The Art of The Op-Ed

We Still Discriminate Against Women: We Just Don’t Realize It

Amy Kim — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

My mother often likes to tell stories around the dinner table, her favorites being “funny” Facebook posts shared at work or the occasional run-ins with old friends at the supermarket. Sometimes, though, they’re much more serious. I remember one night, she came home frustrated after a situation had erupted at work.

A coworker, who happened to be the only other woman in the office, had asked around for salaries, and in a brief moment of surprise and confusion, her male coworker of the same position had responded. As expected, his wage was much higher, an inevitable truth that is not uncommon in workplaces in America and around the world. I asked my mother if it was the same for her, if she too was affected by this ever-present issue. She simply nodded, and I began to realize how this system of gender discrimination was taking its toll on my own family.

This isn’t just a Democratic issue; it affects every woman who swipes her time card early in the morning and returns home exhausted at the fall of night. Gender discrimination is not about political affiliation. It’s an issue of ignorance that continues to plague our workplaces. It’s a reality that isn’t changing anytime soon if we continue to sit still and allow a billionaire television star to decide the future of the working class.

It’s obvious that something needs to change. But in this environment, it’s impossible to speak up without repercussions. We risk our jobs, our relationships, our livelihoods. It’s a paradox: the ones who have never been affected by the issue are somehow at the front of the movement, and the women experiencing daily discrimination don’t feel empowered to speak up. Our society is full of empty voices from celebrity “advocates” and silenced cries of the oppressed.

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The history of the gender pay gap dates far back to the introduction of women to the workspace. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 was the first federal declaration stating that women and men must be paid equally by employers for positions that require the same level of expertise and responsibility. Back then, women earned 59 cents to the dollar.

It seems like we’ve come so far since 1963. With ever-increasing awareness of female empowerment and the #MeToo Movement, we’d think that gender discrimination is simply an issue of the past. But while we’re making kitchen-cleaning robots and finding new ways to heat up our frozen pizzas, we’re still failing to realize the ongoing oppression of women.

In 2018, women earned 85 cents to the dollar. It took us 55 years to earn an extra 26 cents on our salaries. We celebrate these milestones as we gradually narrow the wage gap, but our slow “progress” begs the question: How far have we really come?

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On April 4, 2017, Ivanka Trump tweeted out the hashtag #EqualPayDay with a link to an article claiming that the gender pay gap could disappear by the year 2143. In 2017, that was 126 years into the future; today, that’s 124 years into the future—124 years too many. If our government stays the way it is, it’ll be impossible for me to see a day when I can bring home the same paycheck as my male counterparts. It’s ridiculous that politicians even celebrate Equal Pay Day, a “holiday” meant to celebrate and bring awareness to the “narrowing” wage gap. Would this strange day even exist if we treated women as equals from the beginning?

Turns out, this supposed act of “advocacy” was just a pity tweet. That same year, Ivanka Trump made $82 million from various stocks and businesses. The woman “advocating” for equal pay is the daughter of the man who widened the pay gap in the White House by three times. The woman in the White House has never experienced wage inequality, nor will she ever due to her status.

I doubt she noticed, but under the headline of the article that Ivanka Trump shared is the caption, “Pay gaps are closing for white females, but not at the same rate for women of color.” The hypocrisy of the situation is very real; the people “advocating” for our rights are the same ones who refuse to use their political power and influence for good.

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The 2019 U.S. women’s national soccer team has recently made waves in their fight for gender wage equality, marking a new stepping stone in the global fight. A lawsuit made its way to the U.S. Soccer Federation, eventually winning its battle and securing equal pay for the female players right before the final victory of the World Cup.

This story made national headlines as the issue of the gender wage gap resurfaced, becoming a major topic of conversation once again. With leaders rising up every day to join the race to the White House, we hear new viewpoints almost every day on this issue. Most of them say the same—that our system needs to change—from Pete Buttigieg suggesting wage transparency to Kamala Harris’s plan to require data reports from employers by law.

Studies even show the benefit of closing the gender wage gap, for both the employer and the employee. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that just by paying women as much as men for the same positions, the poverty rate drops by 50%. It would also bring in an additional annual $513 billion in income to the American economy. The GDP would increase by 5% with more women entering the workplace, and employers would have a larger pool of applicants, bringing in more qualified candidates to take positions.

All signs point to yes—we need change, we need equality. We’re not stuck in an age when our most pressing issue is where we’ll find plants to gather while the men go hunting. Women have bills to pay, families to support, and requirements to live—the same needs and responsibilities that men have, too. We’re no different; we’re human and equal. We can’t sit still as we listen to celebrities in a world of glamour while we ignore the voices of our neighbors crying out for change.

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When I asked my mother why she didn’t speak up about the wage inequality, she simply answered, “I don’t want to lose my job.” She’s seen all of this before: the discrimination, harassment, and unfair rules that she’s forced to follow. And yet, each time, she’s learned that staying quiet is the safest option.

It’s a terrifying reality for women around the globe: the ultimate decision between justice and losing everything. It’s a decision that we shouldn’t have to make, one that future generations should never have to even contemplate. The answer is simple: bring justice for women by treating us like the individuals we are. The only thing we can do is continue to speak out until our voices begin to spark progress—and fast.

Keywords: gender, wage, inequality, pay gap, work

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

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* Amy Kim is a student at McIntosh High School in Atlanta, Georgia. She writes for local newspapers and magazines in her spare time and is also involved in her school’s literary magazine. Her interests lie in writing, film, and music, and she hopes to pursue a future in a creative field.

It’s Time to End Environmental Apathy

Alexandra Anderson — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

We are in a crisis of our own making. The planet is warming, climates are changing, and people are suffering. Yet, as the temperatures rise, so does the lack of accountability. I’ve encountered on social media, as well as among the younger generations, the attitude that “I don’t have to change; it’s not going to matter anyway.”

As we begin to face this reality, a debate has started to splinter the message of climate activists. There are those who are adamant that corporate regulation is the only pathway towards a habitable planet, and that the individual approach steals relevance and urgency from the corporate critique. It’s critical to realize, though, that the Earth is facing its most pressing challenge yet.

The 2019 UN climate report shows that the past eight years were the warmest in history. We are hurtling past the Paris Agreement’s goal of a 1.5 degrees Celsius rise by 2040. Oceans are acidifying at an alarming rate. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch currently measures an estimated 1.6 million square kilometers, and is comprised of plastic bags, bottles, straws, and countless other items that are thrown away on a daily basis. Its 80,000 ton mass is a direct result of environmental indifference, born out of avoidable waste, the result of generations of passivity.

We are all faced with a terrifying challenge, and it would be reckless to not take every possible measure to quell the storm haunting our horizon.

A multi-pronged approach, through not only large-scale regulation but also small-scale change, is our only hope. Our individual responsibilities, rotted by pessimism and swept out of sight by society, may seem inconsequential, but they add up. It’s all our planet, and all our home. It’s our duty as citizens of planet Earth to take the necessary initiative, and to not dismiss the gravity of grassroots action.

It’s important to define the scope of action we are able to take, as no one is expected to abandon the necessities of daily life, and many environmentally friendly options are out of reach due to extenuating factors such as economic resources and availability. We live in a consumerist, carbon-centered world. Whatever we can do, such as limiting the number of plastic bags we contribute to landfills, starting a compost to help eliminate food waste, or being conscious about our heating and air-conditioning use, is what we must do.

March, lobby, and write your representatives for emission standards. They are a key, and detrimental cause to the crisis we are now immersed in. Boycott and protest, I’ll be standing right next to you. What’s crucial towards developing a productive environmental action plan is to recognize the importance of balance. Protest, and choose paper. Vote out coal lobbyists, and take public transit to work.

Growing up in Vermont, I was taught how to respect the forests before I learned to read. Our second grade curriculum was devoted to the natural organisms of the lake, where we would swim on hot summer days. I was raised with a compost in every café, and with gardens outside my classroom doors. Yet, as we grew, the environmental apathy did too. The same kids who raced through wooded trails in elementary school grew cynical about our shared future, adopting a “we’re all gonna die anyways, I’m getting McDonalds” outlook on life.

As I sit on the precipice of adulthood, I see a future far more grim than the one that faced generations of seventeen-year-olds before me. Oceans are engulfing coastlines, storms are wreaking havoc on communities globally. Hurricanes are growing increasingly frequent, and increasingly brutal. Holes are being poked in our atmosphere, and species are slowing vanishing into the void of “extinct.” I understand the pessimism, and feel the clouds that now obscure the future.

It’s vital, however, to understand the importance of persisting. It’s effortless to take the easy way out, give up and accept catastrophe. It’s scary, but simple.

Holding onto hope is much more complicated. In order to nurture this sliver of possibility, we must not succumb to pessimism. If you’re worried about methane gas puncturing the ozone, stop eating red meat, and go from there. There are steps we can take as individuals to assist in the process of climate cleanup, ways to subvert the “I care about the environment, but…” mindset. Do what you can, and create the change we need.

In short, use reusable bags. Choose paper over plastic. If you can, quit plastic straws. Recycle your bottles and compost your food. Small steps, if adopted by everyone, can limit the plastic choking our wildlife and polluting our waters, leading to far-reaching and noticeable change.

Our environment is at a critical juncture in history. The climate crisis is the single most expansive and omnipresent challenge that faces us in the next few decades. Without the help of everyone, from grassroots operations in towns and cities, to mass protests and global environmental change, the future will continue to grow more grim. Our mission, as citizens of the planet earth, is to take responsibility, and to take action.

Keywords: Environmentalism, Climate Change, Activism

Image Source: Public Domain Files

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* Lexi Anderson is a student at Champlain Valley Union Highschool in Hinesburg, Vermont. She is an editor and a staff writer for the Champlain Valley Chronicle, as well as a contributor to the Young Writers Project of Vermont. Her passions include the environment, human rights, and political theory, which often inform and shape her writing. She is excited to continue to share her work!

South Korea: More than Just the "Beauty-Obsessed" Capital of the World

Theodora Yoon — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

“Sweep away the pillars of this once patriarchal society.” “South Korea loves plastic surgery and makeup.” “… deeply patriarchal culture …” These were some phrases I recently encountered when reading BBC and New York Times articles covering a recent feminist movement boiling in South Korea: The Anti-Corset Movement, named to symbolize Korean women fighting to break free of a misogynstic society.

As a young Korean-American woman, I was excited to hear about a feminist movement starting in Korea—girl power was spreading across the globe. But the information I found within the articles I read left me angered at a culture, rather than empowered by a new female force.

What I found almost always started with an emphasis on Koreans’ love of plastic surgery and makeup and their obsession with beauty and pretty faces, and ended by blaming their current patriarchal society on this supposedly “beauty-obsessed” culture.

But when I would talk about this topic with my mom, a graduate of UCLA with a degree in East Asian studies, she’d point out some flaws in this portrayal of Korean culture.

Yes, South Korea is known to be a place where fitting rigid beauty standards is vital to thrive in society. Women are expected to act and look “feminine”—leading to the pressures of wearing heavy makeup and undergoing plastic surgery. Often, people will mistake this as Koreans, specifically Korean women, being too superficial and too concerned about their outward appearances. What many fail to realize, however, is that their livelihood can rely on such factors.

South Korea is a highly educated country, consisting of both men and women who are equally qualified for a limited number of jobs. However, men are often favored over women in this competitive job market, forcing women to rely on beauty as a determining factor in separating them from other job applicants.

Consequently, the expectation instilled upon women to fit this societal mold has fed, and justified, the idea of male supremacy, thus allowing one of the largest gender wage gaps in the world to go unchallenged and causing sexual misconduct against women to proliferate. This is how modern South Korean society has been functioning, leading to the common perception in western cultures that this is how South Korea has always functioned.

Contrary to popular belief, however, Korea was not always a patriarchy, nor was it always misogynistic. Before the Yi dynasty and the rise of Neo-Confucianism, Korea was largely a matriarchal society where inheritances were passed on from mothers to daughters and husbands moved into the homes of their wives’ families.

In fact, modern Korea almost seemed to be circling back to these roots when, in February of 2013, Park Geun-Hye was elected as South Korea’s first woman president—an event yet to take place in the United States. However, her subsequent charges of bribery, abuse of power, and her lack of action following the tragic Sewol Ferry drowning in 2014 ultimately cost her her presidency; she was impeached in March of 2017. Her impeachment was an event I followed on MBC News, a Korean news channel I’d sometimes watch with my parents and grandparents.

“That woman is no good,” my grandfather would say to me, pointing his finger at her as if he were one of the thousands of protestors that flooded the screen.

I’d then flip the channel to CNN , only to find an almost parallel story. But instead of Park Geun-Hye’s face plaguing protest posters, it was the face of popular film mogul Harvey Weinstein next to the words “#MeToo.”

In 2017, the #MeToo Movement started after a flood of sexual misconduct allegations against Weinstein shook America to its core. The movement unfolded within the same year of Park Geun-Hye’s impeachment, and around the same time I started seeing dolled-up faces of Korean pop singers plastered on magazine covers at my local Barnes and Noble.

I was living in a strange new world. Coming from a small, predominantly Caucasian town in New Jersey, I have grown up with the assumption that South Korea was unfamiliar or unknown to non-Asian Americans. So when I heard Jimmy Fallon’s familiar voice merge into the exciting sound of Korean pop music from my downstairs TV room earlier this year, I was both shocked and excited. South Korea was now on the global stage.

As Korean pop culture began to cross over into America’s mainstream, Korean society similarly took note on what was happening in America. Rather than pop culture, however, they looked to the feminist rise in America. #MeToo didn’t just awaken Americans from their political slumber: it also sparked the Anti-Corset Movement in Korea. A movement lead by strong women with bare faces and short hair; a movement to say that women should no longer have to live in fear of men.

Unfortunately, Anti-Corset has been off to a rocky and relatively stagnant start. This is largely because discussing issues such as sexual misconduct is taboo in South Korea, and the association with feminism is stigmatized—a stigma amplified after Park Geun-Hye’s impeachment.

But what I am frustrated with is not the seemingly static start to feminism in Korea; radical change always starts slow. What I am frustrated by are the articles, often by American writers, which superficially label South Korea as a beauty-obsessed nation, or blame Korea’s current political climate on a “deeply-rooted” cultural problem, without knowing the culture in its entirety or addressing why misogyny may still exist. Korea’s long-lasting matriarchy before the rise of Neo-Confucianism, Park Geun-Hye’s presidency, and competition within the job market, are all factors to consider before judging the country’s society as a whole.

All this is not said to justify misogyny in Korea, nor deny that modern Korean culture yearns for change, but rather to emphasize the need for people to ensure that they understand and reveal the entire story.

As South Korean influence comes out of its insular shell and spills more into the western media, I urge writers reporting on Korea, or any foreign country, to understand both modern and traditional culture in their entirety, not just through a myopic lens.

Image Source: Wikimedia

Keywords: Anti-Corset Movement, South Korea, Korean Patriarchy

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* Theodora Yoon is a rising senior at The Academy for Allied Health Sciences in Scotch Plains, NJ. Going to a STEM based school and also being a ballet dancer for 11 years, she is passionate for both the arts and sciences. She has a love for writing, reading, and learning about new cultures, which she takes up when she has free time between her studies and dance schedule.

A Different Kind of Discrimination

Anabelle Meyers — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

On my first day of freshman year at my inner-city public high school, I lost faith in the public education system.

All 750 freshmen were packed into the gymnasium when a speaker came out. She introduced a hellish game where volunteers would be called out to try and pop balloons in front of everyone by pressing them between two people. I strategically looked at my shoes and wished I could disappear.

When the game finished, the speaker came back out to the middle of the gym. “There are two kinds of people at East High School,” she said in the condescending tone reserved for freshmen and people late to class. “There are the people who make things happen and the people who watch things happen. When I asked for volunteers, some people put their hands up high and tried to be picked. These are the people who make things happen. These are our star athletes and performers. Some of you immediately put your heads down and tried to not be seen. These are the people who watch things happen. But that’s ok. We need people to fill the seats in our stadiums and theaters.”

I was shocked and honestly offended. Because standing in front of the entire freshman class with a balloon made me nauseous, I was destined for mediocrity? But the thing is, this isn’t abnormal. This ritual which, from what I’ve heard from my friends, is standard in all high schools makes clear, from the beginning of our high school careers, that if you are introverted, then you aren’t wanted.

Most people have the misconception that introverts are just shy. But that is an oversimplification of the reality. Although introversion and shyness commonly go hand in hand, introversion and extroversion are more or less how people respond to social stimulation. Extroverts thrive on social stimulation; they are at their best when they are surrounded by people. Introverts are at their best when they are alone or with a few good friends.

Our social structure, especially in the west, values extroverts above introverts, making introverts feel worthless and stunting progress only made possible by an introverted way of thinking. Even though introverts make up at least one-third of the total population, their personality is seen as inferior to that of their more outgoing peers.

Recent articles about introversion, such as “An Introvert’s Guide to Friendship” in the New York Times and “The Networking Advice Every Introvert Needs to Hear” in The Huffington Post, have been focused on tips for being an introvert in an extrovert’s world. Yet even people who claim to be helping introverts solely give them advice to change themselves to appear more extroverted. We should instead change the path to and definition of success to fit both introverts and extroverts.

Discrimination against introverts is relatively new, beginning in the 20th century when the industrial revolution put a greater emphasis on personality in order to get jobs. Now, our entire society is formulated around this idea and in the technological era, it is only more prevalent. Teachers, college admissions officials, bosses, etc. all value extroverted traits such as leadership, networking, and obvious friendliness.

Our society has been structured in such a way that it favors extroverts. Your typical classroom will have desks in pods (public school jargon for introvert torture device) where students work on countless group projects— even in subjects like math and creative writing, which you would think would be more individual tasks. Even our offices are typically an open floor plan with little room for individual time or work. This is a hard place for introverts to work since they typically need independent time and space to formulate and articulate ideas.

According to Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, most teachers say that the ideal student is an extrovert, even though, statistically, introverts get better grades. According to research done by Adam Grant at the Wharton School, introverted leaders tend to produce better results than extroverted leaders. They are leading not because they enjoy being in the spotlight, but because they believe that something must be done and that they must be the ones to do it.

In fact, some of the most influential people in history were introverts: Gandhi, Rosa Parks, and Eleanor Rosevelt are all examples of leaders who had introverted qualities. Steve Wozniak, said that he would have never come up with the ideas he had if he hadn’t been too afraid to leave his house.

A society that asks introverts to change themselves to have more extroverted qualities is destructive and discriminatory. People who tell introverts to push themselves to fit in the mold of an extroverted society are creating an oppressive culture which hurts introverts and limits success from everyone.

However, this form of discrimination is rarely visible to most people. This is the way our contemporary culture has always been, and introverts rarely express their experiences for fear of ridicule. Being uncomfortable talking in front of the class or unable to introduce yourself to strangers is seen as something to “get over.” Introversion is seen as a weakness that must be overcome, and those who don’t or can’t are told that they just won’t be successful.

It is time for us to stop valuing extroversion and networking above all else and to begin to see the value of being quiet and spending time alone. To see that the loudest person doesn’t always have the best ideas. That the person who looked at their shoes during the freshman assembly deserves a spot on the stage, too.

Keywords: introvert, extrovert, discrimination

Image Source: Pixabay

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* Anabelle Meyers is a student at East High School in Denver, Colorado. She can usually be found reading anything from Jane Austen to Vogue. Her other interests include history, fashion, and the performing arts.

The Sex Ed We All Deserved

Ashauna Lee — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In a clip from the Laugh Factory Hollywood’s Instagram page, comedian Alex Kumin reveals that “the only thing [she] remembers from sex ed is that [her] reproductive system looks like the logo for the Texas Longhorns.” Before telling this joke, Kumin asked the audience if they had sex ed growing up, and while many responded yes, when asked if they remember anything from the experience, the audience collectively responded no.

While the Texas Longhorns logo does resemble a female’s reproductive system, is that relevant information to the lives of young adults considering sex and relationships? No. Young adults need sex education they can carry with them. They are at the highest risk of sexual violence, according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), and 1 in 3 young people will be in an abusive or unhealthy relationship according to the organization DoSomething.

In the same way that it is the responsibility of policymakers to ensure that teens receive comprehensive sex and relationship education, it is the responsibility of educators to craft a curriculum that is relevant and applicable to students’ lives—or, if they can’t, to hire someone who can.

According to the 2014 Centers for Disease Control & Prevention’s School Health Profiles, fewer than half of high schools and only a fifth of middle schools cover all of the topics recommended by the CDC as essential components of sex ed. This is why I admire California’s new sex and gender education curriculum, which supplies students with the sex education we all deserved but didn’t receive. The California Healthy Youth Act promotes sex education that’s inclusive of all gender identities and sexualities and provides students with trained educators.

While I first laughed when Kumin’s skit appeared on my Instagram feed, as someone who has experienced sex education as both the student and the facilitator, I questioned what I remember from the two experiences.

As a sophomore in high school, I remember participating in an activity that used Skittles to simulate the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Each Skittle represented an infection or a contraceptive. I remember my classmates snickering as they discovered their infections, and the disappointment of some after discovering that abstinence protected them from these infections. The activity might have introduced us to STIs, but more importantly, it failed to teach us that STIs are spread through blood, vaginal fluid, and semen, and failed to amplify that condoms are key to protection from STIs.

As a junior in high school, I enrolled in a sexuality practitioner training course. My first semester consisted of training from Planned Parenthood professionals who arrived at each class with a carefully prepared lesson plan. Rather than fooling around with Skittles, I learned that the copper IUD works well as emergency contraception, that latex condoms and oil-based lubes don’t mix, and that dental dams exist. I spent my second semester leading classes, using lesson plans crafted according to the needs of the students.

This is the environment that all students deserve from sex education. Students will learn and retain information in the right environment with the right facilitators and the right curriculum. But schools fail to create environments where all students feel safe to learn about sex and relationships, or simply fail to teach them anything worthwhile.

A global study performed by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) revealed what young adults think about their school’s sex and relationship education. Participants described their experience with sex ed as out-of-touch, negative, and exclusionary. The study’s authors urge that schools try a different approach: classes taught by experts who maintain boundaries with students, recognize the complexity of the situation and the range of student experiences and identities, and teach accordingly.

California’s new sex ed curriculum clearly reflects the recommendations of BMJ’s study. Yet the curriculum has received backlash from outraged parents because it incorporates concepts like foreplay, masturbation, and oral and anal sex. California parent John Andrews says “if [he] were to show that material to a child, [he] would be brought up on charges.”

While we must be thoughtful about what is being taught, we must not shy away from certain topics due to discomfort. It is important to consider what age is appropriate to learn about the different contraception methods, or learn how to put a condom on a penis. But children will discover masturbation, orgasms, and other sexual concepts outside of the classroom either way, and without the guidance and candor of expert educators, they may risk their safety in the process.

In my fifth grade health class, we constructed diagrams of reproductive systems with cotton balls as ovaries and straws as fallopian tubes. We watched videos of animals giving birth. I would have preferred learning about masturbation to watching a dolphin bear its offspring. This would have saved my classmates and me from the unsafe and at times unsanitary exploration of our own bodies and each other’s.

As we continue to fight for comprehensive sex and relationship education for people like Kumin, and for all young adults and children, we must remember to teach these classes with care. We must focus on the safety and well-being of the students and provide them with the information they need. We must be proactive and create spaces where students can engage comfortably, because we recognize that a firm understanding of sexuality, gender, and relationship health will translate to safer workspaces and universities, and ultimately to a society of healthy individuals who contribute in positive ways.

Keywords: Sex Education, Relationships, Students, Educators, Schools

Image Source: Pixabay

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* Ashauna Lee is a high school student at the Friends School of Baltimore in Maryland, where she has completed a rhetoric course and enjoys reading and analyzing political writing. She spends her time outside of class raising awareness for the One Love Foundation, an organization committed to ending relationship violence. She brings thoughtfuless and positivity to all of her studies and extracurriculars.

The Youth Are Building Bridges

Isabella Druckman — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

My blood pumped through my ears as I sat in the back of my religion class and my teacher asked, “Who is going to be the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate?” Conversations such as these were common in my Catholic Ethics course, which taught students how to be citizens according to Catholic values. A classmate raised their hand and stated, “It doesn’t matter because Trump is going to win.” This was not the first time I was exposed to a classmate with a viewpoint different from my own.

What matters about this interaction, however, is the conversation that followed. We dove into the student’s comment and then considered potential Democratic candidates. This conversation was a model of maturity: an instance of cross-partisan politeness that is rarely, if ever, found in the adult world of politics today.

In George Washington’s 1796 farewell address—basically a “Ruling America for Dummies” guide—he warned Americans about the problems related to party affiliation. 223 years later, America finds itself drowning in the words of stubborn political leaders, its hands grasping for a hold on sanity and peace.

Polarization is the perpetrator, and it is worse than it has ever been before.

The phenomenon of extremist opinions did not exist until Ronald Reagan’s presidency in 1980. He inspired the New Right movement, which denounced abortion, homosexuality, and the Equal Rights Amendment.

Following Reagan’s presidency, opinions diverged further with each new leader. In this age, we are faced with radical politicians receiving a large following across the globe. These leaders come from as far as France for Marine Le Pen and India for Narendra Modi, but as close as the United States for Donald Trump.

America is a nation where, in February 2019, “ -77% of both Republicans and Democrats who were married or living with a partner said their spouse or partner was in the same party,” according to the Pew Research Center.

America is set in its ways. Legislation has reached a gridlock. Politicians argue about minimum wage, the environment, and human rights issues from womb to the tomb. Yet, they cannot simply meet in the middle. Instead, they argue as innocent people are left to live paycheck to paycheck, sleep on cement floors, and lose their homes from the effects of natural disasters.

This must change.

The solution is the youth of America. We may be labeled as lazy, phone-obsessed, and rude, but we are the solution. We know we have power, and we have the motivation to act.

Many question the capabilities of this generation. Why are we so much more qualified than other generations? The truth is that every generation of youth has been equipped to change the face of their country, but at this moment, Millennials and Generation Z are those who have the power to bring this country away from its extremes.

Yes, it is true that the youth still hold a range of political opinions. I remember talking to some friends who attend a liberal public school about the Pledge of Allegiance and being shocked when they said no one stands up to recite the pledge. This was a phenomenon foreign to my conservative high school.

Yet, despite these differences, we are unified.

Following the tragedy of the Parkland shooting, the voices of the youth were awoken. On March 14, 2018, school walkouts exploded across the nation. Students were threatened with bad grades, detentions, and suspension, but refused to be deterred by authority. Our voices were heard. We headlined newspapers and even enacted change.

These students did not come from the same party affiliations. I talked to my Republican friends at my Catholic School about the issue and my Democrat friends from the public high school as well. They disagreed about the desired legislation to curb gun violence, but knew one thing for sure: gun violence must end.

This feeling of unity amidst varying opinions is what will allow the youth to collaborate to improve American polarization. The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement discovered voting increased 10% between the 2014-2018 midterms. We are registering to vote and promoting legislation that conforms to rule of law.

We are acting, but not dividing. I have friends who attend pro-life marches, while I attend pro-choice marches. We do not agree about this issue because unanimity is impossible, but we have the courage to ask each other, “Why do you believe this?” We stand with people who hold opinions different from our own, a value our parents have ingrained in us since birth but seldom follow themselves.

The time of Republicans and Democrats acting like toddlers over the construction of a border wall will be something of the past. We will soon be the leaders in elected positions. Leaders will be educated and diverse in all aspects of the word. Leaders will genuinely debate with the opposing political party.

The youth must act to catalyze this change.

I have channeled my power by carrying signs that declare “18th Century Laws Can’t Regulate 20th Century Weapons” and “Don’t Call Yourself Pro-Life if You Only Value Certain Lives.” I have called my state congressmen and women to tell them to vote “Yes” on HB 2040, a piece of legislation that banned for-profit detention centers in Illinois when it was passed in June 2019.

In 2020, my “I Voted” sticker will join others that beam proudly from water bottles, laptops, and t-shirts. They will be evidence that America is on its way to a better future. A future where politicians compromise.

The high schooler sitting on the public bus is writing letters to her senator. The child on his scooter is learning about democratic values in school. The baby sitting in her highchair eating peas could be the 55th president of the United States. The youth are building bridges that will connect the two sides of America.

Several times throughout the course of my junior year, I sat in the back of my religion class and raised my hand when my teacher asked who would be able to vote in the 2020 election. My hand was lost amongst a sea of other hands. Those hands might have different party affiliations, but they are respectful and desire improvement. The youth are coming. The youth are coming with change.

Keywords: polarization, youth, voting, bipartisanship

Image Source: Bella Druckman

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* Bella Druckman is a student at Saint Ignatius College Prep in Chicago, IL. She has acted as Arts & Leisure editor for her school’s SPIRIT newspaper for two years and will finish her high school career as an Editor-in-Chief. In addition to writing for the SPIRIT throughout high school, she has also contributed both her work and editing skills to her high school’s literary magazine: Phantasm. When she isn’t making cookies in her kitchen or exploring Chicago with her family and friends, she can be found taking photos or working on her next piece of writing.