By Isabelle Hessey
Speaking up to make a difference isn’t always easy to do. Especially not for women. Women deserve a chance. The other night on the news I noticed that there were 7 people on the channel 7 election news coverage panel… and guess how many women there were. Two. Two out of 7 people were women. We need more female voices.
Malala Yousufzai is a great role model. Malala grew up in Pakistan and loved her education. She attended an all-girls school all until the day she noticed that one by one, girls weren’t attending school. She soon discovered the unfair rule that was being applied to education. Girls were being stopped from going to school. She was outraged. She had to discover a way to make things normal again, so she picked up her pencil and shared her story with the world. Once the Taliban (an illegal organization who believed in women having no equal rights) discovered Malala’s outburst of information they made an attempt to silence her by charging onto her school bus and shooting her. She made a full recovery and came back with a new way of raising women’s rights.
Women should always know that even though we don’t get equality and equal rights at the moment doesn’t mean we won’t. If you are a woman reading this and you still believe that you cannot make a difference in women’s rights and equality well then maybe Jessie Street can change your mind. Jessie was just a normal girl who lived in India until she moved to Australia as a young girl. Her great passion for creating change began when she campaigned for women’s sport facilities in university. She then went on to establishing the United Association of Women and went to Parliament House to fight for service women to receive equal pay with men. She started out with just a simple campaign and look how far she got. Now that’s what I call speaking up.
Let’s not forget Mary Jackson. You may recognize her from the movie Hidden Figures where she worked as a rocket scientist. But in real life she wanted to be an engineer which was a job of which only men were entitled to and she was a black woman. So, in order to turn her dream into a reality she strode into court to receive permission to study at an all-white men’s school so that she could pursue her dream of becoming an engineer. That day she walked out of court with a face of pride because the judge had said yes. She had achieved her dream.
Malala Yousufzai, Mary Jackson and Jessie Street are three amazing women who are just like you. You can make difference, and it’s about time we make a change. Take a stand and embrace your inner woman.
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