Megan MacInnes

My mother is a great woman. She raised me to believe that I could do anything a man could do except maybe pee standing up, which she assured me was not worth the effort. She raised my brother to believe that he could do anything a woman could do except give birth, but he had best make sure he was holding the mother’s hand if he had anything to do with it. My mother started telling me about the feminist movement and the glass ceiling long before I could completely understand what they were. It didn’t seem relevant. It wasn’t that I couldn’t appreciate the history of a fight for human rights, but this is America. This is now. We are equal. In my family, there was never any doubt about whether Mom or Dad was in charge; they were a team. I never thought that I would have to deal with the prejudices my mom warned me existed.

When I was in kindergarten, my teacher told my parents that I was “too bossy.” This was probably true, but my father fired back that if I had been a boy, she would have praised my leadership qualities. At the age of seven, the same amount of little boys and girls want to be President when they grow up, but by the time they reach the age of 15, far fewer young women than young men want to be the Chief Executive. There is nothing in the Constitution today about equal rights regardless of gender. My generation wants to believe that the feminist movement is over. We take equal opportunities for granted, but the fight isn’t over. It has barely begun.

In high schools across the country, it has been clearly shown that the girls are beating the boys. Yet girls are less likely to speak out in class, and outside of academics, most leadership positions are held by men. In the New Hampshire Youth and Government Program I was the only woman out of over 400 students to run for the position of Governor at the state level during my senior year, and I lost. At the National Youth Leadership Forum on National Security, over seventy percent of the participants were men. In my focus group of thirty, I was the only woman to hold an elected position of power in our National Security simulation exercise. I was in the position of President. In over 20 other focus groups, only one other woman was elected President. The United States Senate Youth Program is an incredible program sponsored by the Senate and funded by the Hearst Foundation, which selects two students, male and female, for the additional honor of being the keynote speakers for the closing ceremony. Although nearly every single man in the program tried out for the speech, only 20 or 30 women tried out. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we still need to fight for our place at the table. And too many women are throwing in the towel.

We must send a strong message to our young people: do not be satisfied with the achievements of your mothers and grandmothers. Get angry when media outlets always comment on the clothing choices of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, and yet say nothing about what Barack Obama or Mitt Romney chooses to wear. Fight back when it seems to be acceptable for women to be judged by appearance rather than intelligence. Fight harder when women in leadership are said to be “bitchy” or “intimidating” or “too emotional.” On paper and in the courts we have the right to reach for the same goals as men. But we can’t reach those goals until society respects women in leadership as equals. Achieving that respect begins with relighting the fire of the feminist movement, and recognizing that we are not done yet. 

Megan MacInnes is a first year student at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a ConVal Regional High School graduate from Francestown, New Hampshire. During high school, she participated and held leadership roles in a wide variety of activities, including New Hampshire Youth and Government, theater, and the Peterborough Children’s Choir. During her senior year of high school, she was President of the National Honor Society and was selected as one of New Hampshire’s two delegates to the United States Senate Youth Program. At the University of Pennsylvania, she is a member of Penn Democrats, Dischord A Cappella, and the Kite and Key Service Organization.

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