When I sat down to write this speech, it began like all the papers that we have written in the past four years, with a blank page. There was the slight apprehension that comes with every new beginning. I thought, maybe I should start with a really great quote to inspire you all about going out into the real world. Ghandi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
This sounded a little too overused to me, so I thought I should start with a joke. Get everyone laughing and relaxed. I thought of all the jokes I had learned in the past four years. Every one I could think of was R-rated or worse, and I decided that every joke I knew was a little too embarrassing to tell in front of all of you.
I went through draft after draft trying to find something that would leave a lasting impression on our class. At this same time, I was researching my thesis and I came across a story about the grandfather of Indian environmental activist, author, and physicist Dr. Vandana Shiva. Her grandfather died in the 1950s while on hunger strike protesting India ‘s reluctance to build a school for the education of young women in his local community. Shiva stated with pride that her grandfather sacrificed his life for the education of women. I finally realized that what I wanted to convey to all of you in this speech was how amazing it is for us all to be sitting here today.
As a history major, I have studied moments in time when female students had to fight to be included in higher education, and one has to only read the news to find examples of women who are still trying to fight for their education today. Many of our grandmothers were born into a world where women could not legally vote, and many of our mothers remember a time before most women were allowed in medicine, law, or business. Even today, women are fighting to be included in the fields of math and science. As I thought more about this subject, I realized how fortunate we all are to be attending a college where both faculty and staff are devoted to the education of young women in any field they choose.
The education of women may be considered normal to many of us, but it was not long ago that women in the United States had to fight for inclusion in education, the workplace, and for the right to vote. The list of examples of women includes the leaders of the women’s rights movement Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Our founder, Ellen Browning Scripps, is another example of a woman dedicated to providing the investment to create a college solely dedicated to the instruction of female students .
These women dedicated their time, money, and energy to ensuring that future generations of women were allowed to attain higher education and the opportunity to vote. Betty Freidan wrote in the Feminine Mystique that this struggle was “an act of rebellion, a violent denial of the identity of women as it was then defined. It was the need for a new identity that led those passionate feminists to forge new trails for women. Some of those trails were unexpectedly rough, some were dead ends, and some may have been false, but the need for women to find new trails was real.”
Many of us may be able to find examples of women fighting for higher education in our own families and some of us are the first women in our family to graduate from college. My own mother went to school to become an English teacher because it was one of the few accepted professions for women during the early 1960s. She hated it. Not that being a teacher isn’t honorable; I myself am looking into teaching. But my mother is terrified of public speaking. She decided to go back to school when women were being accepted into medical and dental schools due to affirmative action. There were 14 women in the professional school she attended and over 500 men. She and the 13 other women were harassed and told in not so subtle terms that they were not welcome there. One instructor actually asked my mother, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” This was a little over 30 years ago.
What I want all of us to realize is that we are the result of the struggle for women’s education. We are the generation that our grandparents and parents fought to create. Women are outnumbering men in college enrollment across the United States . But there are still battles to be won. Women are paid 25% less than men on average in the American workplace. In the year 2000, nearly two-thirds of an estimated 875 million adults who were illiterate were women.
Brave women are fighting for education in their own countries around the world. Mukhtar Mai is an example of one of these women. In 2002, she was gang raped in Pakistan . Instead of committing suicide or going into hiding, she charged her rapists in court and won. With the money she received in compensation she built her community’s first two schools. Mai fights for women’s rights and education for all children; she stated: “Education can change people through awareness of their rights and duties as well. We must improve the minds of both the boys and the girls if we’re to improve women’s rights.”
By attending this college we have all grown to appreciate the importance of women’s education. We were allowed to choose our own journey and once we walk past these trees we begin a new life, carried by those who have walked down this path before us.
So now I’m at the end of this speech, and just as I did not know how to begin, I am unsure of how to end. I searched for quotes of people wiser than myself and I found a quote from someone we have all known since childhood. Dr. Seuss wrote:
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You’re on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the [one] who’ll decide where to go.
With that quote in mind, congratulations to the Scripps Class of 2005; take advantage of the path that has been laid before you and go anywhere you want to go.