This New Magazine Teaches 5-Year-Old Girls How To Be Strong, Confident Women

It's hard being a girl. But many girls don't realize just HOW hard it is until it's too late and they've already internalized all the pressures that women face on a daily basis.

Maybe they've developed an eating disorder; after all, 72 percent of girls aged 10 - 17 feel immense pressure to be beautiful, and 60 percent of girls aged 15 - 17 avoid normal daily activities when they feel bad about how they look. Maybe they're part of the 75 percent of girls interested in engineering who ultimately don't pursue it because they feel they aren't capable (only 11 percent of current practicing engineers are women). Maybe they've stopped speaking their minds altogether, since by adolescence, girls are less likely than boys to act and feel like leaders.

The landscape in which girls are brought up discourages them from reaching their true potential. But Kazoo, a new print magazine catered towards girls ages 5 to 10, aims to change that for the next generation of women.

Founder Erin Bried wants to create a magazine that does not tell girls to look or act a certain way, but instead encourages them to be "smart, strong, fierce, and, above all, true to themselves." The content of the magazine will focus on things like art, technology, nature, science, travel, sports, emotions, and critical thinking. Girls will get to read interviews with inspiring women, learn new recipes and science experiments, laugh at funny comic strips, play word games and more.

All of the content will be created or influenced by prominent, accomplished women. Cartoonist Alison Bechdel, renowned chef Fany Gerson and Cosmochemist, Fulbright Scholar and Guggenheim fellow Meenakshi Wadhwa, Ph.D. have already signed on to participate in what promises to be an incredible first issue.

The magazine is in Kickstarter mode right now, and Bried is asking for $150,000 by April 26. As of today, she has raised almost $18,000. If she is successful, the first issue will be out in July.

If you believe young girls deserve to be raised in a different landscape, one that helps them feel like the amazing women that they are and will one day become, consider donating to this campaign. It's time we cultivate a new generation of women who value themselves not for what they look like, but for who they are on the inside.