I noticed something interesting the other day.
I went to a meeting a few weeks ago for a program aimed at encouraging UMass Lowell students to build teams and work on projects that will make a positive difference in their community, their country, and even in another part of the world.
A wonderful opportunity, really, for anyone who is willing to take it. However, as I looked around the room, I was rather surprised and bewildered to find that less than 10 percent of the students in the room were women.
While this article is not primarily a discussion of feminism and gender roles, both topics are very vital to this conversation. Women in the United States have opportunities to be educated and to work. They have the power to make a difference. And certainly many of them know that – this is a huge topic in the 21st century. But if we women have been fighting for the rights to vote, get an education, work, be CEOs, and more, why aren’t we getting more involved in programs that are meant to make a difference?
I’m sure many women at UMass Lowell are proactive and make intentional efforts to get involved with the community and make radical differences. Because we’re students, we get busy with schoolwork and jobs and the rest of our insane lives. But the men have insane lives too, I’m sure. Yet they’re filling the rooms of impact-making programs. At one point in history, this would be because only men had the opportunity to do such things. That is not the case right now. Today, women have the opportunity too. And I didn’t see very many of them that day.
Of course, that was just one day. Who knows, maybe more women want to actually get involved who were unable to go that particular day. And I know there are women all over the world who are inspiring examples of people making a difference, not just for other women, but for anyone in need.
As a female student at UMass Lowell, I do want to make a difference in my college, community – even in the world. I’m not saying this comes easily. I am a quiet person who loves her own space at times and while I am comfortable talking to other people, I struggle at latching onto those leadership roles. But I know that those obstacles can be overcome the more I put myself in situations where I am forced to develop these skills. I know that my gender is not an obstacle here; it may be so later on, but I am currently not prevented from taking up opportunities that will help me make a difference just because I am a woman.
The point is this: Women of UMass Lowell, of the United States, of places where you can get an education and work, where you have the opportunities to become CEOs and leaders – stand up. Not just for yourselves, but for the women in other countries who don’t have your opportunities. For the people who need others to stand up for them. Life is not a competition with men, but when we keep saying that we have rights to certain roles of society that can be accomplished by both men and women, let us fulfill those roles as citizens of the human race.
