Graphic by Javier Jaen for the Wall Street Journal.
BY: ELIZA KING FREEDMAN, SUMMER 2020 COLLABORATOR AT POWER IN PLACE
A young boy tells his school teacher that he wants to be the President of the United States. That teacher is charmed, and, in the back of his or her mind, he or she believes that maybe he could really do it.
A young girl tells her school teacher that she wants to be the President of the United States. That teacher is charmed, but, in the back of his or her mind, he or she believes that it is truly unlikely and assumes that that young girl will change her mind before graduating elementary school.
Society teaches young boys to aspire to be CEOs, partners at law firms, lead surgeons, and tech pathfinders. And young girls are finally being taught that they can achieve in these same careers. However, for girls it is often not CEOs but employees, not partners but lawyers, not lead surgeons but participants in the field, and not pathfinders but lower-level coders. As females, we are asked to step back. We can be intelligent, we can get the grades in school, but after graduation only a few of us will fight against the male-dominated business world and win. Women make up 50.8 percent of the United States population, earning nearly half of all law and medical degrees handed out each year, however as of November 2018 women made up only 5 percent of CEOs of all Fortune 500 companies [1].
Power in Place represents far more than just a collection of stories. It is an organization that is teaching us, all women and girls, that we deserve to aim higher. We deserve to want to fill the House and the Senate and the White House, and we need to support the women who are paving the way for us right now. The female mind is chemically wired differently than the male mind, and that is not something to be ashamed of or something that should hold us back. We must embrace our womanhood, in whichever form it presents itself within us, and use it to our advantage. We do not have to learn to “be one of the boys” in order to succeed. Women are criticized in the media for their fashion choices, their emotions, and parts of their bodies that they have no control over. Hopefully, these realities will change with time. But in the meantime, it is organizations like Power in Place that will combat the media and the anti-feminist rhetoric that makes us question ourselves.
That young girl is going to be the President of the United States. And we don’t know who she is yet, but we have to believe that any girl we meet could be her. 5 percent of CEOs is not a big enough number. None of the numbers are big enough. And it is my very personal hope that Power in Place, and organizations and movements like it, will give women and young girls the motivation and the option to strive for more.
References
[1] Warner, Judith, Nora Ellmann, and Diana Boesch. "The Women's Leadership Gap." Center for American Progress. Last modified November 20, 2018. Accessed July 24, 2020. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2018/11/20/461273/womens-leadership-gap-2/#:~:text=Women%20are%20just%205%20percent,of%206%20percent%20in%202017.&text=Women%20are%20only%207%20percent,in%20the%20Fortune%20100%20companies.
Eliza King Freedman is a rising sophomore at Middlebury College. She intends to major in International Politics and Economics with a minor in Architectural Studies. In addition to Power in Place, she also works for a horse therapy organization that specializes in the rehabilitation of veterans. She is most passionate about the study of nonproliferation and prison reform.