Profugo has been lucky to have a team of very active and involved student interns. Most impressively, all of our interns are women. These young women couple their schoolwork with professional work in an effort to gain valuable experience in the realm of international development. They want to change the world. Every single one of them is passionate about creating a global community that ensures the rights of all. Included in the all are women. Gender inequality is a growing problem that plagues women in every country, developing and developed.
These women of the future wanted to take a moment to reflect on Women’s History Month, and its meaning to them.
Kimberly Dodson:
The Marine Corps is a good ol’ boys club where the permissive swearing, elitist mindset and societal misogyny is amplified and enforced. Is it hard being a female in the military? Yes and no. As a United States Marine, I have come across a metaphoric gender roadblock, where some of my male counterparts won’t see me as an equal. Similar to a developing country, their prenotion of me was formulated due to the gender stereotypes society has embedded in them i.e. woman are weaker than men. I learned that being a female Marine is difficult; as a female you have to work twice as hard to receive only 2/3 of their respect. Although I’m not in a third world country, where I have to be subservient to men, I still combat equality. As a female in the military you have to grow thick skin to survive, you have to learn and adapt quickly.
Rebecca Cook:
The challenges I now face are finding a place to fit all of the stuff I’ve accumulated in my life so far, paying off my student loans, and securing a job. I don’t consider these tasks a hassle because I know with each of them, I have a hearty helping of privilege. My student loans are a result of my government paying for my schooling because they thought it was worthwhile. I am eternally grateful for that fact. When I consider the few women I met in my two months in Northern Ghana, I am reminded of how few of them knew English because not many believed they needed an education, especially their government. I reflect on how I saw so few women because many were confined to their homes to attend to domestic tasks, stifling their voice. I recognize that I have even more of a voice in my political sphere thanks to Bryn Mawr. I hope to use that voice to spread the stories of these women who are not afforded the opportunity to speak for themselves in their country.
Savannah Tryens:
My mom is a teacher, my grandmother was a nurse. I think this is a pretty common occurrence for many families. Up until recently, women have been limited to very traditional careers. It was unusual to see women as CEOs of major companies, as lawyers, as surgeons, as nuclear scientists, etc. In the United States today it is neither unusual nor uncommon. I am thankful for this progress. I am thankful that I can pursue a college degree in virtually any field that I want. Most importantly, I am thankful that my dreams aren’t met with overwhelming barriers, or a defeating sense of hopelessness. Being that it is women’s history month, it is always important to realize how the lingering influence of the past affects both our present and our future. In my future, I hope to be a human rights attorney. I know that this is only possible because of the strong teacher and brilliant nurse that came before me. I would not be who I am today without the lessons they taught me, the confidence they instilled in me, and the opportunities that they worked so hard to give me.
Sheena Gopal:
Across the globe women face different challenges, from basic human needs to figuring ourselves out. Firstly, the majority of the world lives under patriarchal dominance which we have been fighting against together. But beyond that, each individual is different and has their own personal challenges. So beyond our shared fight for human rights, each of us experiences our own struggles. In my own life, I have dealt with the challenge of figuring out my own personal identity. Especially in this globalized media-driven world, I have struggled with my identity in terms of ethnicity, political views, feminism, orientation, etc. Being a four-year student at Bryn Mawr (a women’s college) has even further challenged and pushed my search for an identity. This uniquely unassuming, non-patriarchal community has opened so many new doors for me, and pushed previous boundaries to find what is important to me and what I want in life.
This may seem to be a highly privileged issue, though, as other young women across the globe are facing the supreme challenge of mere survival. Poverty, education, hunger, and the like are some of the challenges that individuals face in developing countries. Up to 250 million adolescent girls live in poverty (girleffect.org) and probably have different priorities from me, and others in the developed world. We all face our own challenges though whether we are in developing regions of India, or middle class areas of America. As women we struggle together, fight together, and hope together for “tomorrows that are better than our yesterdays”.
Susannah Sinclair:
In my daily life, I like to be picky with my food. I love organic, local farming, and try to support businesses interested in sustainable agriculture and pesticide and hormone-free lifestyles. As a young woman getting ready to graduate college, I’ve often struggled with balancing a budget that allows me to pursue my education and pursue my passion of conscious eating. Sometimes, I get swept up in the crowd of conscious consumers and forget that this lifestyle, the privilege of being able to pick and choose what foods to buy and how to eat, is not one that everyone shares. My first taste of life outside my own experience was a trip to the West Indies. Not a resort, but in a small local town on one of the islands. I had never understood before then that food was not something everyone can afford to be picky about. A young man on the street across from the room I stayed in was selling Cokes out of a vending machine, and it was his only source of income. I, who usually abstained from soda and turned up my nose at the chemical, sugar-infused cocktail, realized the lifestyle I so proudly support at home isn’t something available to everyone. In celebrating Women’s History Month, I think it’s most important to remember that support for the lifestyles everyone deserves should come from our own communities, regardless of social divisions like gender.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.