How Rachel Lloyd Would Answer EDMG's MCQs

How Rachel Lloyd Would Answer EDMG's MCQs

"Commercially sexually exploited young women in the United States, like their foreign counterparts, often come from low, socioeconomic backgrounds, making them at higher risk for recruitment than more affluent youth. When we think about children who are sexually exploited in other countries, we acknowledge the socioeconomic dynamics that contribute to to their exploitation -- the impact of poverty, of war, of a sex industry. Yet in our own country, the focus on the individual pathologies fails to frame the issue appropriately. We ask questions such as, "Why doesn't she just leave?" and "Why would someone want to turn all their money over to a pimp?" Instead of asking "What is the impact of poverty on these children?" How do race and class factor into the equation?" Beyond their family backgrounds, what is the story of their neighborhoods, their communities, their cities?"" Girls Like Us, page 34

Based on reading Lloyd's work concerning her life and the way she has impacted others, we decided to use her work as a way to answer MCQ's from her perspective.

1. Where am I from and how do my cultural and historical locations influence how I perceive and interact with the world?

I grew up in Stalbridge, United Kingdom into a family that didn't care for me. My mother was mentally unstable in a disturbingly large number of ways and my father did two things very well: drink and hit. My mother couldn't care for me because my mother couldn't leave the madness, even our priest would tell her to stay by the side of her abuser because women should stay by their husbands through the thick and the thin. I spend many of my younger years attempting to calm the two largest storms happening in my life, but instead just

become ignored. Less and less time is spent at home but instead around the boys and ultimately the men that pay much more attention to my body than my parental unit ever could. I grew up, I matured, and I aged though I was still so young and small. This was my background, these were my beginnings. However, I have come so far emotionally, physically, geographically. My life is so different now, but I still carry those beginnings with me. They help me to see these girls that come into our facilities, not judge them. I can see my younger self in them and relate very closely to even their most awful experiences. I can see people of the world and feel encouraged to learn their backgrounds and stories because I would want someone to know mine to truly understand how it has shaped me into my present self. 

2. How will I discover where my students are from and how their cultural and historical locations influence how they perceive and interact with the world?

Though I may not have students per se, I do have young girls in my life that I am fortunate enough to mentor and teach. I will discover where they're from by being vulnerable enough to share myself with them. I will show these girls, these women that they are loved and valued by me. This is important for trust and relationships. I want to be a relatable leader. 

"I don't always have many answers for myself or for the girls, So I listen and listen, doing my best to to learn as much as I can, to make the connections, to be open and honest about my own experiences, to be sincere, to love them and not judge. And while that isn't much to offer, it becomes the basis for some amazing relationships. I learn to be honest during that first year about what I can't specifically relate to ; while we share many common experiences, I can never claim to have lived someone else's life. I wasn't and never will be a 13 year-old black girl from Bed-Stuy who is sitting in a juvenile detention center. I have experienced different privileges and and privileges that sometimes leaves me with a sense of survivor's guilt. Yet, still despite the difference in cultures and even continents, in ethnicities, and slang, threatened with guns or threatened with knives, sold in the club or sold on the street, our experiences are consistently more similar than different" (pg 27).