[Archived] City of Alexandria Hosts Take Our Daughters to Work Day

City Press Release

	City of Alexandia, Virginia Commission for Women 110 N. Royal Street, Room 201 Alexandria, Virginia 22314 www.alexandriava.gov
Telephone:(703) 838-5030		Fax:(703) 838-4976

The Alexandria Commission for Women, the Office on Women and the City Manager’s Office will sponsor Take Our Daughters to Work Day on Thursday, April 27, at 8 a.m., in the Vola Lawson Lobby (Cameron Street entrance) of City Hall.

This is the sixth year that the City has encouraged girls to shadow adult mentors throughout the City to learn about their careers, education and training. Elected local and state representatives also will serve as mentors. Youth participants will include tenth-grade girls from T.C. Williams High School, in addition to other youths interested in learning more about today’s workforce.

Nationally, Take Our Daughters to Work Day was initiated in 1992 by the Ms. Foundation for Women to focus on girls’ ideas, needs and dreams and to help ensure that girls remain confident, strong and in school throughout their teen years.

In the early 1990s, researchers discovered a startling trend in the lives of girls in early adolescence. As adolescence begins, girls show a significant drop in self-esteem, report a lowered sense of self-worth and describe intense feelings of insecurity about their own judgment and emotions. Just when girls need to begin making critical decisions about the future, their confidence in their academic abilities declines and remains low in high school.

"Many of the educational and career choices girls must make are based on their experiences in school and the media’s depiction of women and their roles in society," Alexandria Mayor Kerry Donley said. "We want girls to feel confident in their abilities and know that they can aspire to any career path they choose, just like their male counterparts."

Participants will attend a brief opening ceremony, featuring remarks from Lynn Jordan, chairperson for the Commission for Women, Mayor Donley and City Manager Philip Sunderland. Adults mentors and their student guests will meet following the ceremony during a small reception to begin their day together.

"There are still many areas where women remain vastly underrepresented in boardrooms and in top executive positions," City Manager Sunderland said. "Our hope is that Take Our Daughters to Work Day will give these young women the opportunity to see firsthand the endless career possibilities that the real world holds."