Talking to young women, seeing firsthand how so many of them feel empowered and with a desire to be heard and get involved. I want to help lift women's voices. And I realize, in doing that, I need to use my own.
Do the women get to talk around here? - A question every woman asks herself every day.
Some of us lose and some of us win; what’s important is that we are telling our stories and standing up for ourselves and for each other. Only if we are willing to speak up, we are able to change the stereotypes. People expect me to be a certain way and I show up another way. I am extroverted and loud than many women I know, but I'm perceived as being unconventional because I'm not the meek Hello lady kind as they expect. Looking around, you don’t see a lot of women role models. If I can inspire somebody to step up and do what they want to do, that is awesome to me.
Today’s business in objectify women is frightening. It is the deep end of a pool where I cannot swim. The women I know, myself included, are done, though, playing the credentials game. We are learning that the more we open our mind and mouths, the more we become a choir. And the more we are a choir; the more the tune is forced to change. Women do not get to have a side. They get to have an interrogation. Too often, they are questioned mercilessly about whether their side is legitimate.
Every day, women across consider the risks. That is our day job and our night shift. We have a diploma in risk consideration. Consider that jeans. Consider that skirt. Consider questioning your job. Consider what your daughter will think of you. Consider what your mother will think of what your relatives or the society will think of you. Consider how it will be twisted and used against you in a people’s view. Consider whether you did, perhaps, really ask for it. Consider your weight. Consider your color. Consider dieting. Consider agelessness. Consider silence.
When people turn out for hope and help, I have a responsible seat at the table, bringing more diversity to the people, representing those members in our communities who have always been underrepresented. The most exciting thing for me knows that when I meet young girls, they might be thinking: 'Well, if she can do it, I can do it, too.' That's what this is about for me. It's about opening that door wider, making sure that I'm not the only one able to pass through it, and getting to blaze a trail so somebody after me can take it much further. There's no limit for girls to really move forward and achieve whatever they set their minds to. It's more important than ever, right now. I have realized that volunteering to help the needed is the key to reach out people.
That's what really gets me excited: solving problems in the community, helping my state and my neighbors, fighting for those who are challenged and who need voices and people willing to stand up for them. That's where I've always worked, particularly in domestic violence prevention, social justice and addiction prevention, fighting poverty.
Women are integral to the process as they have suffered the most. Men, who have always dominated on the front, leave it for the women to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of war. But women, who have a basic instinct towards peace, have never been given a formal place in the peace process. Where is the women participation in building bridges of communication and cultural exchange?
We are our own worst enemies. We chose to forget the core of our religion which profoundly advocates gender empowerment. The best weapon to finish a community other than by lynching and torture was to show them as gross violators of women’s rights.
Keeping up with your own identity and the society we live is very important. In trying to learn about the society, one cannot forget their own identity; as we are the integrated part of the society.
The milestone is particularly clear. Its better we prefer to focus on our work, proposals and values. The need for a more “whole of government” approach to community policing: – including security –Let’s expand the meaning of security to mean things like quality healthcare and access to education.
I often felt like it needs to be a more integrated approach and a broader approach; which is lacking. It’s not OK, but let us built off of it as well. This desire for the government to do more, to provide more, is part of what makes us as the progressive citizen.
I think that people are going to continue to demand change, echoing together as people want elected leaders to fight for progressive values. I needed to be a voice. I wanted to understand how these decisions were made, how these things came together. “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
My goal is not to educate all of these people on the details of my perception. Instead, I hope to slowly change their ideas about themselves and relating themselves with the society they live. My identity is who I am, but it’s not who I represent, or how I represent, but it also means that I’m helping change, or at least get people to adjust, their idea of what the face of a strong women looks like.