Juliana's Story

My passion is gender studies. When I was a child, I had always assumed that everyone was treated equally. It seemed to all make sense: since everyone grew up learning to treat people the way you would like to be treated, why wouldn’t everyone be equal? In high school, I have gained a greater understanding of the world and know that this is not the case. Double standards and comments have caught my attention over the years, which have now inspired me to pursue gender studies, specifically feminism. Equal rights is not talked about enough in my community, so I love to start feminist conversations that make people think twice.

One thing that I would like to gain from this program is to expand my leadership skills. I feel that being around so many female leaders will help me learn to step up as a leader more in my everyday life. I would also like to expand my knowledge on gender studies. One thing I want to focus on is taking more initiative in starting the conversation on equal rights in my community. This may help people around me become more involved, or want to start studying these topics themselves. I want to become a leader in my high school and advocate for human rights. This topic is not widely spoken about in my school, even though I feel it would help to expand people's mindsets and opinions on the most important issues facing our country.