“An empowered woman is powerful beyond measure, and beautiful beyond description.”

If you don’t know what it is to live in a rural town let me describe it to you. You know everyone on your street, in your town. You bump into family and friends in the supermarket. You know the farmers, what people do for work, everyone in your school. And it is beautiful. This unity within a small community. But, this is a tenuous beauty, one that is fragile. Perhaps being isolated from bigger cities is a challenge. Authority and power are usually run by men, where women find it hard to speak up, or gain a position of power within a small community. People want security. Women can bring that just as much as men.

Language. Voices. They allow us to experience the wonders of the world, new opinions altering who we are, and reminding us of heated passion on a subject we believe in. The absence of women’s voices is prevalent in rural communities and we need to change that by taking a risk.

You would think the smaller the community, the easier it is to be heard, to be understood, but you’d be wrong. In our school we have two male school captains. Two men in power. And yet who are the ones who do the work? Women. We are behind the scenes, while the men are the face. Do we get the credit for our ideas, our opinions, our positive changes to our school? No. The men do. The ones who are at the front of the leadership team. These small things, that may seem insignificant to most, are the reason why women, young girls, feel as though we cannot speak up for what we believe in. Where is the equity in this? Speaking openly against this imbalance can threaten our social acceptance. How is it accepted, in this day and age, that we could leave quotas out of the captain job in a country town?

We are not feeble. We will assert ourselves. We will be the driving forces within our communities.

In recent interview with a young gay male activist, he discussed that when he was young he was pressured into concealing his sexuality because the negative perceptions of him. He also mentioned that part of this reticence was the lack of positive role models: gay boys were not “out” and secure. This can also be the case for actively speaking out against the status quo for women. The strong leaders are not out there, and when they do assert their authority they can be shunned. This is why women, especially the younger generation, find it so hard to speak up.

I would like to propose how we can make this change, how we can stand up for ourselves, and make our voices heard. As Alice Walker explored, “the most common way people give up power is by thinking they don’t have any.” We each have a voice, opinions we want to share with the world, ideas we need to discuss. We, as women, have the capacity to escape the normal, restrictive environment in which we may live, and have the strength and resilience to force our voices to be heard.

Talk to others, bring the issues you have, to life. There are young, inspired women, and non-binary people all around the world, trying to have their voices heard. Let’s band together and speak up. Create campaigns. Talk with the locals in your town. Ask them what changes they would like to see. Be the individuals to drive the change that needs to be seen in rural towns, because if we don’t, then who will?