Anyone who knows me now would think that there was never a time where I wasn’t a feminist. You would look at my social media or the many shirts about empowering women in my closet and think that my entire life must have been full independent, strong women. However, that was definitely not the case.
For the first 10 years of my life, my dad was a preacher at a baptist church in a small Texas town, so my entire family was very traditional and conservative. I was not allowed to attend public school. Instead, I went to a small private school through the church my dad started. I was not allowed to wear pants outside of the house, and I was never allowed to wear shorts that went above the knee. I still remember the Six Flags trip I took when I was 8 or 9 where I got to wear shorts outside for the first time ever. More importantly, I never spent any time around strong, independent women who encouraged me to be more than a wife and mother when I grew up. In fact, for my third grade career day at my private school, I was a housewife. I wore a dress and an apron, pockets filled with cleaning supplies, and carried a baby doll around because that was all I was encouraged to be. From the day I was born, I was expected to get married at 18, have children, and spend my entire life being nothing more than someone’s wife and someone’s mother.
Fortunately, this all started changing when I was 10. After my parents divorced, my mom was forced to become the head of the household. While this was something she ever expected or particularly wanted to be, she quickly became my role model. This was the first time I had ever seen a woman not be primarily dependent on a man, and it showed me that women can be strong on their own. The way she brushed herself off and took charge when she had to was something I had never seen a woman do. However, this did not rub off on me immediately. Despite watching my mom be a complete badass, I was still quiet and failed to stand up for myself in most situations.
Then, when I was in my senior year of high school, I fell in love with politics. This was during the 2016 election, the first time a woman won the presidential nomination for a major party, and I fell in love with the idea that a woman would be representing me in the highest political office in the world. Her campaign was the first time I had seen a woman be so outspoken and powerful, and, suddenly, I wanted to be like that too. For the first time in my life, I wanted to be more than the quiet girl who sat in the back of the class. I wanted to be strong and independent. I wanted to be able to stand in front of crowds and speak up for what I believed in. I wanted to say what was on my mind and not be overlooked. Most of all, I wanted to say that being a woman did not make me weak.
Hillary Clinton losing the election didn’t change any of this for me. In fact, it did the exact opposite. I stopped just wanting to be strong and became strong. Because I realized that just wanting to be strong, independent, or outspoken isn’t enough. We have to force ourselves to be these things, and we have to make people listen to us. In 2016, American decided not to let women have a seat at the table, but I decided that I would sit on top of the damn table if I had to. I decided that other people don’t get to use my gender to decide who I should be.
Now, as a junior in college, I’m studying political science and getting ready to apply to law schools. I’m also a part of a wonderful organization of women that empower and support each other everyday. My parents have accepted the fact that I’m a strong woman, and support me in everything I do. And maybe one day I will be a wife and a mother like my parents expected me to in the beginning, but I’ll also be more than that. I’m working toward my degree so that I can run for office someday and be a role model for young women just like my mother and Hillary Clinton were for me.