Name: Lucy O’Keefe
Community/State: CHARTERS TOWERS, Queensland
School: Columba Catholic College
Age/Grade: 15 Years, Year 10
Overcoming the odds – how can we push through barriers to achieve gender equality?
My name is Lucy O’Keefe. I am an educated, privileged young woman, but I am still wanting more… I am very lucky to live in a community where I am given many opportunities to push the boundaries and reach my full potential. Yet, every day I turn on the news and I see the inequality towards women in the world, which made me realize that my fight for equality goes beyond the walls of my bedroom, my school, and my town. It’s a global issue that scares me. How am I supposed to change the world?
Malala, an inspiring advocate for female equality once stated: “We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.” The voices of women everywhere need to be lifted and yelled from the rooftops. And not just Malala’s, Oprah Winfrey’s or Jameela Jamil’s. I’m talking about the voices of women who are yet to be heard; the voices of those who are being held hostage by our patriarchal society.
Women and girls’ voices are too often excluded from global issues and concerns. Due to economic reasons, women in third world countries aren’t allowed to access basic technology; therefore not learning the required skills and the benefits these skills could offer. Positive female role models and images should be presented in not just 1st world countries. These role models need to be spread far and wide, from the communities in Arnhem land to the schools in Indonesia, to the houses in Iran. Nothing is more powerful than seeing yourself reflected in society. How can we expect young women to want more, if they have never seen an example of what ‘more’ is?
And this leads me to my point. The way we push through barriers is through helping women identify their privilege, and then using that privilege to fight for others. We must empower the girls who are lucky enough to have an education so that they recognise this as their superpower and fight the battle for those who are yet to realise their own potential. We must use our privilege, our voice, our knowledge to ignite a flame. We must rally together and realise that our education is our power, our bulldozer, our weapon.