Warning: This piece contains material about sexual assault that may be upsetting to some readers.
Sexual assault wasn’t a problem on my radar until it happened to me. But two and a half years ago, I ...
As I look back at my first semester of college, I’ve come to realize that I made the perfect decision for me. It’s comforting that after a year of college application hell that I got into and actually...
Universities have a responsibility to protect students from violence, discrimination, harassment, and assault. When something violent happens to students on or off campus, universities have a responsi...
Football seems to be the sport that excludes women the most. In this day in age we have women's leagues for softball, baseball, and the WNBA, but football always had men in the spotlight being cheere...
I’ve always made “New Years Resolutions” and “School Year Resolutions.” Sometimes, “Summer Vacation Resolutions.” The idea of change has always appealed to me, and that includes feeling the need to ch...
The vast majority of us are familiar with the movie Mean Girls (written by the amazing Tina Fey). Although the film has the quintessential embellishments of most chick flicks, it also sheds light on t...
Last weekend I attended a conference at Roger Williams University titled "The ERA in the 21st Century." The conference brought together accomplished scholars, national activists, and twenty-something ...
I am being raised in a Catholic household by parents who have always set very different standards for me than they have for my brother. For example, while my brother was allowed to go out alone at 12,...
I thought the toughest adjustment when it came to starting college would be the workload, or self discipline, or missing my friends and family. I was prepared for those challenges. What I didn’t expec...
The feminist fight is one that the general public tends to sweep under the carpet.
In other words, the feminist movement is often overlooked as a useless fight. Far too many people believe that the w...
Life never passed more slowly than it did when I cried behind the football stands. Like a movie, the crowds cheered while I bowed my head in defeat, the music roared while my smile was muted. Small to...
I wrote before I knew women had to write under pseudonyms to get their books published.
And I rode my bike without knowing in some countries the ban on women doing so has only just been lifted.
I wa...
I recently watched the documentary film "Girl Rising" with my high school (of about 80 students) and subsequently helped to lead a forum to discuss it. The movie artistically illustrates the stories o...
I recently got out for summer break from my local high school, and I really only had one thing that bothered me this year. It wasn’t any sort of drama, nor was it an event. My main source of irritatio...
My senior year of college, two of my roommates and I watched Teen Mom CONSTANTLY. I liked to pretend I wasn’t watching it, but the conversation usually went something like this:
Becka (standing in ...
My name is Michayla Owens. I’m sixteen years old, and I attend Columbia High School in Mississippi. I was fifteen when I was sexually assaulted by two boys at my high school.
The sexual assault took ...
*Trigger warning: This blog post is about intimate partner violence*
Over fall break, my mom made an unexpected visit from California to New York City, where I go to school. She had been called the n...
I go to a public high school, and have recently expressed interest to the administration in starting a school roller derby team. However, I was first met with resistance and then refusal by the author...
Anybody who has ever met me can agree on one important point: I am a pop culture addict, with a list of favorite TV shows and movies a mile long. Some of my all-time heroes are fictional ones and it's...
Today is National Girls & Women in Sports Day, which has people singing the praises of Title IX from soccer fields, softball diamonds, tracks, pools and countless other sporting venues – and for g...
Imagine you’re an honors student at a community college. You’re doing great: you’ve got a merit-based scholarship and you’re enjoying your classes. You’re also pregnant and excited to welcome the new ...
In the midst of last year’s prom frenzy, as I was pulling my car out of the parking lot and waiting in line to leave, one of my friends popped into my car for a chat. He was irate: “Have you heard abo...
Hudson Taylor, a lifelong athlete and three-time NCAA All-American wrestler, is the founder of Athlete Ally, a nonprofit sports resource which, according to its website: "encourages all individuals in...
This past summer, I wrote about street harassment and highlighted my own as well as my friends' experiences concerning this matter. Since then I have learned, grown and have more to say on this matter...
Only 20% of political leaders in the world are women. Women leaders are under-represented in every country, from Nepal, where my organization works, to the United States, where only 17% of Congress is...