I grew up in Sussex, Wisconsin, a very small town surrounded by farm fields on every side. At my yearly visit to volunteer at the State Fair, I was told by “actual farmers” from way up North where actually nothing happens and you need to drive three hours to get to a Walmart, that I wasn’t an actual small town girl; but after coming out here to Denver, I don’t think that’s really true. Sussex was big enough to have a Walgreens and an emergency care nearby, but that was about it. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go and no new ideas. I never really loved living somewhere where you couldn’t even get a pizza delivered, but I didn’t really realize how intellectually stifled and what underlying themes of sexism existed there until I moved out here.

Growing up, there were two schools of thought. One, you were a die-hard Republican who took that stance because that’s how your father felt and how your grandfather felt and great-grandfather felt. You were loud and brash and, honestly, pretty uneducated about the important issues. You simply took a dogmatic stance and shouted it until your pocketbook and broad shoulders intimidated your opponent into backing down. Two, you were a Democrat, and you brought that fact up with every conversation you struck up. You personally assaulted the character of any person who might disagree with you until your opponent felt so badly about themselves that they shut up. Oh, and you were always, always male.

All the girls around me always made a big deal about “hating politics.” Not knowing how important knowing about the issues was to a young adult, I agreed with them, and never looked into educating myself on current events or problems. I stayed in my little bubble, and told myself that I was simply bad at politics, because honestly, to me, politics was screaming at each other until someone backed down and never having a mutually respectful conversation about beliefs and convictions. I really don’t like confrontation, and when the only person who was going to talk to me about the issues was a gigantic six foot four football player who insisted on attacking who I was as a person and my background and could probably benchpress me without breaking a sweat, I wasn’t going to attempt any exploration of my beliefs through discussion.

And then I moved across the country and got a job in local politics because it paid the best. Turns out, I’m actually really good at talking about politics and conveying the message of candidates in a positive light. In fact, my boss tells me every other week that I should look into becoming a PR director. I know how I feel entirely on most concrete issues, and I know how to have an intelligent and stimulating discussion about the problems in our world that should be talked about. What sparked the change? The guys who I hang out with now respect what I have to say and listen, even if they don’t necessarily agree with my views entirely. If I bring up politics, they light up a little. My whole mindset on talking about the things I cared about changed because someone would have a respectful and scintillating conversation with me. My words were important, even though I’m a woman, which was not what I experienced back in Wisconsin.

The sad thing is that most girls from my small town didn’t move away. They went to schools 20 minutes away from their parents' houses. The guys still think that the best way to win a political debate is to yell the loudest, and honestly, that mindset is what got this country into the mess that is this presidential debate. Having experienced what it’s like to be shut down when I spoke up about things, it makes it that much more important that here at this college, I’m listened to, and I really treasure that. I wish everyone could experience that.