“When women and girls rise, their communities and their countries rise with them.”
I thought the only appropriate way to begin my column for the year was with an inspirational and socially relevant quote that embodies how I feel about what I intend to write about. This amazing quote is by non-other than former First Lady, Michelle Obama. When I first read the quote, it stopped me in my tracks. It has given me hope in a generally pessimistic time in our community and country – hope that women will continue to gain social, economic, and political equality not only in the United States but also around the world. Not only are women’s issues a hot topic around the country, but even on our campus. The quote has also made me consider that if this is the case – that when women succeed, we all succeed – then why is women’s equality something we must fight for on a daily basis?
For example, if women have not only the right but the encouragement to work, their countries’ economies grow at a much faster rate. So why at a lot of levels of society are there still underlying expectations for women to be stay-at-home mothers? It sure does seem like a priority for the current POTUS to keep the United States economy growing, yet he does so little towards the empowerment of women in the workforce. I think the common values of the “American family” compared to the value Americans hold of “freedom” and “economic growth” to be an interesting contrast.
However, we also should remember how far we have come in the pursuit of equality of the sexes. I will never forget learning in 3rd grade about Susan B. Anthony and the other suffragettes. I was so in shock that less than 100 years ago women did not have the right to vote in this country. Step by step, women have made historic strides towards their advancement, one of which being college attendance. We have gone from a country that had many men-only colleges to a country where roughly 56% of those enrolled in college are women. These kinds of numbers are also beginning to trickle into graduate programs and law school admissions. These kinds of small steps for women are slowly but surely pushing equality in all sectors of life to be the norm. Hopefully, the next steps for equality will include equal representation in Congress as well as other leadership across the United States. Society often focuses how much farther women have to go for full equality, but I prefer to focus on how far women have come and using that as motivation to keep moving forward.
Women have been writing and talking about the women’s movement since before we even had the right to vote, and those women are more brave than I could ever be. One column that specifically made a huge impact on me in American History is Eleanor Roosevelt’s column “My Day” that she wrote while serving as first lady and spoke often about women and minority issues in the United States. However, women have since made many advancements and are in a prime position to make more groundwork than ever before. It is truly “Our Day” to make a change for the future. Women have never had more power to change the world.
Kaylee Sheppard is a junior majoring in American studies and political science. She can be reached at [email protected].
