation of leaders.

That’s what Day of the Girl means to me. Giving Giselle and Cinthia a choice to lead this world. Giving Malala a chance to go to school. Giving her a choice.

And they will not stop us.

I am girl and I am powerful. We are powerful. We will lead this world.