Our Values
Girl Security’s vision – to forge equity in national security – is grounded in an unwavering commitment to listen to and value the personal security experiences of girls, women, and gender minorities. As an organization, we believe that the unparalleled insights of more than half the population who exist in a world in which they are taught to fear everything, but secured from nothing, can inform a new, more inclusive understanding of national security and yield smarter, more ethical national security outcomes.
We seek a nation in which the rationales that underlie, and decisions that affect, the lives of the majority of its people reflect the experiences of that same majority: girls, women, and gender minorities.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are central to Girl Security’s mission to build a national security workforce that represents the nation it is securing. Given the longstanding barriers to women’s advancement in national security, Girl Security’s model is designed to engage a future workforce who represent a diversity of experience, thought, and understanding in national security at the intersections of race/ethnicity, identity, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, age, national origin, and religious/spiritual identities.
Girl Security welcomes anyone who identifies as female regardless of assignment at birth. We also invite people who identify as non-binary or gender nonconforming into our programming.
Girl Security’s core values include: respect, tolerance, support, empathy, purpose, and resilience. In order to ensure all participants achieve the positive and supportive experience we strive to create, we foster respect through each other; we recognize each other’s individuality; we value diversity, inclusion, and equity for its many critical benefits to our engagement as a community and our nation’s security. Because national security requires tolerance, it is important that we exercise tolerance of each other’s values, ethics, and opinions through active listening. Lastly, we value privacy. Before sharing information about a peer or posting imagery on social media, ask permission.