By Chloe Lee

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A Lead 360 Project

Every young girl should be able to grow up with a diverse set of role models, empowering them to understand that they can do anything.

From the earliest that I can remember, I have always looked up to the women in my family. Growing up as an only child in a household of two strong generations of Korean women, my halmeoni and mom were the people I looked up to the most and arguably the ones who have shaped multiple aspects of my identity, from morals to my perception of the world. To this day, whenever I am met with hardship I can immediately still hear them recounting their stories. Halmeoni came from a family of ten siblings, and being one of the youngest she was forced with an unfortunate reality: not going to college and forced into an arranged marriage. Running so others could walk, she underwent blood, sweat, and tears to support my mom as a single mother. As a result, my mom went through the competitive South Korean schooling system, riding trains at the crack of dawn, studying 24/7 with the strict expectation to do better than her peers. And she did. Being first in her class, she went on to an all-girls college studying pharmacy and then earned a scholarship to MIT to study biological sciences for graduate school, continuously breaking the apparent stereotypes of women in STEM. 

Raised in such a powerful and hardworking family of strong women, I have had the very fortunate experience of continuous support, resources, and encouragement. For instance, my mom has emphasized the power of education, knowledge, and words my entire life. One day she bought a book titled, “What Would She do? 25 True stories of Trailblazing Rebel Women.” Little did I know, that book would become my life. Full of inspiring tales of diverse women breaking the status quo, my eight year old found myself captivated by all the resilience and determination these women had undergone. Regardless of the lack of recognition of women’s accomplishments or what society said, the stories of women in STEM to artists, to entrepreneurs, to pioneers each led me to realize one very important understanding: women had the potential and capability to do anything. 

Flash forward to now. As a motivated junior in high school extremely interested in history, intersectional feminism, and breaking gender stereotypes, I have learned a harsh reality: a majority of young girls do not have the opportunities to see the accomplishments of women in history, limited to the contributions of men in society from history books. Not once in my education have I ever learned about any of the 25 women in a history textbook, with exception that might be Amelia Earhart or Cleopatra. I’m still shocked how the world doesn’t know the story of Murasaki Shikibu, the author of the world’s first novel or Junko Tabei, the first woman to climb Mount everest. When I asked my friends if they knew any of these women, it was unfortunately no surprise they had no clue. After all, according to award-winning historian, author and broadcaster Dr. Bethany Hughes, women “only occupy around 0.5% of recorded history”. At first, I was immediately startled and only fueled my passion to believe that it is imperative for this learning to be implemented in our education. In addition, upon discussion with my mentor, we shared an experience that shouldn’t be our reality: we’ve seen numerous videos where when people on the street were asked to name an athlete, not a single interviewee regardless of gender could name a female athlete, and that is my concern. How is there such a lack of knowledge and recognition of women’s contributions, especially in our education? It is time we address this disparity in the representation of women in history and challenge this status-quo of male-centric historic narratives. 

I have had the fortunate exposure to see the accomplishments of diverse women around the world and their contributions to society, however, it is clear that many others do not. I believe there are so many young girls and women in today’s world limited to the stories of textbooks unaware of accomplishments women have made in all sectors: stem, politics, business, art, and more. In 2022, I found an amazing opportunity to join a non-profit organization that advocates to end this disparity called ifeminist. As an organization that strives to empower students to conduct their own research on underrepresented women in history, I was able to write six research articles on diverse women and change the narrative regarding women’s contributions in society. Throughout the process, I was surprised at how much I learned and the really impactful contributions each of the women made, only fueling my passion more for their stories to be heard. I was hopeful that this was an initiative that would help solve this problem. 

However, the organization has not been active, so now I want to take the opportunity to initiate change and make these resources more accessible to young girls who might not be able to understand or read in depth research articles on these women. It is also important that we continue to hold conversations about female representation and leadership, which is why I want to potentially start a podcast to create this change. Every young girl should be able to grow up with exposure to a diverse set of role models, empowering them to understand that they are able to do anything. By connecting them to see narratives of successful women in various fields, we can encourage the belief that they too can make history. I am grateful that I was exposed to such influential stories from the women before me, however young girls should have the same experience to learn about these stories in their history classes and hear HER story. 

Process

The process included me utilizing the different brainstorming sessions the Lead 360 provided me with, specifically finding a topic that meant something to me, coming up with tangible solutions, and more. I thought about my childhood experience with this issue and why it meant something to me. As an advocate for other various social causes, I put my words to paper to explain the problem clearly.