Can girls achieve their dreams? They must!

On a single day this June, I gave the commencement address at a girls’ high school and then, a few hours later, watched my own daughter cross the stage in her cap and gown.

At the first commencement, 44 graduating girls flowed past me in their white robes, their sights set higher than I dared imagine when I was their age.

They turned and faced the three grades of girls they were leaving behind. Their camaraderie, forged from years of learning side by side without competing for boys’ high regard, was so palpable it made my eyes sting.

That evening, my daughter joined a much larger crowd of graduates teeming with a rich diversity of race and social class she is unlikely to find beyond her high school doors. It can be a rough-and-tumble place where so many are so not like you, and my daughter has held her own in this crowd. What a sight, watching her walk straight and tall, her tassel swinging.

Both graduations filled me up and wore me out. Spending time with your highest hopes can do that to you. What you want gets restless in the same room with what you know, and the pointy elbows of doubt start nudging you no matter how hard you try to look away.

“Do you believe it?” doubt whispers. “Do you really believe our girls can be anything they want to be?”

The answer is a defiant yes.

Yes, because the law says they have the same opportunities as men. Defiant, because I know that equal footing is still often an ideal caught in a chokehold with reality. Like most mothers in the crowd, I know these girls will have plenty of chances to exceed someone else’s low expectations.

I always told my daughter she could do anything as long as she worked hard and refused to let someone else define her bottom line. When she was little, this promise was a game.

“A police?”

Yes. You can be a police officer.

“A doctor?”

If you want.

“What if I want to be a vet-er-narian and a lawyer?”

Then you must.

She’d clap her hands and giggle. “I must!”

I think of those days with such nostalgia, not so much for that little child, but for the easy certainty of our speculation.

Hope sure takes a beating in the grown-up world.

The U.S. Census says that women still made only 76 cents for every dollar men earned in 2003. More women in leadership could change that, but the White House Project, a group founded to elect more women to office, says we ranked 60th in the world in the proportion of women elected to national legislatures or parliaments in 2003. That’s worse than in 2001, when we ranked 49th.

And then there are those things you can’t quantify, like attitudes.

We all have our stories. There are the subtle moments, when a man introduces himself to the husband and mistakes the wife for a coat rack.

Then there’s the not so subtle. I’ve learned some men can be mighty hostile to those of us who think our opinion matters, and I say that as a woman paid to give hers.

Most men I hear from either agree or disagree with grace. Some men, though, quickly lapse into lewd references to my anatomy or make pornographic threats. Always, my gender is their issue.

I can’t help but wonder, if this is how they talk to a woman they don’t even know, what are they doing to the women who love them?

I mention this only so that women understand there are still those who resent us and our hard-won freedoms. Vigilance is key.

So is solidarity. A retired black schoolteacher once told me that she wished all women would adopt her college sorority’s motto: Carry as You Climb.

What a powerful image: one hand reaching back, the other stretched so high it hurts. Tugging that extra weight might seem like a lot to ask, until you think about how it works the other way, too. Sometimes you find yourself starting to stumble. It’s nice to feel those grateful hands reach up to stop your fall.

Can our young women be anything they want to be?

Defiantly, we insist.

Yes. Oh, yes.