I Am Platform

I am a founding member of Platform because I want to help create a space where young women feel empowered to speak up and change the world around them. Throughout my life, I have been lucky enough to be constantly surrounded by smart, forward-thinking women and have always had many female role models. As a young girl, I always assumed that sexism was a relic of the past. One of my fondest childhood memories was Women We Admire Day, an annual event at my small, all girls’ school where we all chose a woman to research and emulate for a day. On that day, we were athletes and astronauts, politicians and pop stars. We were the first woman “fill-in-the-blanks,” and our accomplishments were celebrated as long-ago milestones. Sure, we hadn’t had a woman president, but we were proof that women had closed the gender gap because women could be anything they wanted to be, right?

It wasn’t until I was in high school that I fully understood how disconnected I was from reality back then. Although it’s discouraging to acknowledge and fully grasp how much work we have to do to achieve gender equality, I know we can make meaningful progress if we show young women how powerful they can be. The world can be a scary place for any young person, but can be particularly daunting for young women. It’s exhausting to have to worry about being judged against superficial, impossible beauty standards on top of facing glass ceilings in the professional sphere. However, I know that if you can prove to girls that their lives matters and that their voices can make a difference, we are all better served. I hope that through Platform, we can provide women with the tools to shatter the glass ceilings that still exist so that someday soon, our daughters can celebrate the women they admire as if sexism is truly a relic of the past.