What Girls Need: How to Raise Bold, Courageous, and Resilient Women, insights with Marisa Porges

We chat with Marisa Porges about her varied and impressive career, which has now lead to her aiming to inspire the next generation of young girls learning how to make their way and express their opinions in a confident and forthright way. We review her book here also.

Marisa Porges, PhD, author of What Girls Need: How to Raise Bold, Courageous, and Resilient Women, is the eighth Head of School at The Baldwin School, a 130-year-old all-girls school outside of Philadelphia renowned for academic excellence and for preparing girls to be leaders and change-makers. Dr. Porges served as senior advisor in the Obama White House; was a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and the Council on Foreign Relations, where her research focused on counterterrorism; and served in the U.S. Navy as one of eight female aviators in an air wing of about two hundred. She lives in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, with her family.

Known for her work on leadership, education, and national security, Porges combines lessons she learned throughout her career with the practices she is developing at The Baldwin School, to help today's girls cultivate the skills they need to become tomorrow's leading women. The ways we define leadership are changing, and the women now stepping into leadership roles are mapping new paths to inhabiting traits such as grit, resilience, audacity, and self-confidence. The lessons Porges shares in WHAT GIRLS NEED prepares the next generation to confidently hold their own later in life in whatever fields they enter and no matter what challenges they face.

WHAT GIRLS NEED demonstrates how to celebrate and own the traits which might have been undervalued in the past but which are more critical than ever today and will make the biggest difference in decades to come – including empathy, collaboration, and adaptability. Given the added pressure now placed on children because of school closures and the unfolding public health crisis, there is no better time to ensure parents know the most effective strategies for nurturing their daughters’ courage and resilience.