I'm Taya Hawkins Rangihika and I am a 13-year-old girl living in Gold Coast, Australia. For most of my life, Auckland, New Zealand has been my home, however, I while ago, when my family and I moved to America for 6 months. There experienced feminism first hand, and for the first time, I saw how different women’s rights are in different countries. In America, I found myself being more negatively compared, less noticed, and given fewer opportunities because of my gender. Most of the boys in my school class, who were a majority, had female siblings who weren’t given the same opportunities. Even back home, in Auckland, I still see the unappreciation towards women just based on their gender. From this experience, I became very passionate about women’s rights all around the world. Then I realized it's not only about females trying to make a difference, it's about EVERYONE coming together to MAKE the change and force society to grow, accept and love everyone who is a part of it. I want to help show all females out there, how much they can really do, and how much their one voice can help make a change with SHEQUALITY.
My name is Dahiana Gussoni. I was born and raised in Costa Rica, a small country in Central America. Since little my parents have penetrated me this fear of going outside alone and being raped or killed. You might think they are exaggerating, but in reality they are not. There are lots of men that are not respectful in any way, there is always the chance of being touched or catcalled. It has happened to me even when I am walking with my dad. We are taught to live with it, to ignore and walk away from it. I certainly don't believe this is okay and SHOULD NOT be normalized like something women should bear with in their everyday life. Costa Rica is considered a peaceful and progressive country (it is the first Central American country to legalize same sex marriage), but it continues to have deeply sexist ideologies that defend the man as the head of the family; it prevails the belief that women must be submissive to male authority. This is shown on the 364 women that have been killed in almost a decade and a half in my country of only 4,999 million. Each of them had a name, a family and a future, but they died violently at the hands of men who believed they were their owners. They ended their existence out of a desire for dominance and control. I hope that through SHEQUALITY I can inform how women are treated in my country and in all Latin America to bring awareness and justice to all those women that are not here anymore. I believe that if women are still being murdered for the simple fact of being a woman, when girls continue to be raped, and laws to protect women are still being discussed in Congress our job as young women has not finished. It is our obligation to bring justice and raise our voices to stop this violation of human rights.
I’m a 14 year old girl based in Auckland, New Zealand. I have lived here my entire life and this has exposed me to a world of feminism early on. New Zealand is a very powerful country in terms of gender equality, with currently two women at the top of the political world. From a young age I have been taught that I could do anything if I put my mind to including predominantly male activities and careers, it had struck me bizarre that other girls my age across the world weren’t told the same things as me. Through SHEQUALITY I hope that girls and boys alike can learn that they are able to achieve anything if they try, that gender stereotypes should not be an excuse to stop pursuing their dreams.
I am a 16 year old girl in Kyoto, Japan and the founder of SHEQUALITY. After living in the United States for eight years, when I moved back, I saw tremendous issues relating to the treatment of women. When I turned on the news, I rarely saw women in high positions within the government. Many of my female friends at school expressed they didn’t see themselves working in the future, a large distinction to what I was used to in the United States. Most families I met here had a father who worked and a mother who didn’t.Menstrual pads and tampons were packaged away in brown paper bags for no one to see. Seeing these issues with my own eyes made me want to do something to raise awareness about the culture and laws that support the current society today, which was the start of SHEQUALITY.