I was born at the end of the Vietnam War, a contentious battle between ideologies: those who wished to enforce our economic and political interests through force versus those who were horrified that men in power threw away the young lives of so many Americans, in order to be right with might.
Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision allowing women autonomy over their reproductive choices was only two months old when I emerged from my mother’s womb. Around the same time, birth control for American women became legal and widely available. After tens of thousands of years of women having little to no control over their own bodies, the generations before me finally put a stake in the ground.
My first role-model and mentor was my mother. A take-no-shit-off-anyone type of woman; I grew up with the visceral understanding women had to fight for our place in society. It wasn’t automatically given, but we could carve out space, if we were strong and determined. I watched her speak out, hold her space, make her presence known, regardless of if it made others angry or uncomfortable. I do the same to this day.
I came of age during Title IX, which supposedly provided girls in the United States with ‘equal’ opportunities in the education system and in athletics. Yet, I was vividly aware of systemic inequities in the conservative high school I attended, both in…
