On the 15th of March, 2021, hundreds of thousands of women and allies descended on Australian cities to protest gender inequality and sexual assault. These rallies were spurred on by the sexual assault of Brittany Higgins, a Liberal party staffer, which occurred in Parliament House. Brittany Higgins, speaking at Parliament House, said, “My story was on the front page for the sole reason that it was a painful reminder to women that if it can happen in Parliament House, it can truly happen anywhere.” The grassroots movement, March 4 Justice, found more than 40 rallies registered in its name within a month. Most protests took place in capital cities. However, the focal point was a rally outside Parliament House in Canberra, with an estimated 110,000 people in attendance, many travelling from across the country to give themselves a voice.

Talking with friends, it was evident that there was a feeling of separation between the rallying cries of the capital cities and the small voices, if there were any, in rural areas. A friend told me that “it feels like I’ll have to wait until my twenties when I move to Perth to be able to have a voice.” To be honest, I felt the same way. Tuning in to the news on the 15th of March and watching thousands of women march for what they believed in felt great, but it had a sting to it – like my friends and I were tiny voices, insignificant to the overall movement.

I’m sure everyone has had a ‘Grandpa at the dinner table’ conversation. It’s filled with “You can’t say that” and “That’s not true, what about…” It seems almost impossible to the young mind that someone could have those views. Yet, as easy as it seems to presume that you can’t change their mind, I recently discovered that my grandpa had given one of my uncles a lecture on something I had corrected him on. That’s the key: using your voice, no matter how insignificant you feel it is. We live in an age of increasing interconnection. Social media is how most young people hear about social and political issues in the modern world. It’s easy to find multiple viewpoints on any issue. You no longer trust grandpa’s ramblings or a single newspaper from the corner shop. Instead, you hear about an issue and then google it, exposed to a flood of sources from every viewpoint imaginable. Voices are no longer more powerful when they’re in massive protests; they’re more powerful when shared and shared and shared, over and over again.

When talking with friends about feeling ‘left out’ of significant movements and social changes, I remind them that on every social media page they own, every person they’ve been talking to, and with any way they use their voice, they are spreading a message. Rural women massively drive change in their communities – by getting the message spread over and over and over again. By talking to Grandpa at the family reunion, talking with friends and listening to each other, and spreading a message of hope. It’s worked with so many movements before – civil rights, women’s liberation, black lives matter – if campaigns have worked with little communication and interconnection, imagine what social media and instant messaging can do. Women are growing tired of the roles they have always had to play, and they’re changing the roles. That’s how rural women drive change – by using their voices.