Strong Looks Different on Every Girl. Here's Proof.

Strong Looks Different on Every Girl. Here's Proof.

By Kimberly Inskeep

Ask your daughter to describe a “strong, confident girl.” Maybe she’ll think of someone from her friend group. Maybe she’ll remember a heroine from a book or show, or mention a singer, an actor, a professional athlete. Maybe she’ll use her own imagination to conjure up this character … all on her own!

I’d make a guess that these “strong, confident girls” might fit a similar playbook. This girl speaks up first. She’s certain of her opinions. She takes the lead. She refuses to back down, maybe especially in the face of “haters”.

I’d even also make a guess that we, as moms, have learned the same script. If we’re told to think of a “strong, confident woman,” we might imagine a friend, a character, a woman from history … someone who leads and commands, who pushes through resistance and announces their presence. Someone who sparkles, who has her life, her career, her family, and her future well in hand.

But when did this archetype become the rule? When did we, and our girls, learn that strength and confidence had to look this way? Because as wonderful as those expressions are, they are not the only expressions.

Confidence comes in many shapes.

And we do a disservice to the breadth and creativity of girlhood when we forget to remind ourselves, and our girls, that strength has many faces.


Pax

Pax, one of the five girls of Foxtale Forest

Sometimes, it’s the face of a girl to listens, who waits to understand before rushing to be understood.

Kez

Kez, one of the five girls of Foxtale Forest

Sometimes, it’s the face of a girl who puts in the long hours, who keeps trying long after the effort has lost its shine.

Amy

Amy, one of the five girls of Foxtale Forest

Sometimes, it’s the face of a girl who chooses to find a silver lining, even when the weather is dim.

Dani

Dani, one of the five girls of Foxtale Forest

Sometimes, it’s the face of a girl who decides to treat everyone the same way, at the expense of her own popularity.

Eva

Eva, one of the five girls of Foxtale Forest

Sometimes, it’s the face of the girl who lets her curiosity launch her towards “what could be,” while others focus on “what is.”

Each of these girls is strong. But she displays her strength in ways we haven’t always been taught to recognize. Confidence can sound like the loudest voice in the room. But it can also look like restraint, like uncelebrated consistency, like honesty, like vulnerability, like creativity.


This is the idea that built the entire Foxtale Forest series.

The five girls in our books Dani, Pax, Amy, Eva, and Kez, represent different kinds of strength. Pax notices the the girl standing just outside the circle before anyone else, and she quietly invites her in. Kez feels every loss harder than she'd like to admit… and leads anyway. Different girls. Different “strong.”

We created a quiz about our characters, partially for the fun of exploring more of the wonderful Foxtale world, and partially because we believe in the power of reflection.

The quiz is designed to help your girl think twice about her assumptions and to explore just how many beautiful ways there are to show up with strength in the world.

Not every girl out there will identify one-for-one with a single character. She might be mostly Eva, but carry Pax's quiet noticing too. She might have Dani’s integrity with a big pinch of Amy’s mischief! Those mixtures and balances are built into the quiz results, because no girl deserves to be put in a box. The results aren’t prescriptive … they’re descriptive. They’re a starting point. A spark meant to fire up her ability to reflect, imagine, and grow.

I’d encourage you to take it too!

Just five minutes … and a chance for connection with your girl.

Maybe you’ll discover a memory, something that will prompt you to share both who you are now, and who you were at her age.

No quiz can define us, but this quiz might offer some whimsical and encouraging new ways to see ourselves, and the people around us. It could be a real conversation-starter…and those moments are connection are what it’s all about.

Take the quiz. Which girl is she?

Kimberly Inskeep

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