Sereena Kumar
By Sereena Kumar
Ripples of change start with a singular pebble. That pebble might not have a clear-cut path or any idea of where it is going, but it still creates movement in the quiet stillness.
I walked into Barnard’s Pre-College Summer Program feeling like a tiny pebble amongst big boulders with booming voices. With 200 people packed into the Athena Center of Leadership for the first feminist leadership session, I didn’t know what to expect. So many empowering female leaders walked the halls that I took hesitant steps in. These leaders include Zora Neale Hurston, Greta Gerwig, and Anna Quindlen.
I wanted to stand tall in the face of patriarchy as they have and are continuing to do but it was hard to imagine with my crumbling posture and indecisive nature. Stepping into the session, I held on to the preconceived notion that leaders are born, and their distinct traits make them pop out in a crowd. Stepping out of the session, my mind was blown as I ventured into the possibility of there being more than one way to be a leader.
Despite the textbook definition of what a leader is, a leader is not an individual who dominates and leads at the top of the pyramid. Rather than a pyramid, it is better to think of society as an ecosystem where everyone contributes according to their specific niche or specialty.
This can all be modeled using a “Social Change Ecosystem Map”. My professor handed me one of these maps with colorful bubbles labeled with roles such as “weavers” and “visionaries”. She posed the question, “Where do you fall on this chart? What is your specific role as a leader?” The label that called out to me the most was “Storyteller.”
I enjoy weaving words together that will make people laugh, cry, and feel in the busy world that sometimes makes us numb to what our heart is trying to tell us.
Although I am a silent pebble that skips across a pond’s surface with a soft plop, I have something to say, and my written words speak volumes. The fallacious, stereotyped image of a masculine, unemotional leader shattered in my mind, along with the original belief that my actions did not have any effect on the world.
“I want to change the world” is many people’s thoughts. How though? The world is vast and one person’s actions seem miniscule in comparison. Looking at the world from above on an airplane, we are reminded that we are tiny ants. Yet, we forget that we are tiny ants working together. While lying on a picnic blanket on a sunny day, I have never seen a sole ant carrying a piece of bread, no matter how small the crumb. They lift the heavy load in colonies and scuttle away as a team.
This power of collaborative synergy is exhibited in a film titled Periodical, an empowering true story that I viewed in my second leadership session.
In the film, a group of strong women fought against period poverty and the stigmatization of periods. What really struck me was that the group was not divided up into a select few individual leaders and a throng of followers. Rather, the group was full of feminist visionaries, inventors, teachers, writers, and athletes.
All of them were leaders in their own way and their actions, starting out small, led to influential movements that will break down societal norms for years to come.
Anusha Singh, activist and founder of a student-led chapter in the period movement, set out to abolish the tampon tax in all states. Making a simple phone call to Michigan’s governor ultimately resulted in Michigan successfully repealing its tampon tax, a win for women everywhere.
It can be frustrating living in a world where leaders aim to silence women instead of creating a platform for women to be heard. That is why it is crucial to take up space when we are told to shrink, and to be leaders of our own when we don’t have the ones that we need.
Anusha Singh writes in an Instagram post, “You don’t need a fancy law degree or a PhD in menstruation studies to advocate and make your voice heard. You’re already an activist. Be brave enough to pick up the phone & call your state reps about the issues you care about.”
Singh is 100 percent correct. If Barnard’s leadership sessions have taught me one thing, it’s that you don’t need power to be a leader; if you are passionate about a cause, you are already one.
You are already a leader in school, at work, with your family, and with your friends. You are already creating ripples of change, which, combined with the actions of other women, will lead to waves of transformation.
Sereena Kumar is a senior at Enloe High School and has a passion for writing. Contact: [email protected]
