Soapbox: Open minds required to achieve equality

I’m a Hoosier through and through, but my roots are in Cache Valley. I have one grandparent from Smithfield, one from Hyrum and one from Franklin, all three graduates of Utah State. My other grandparent grew up in Spanish Fork, and though her father graduated from USU, when her time came, she couldn’t afford it.

Sometimes when I drive around the valley in areas where the houses are fewer and farther between, I imagine what life was like for them growing up here: more agriculturally based, less focused on technology. I debate with myself whether it was a simpler time, as so many like to say. Since then, mankind has made so many discoveries, but there’s still plenty of room to progress.

There’s a Sabrina the Teenage Witch episode — I’ve been on a kick lately — where she conjures up this thing called a Time Ball, and she’s suddenly living in the ’60s. For a while it’s great. On the surface everyone’s into peace and love and taking it easy, but below that there’s this barrier standing in the way of equality. Girls can’t wear pants to high school. Girls can’t apply for the same colleges as boys. Girls can’t be editors of their school newspaper.

It sounds absurd when you think about it, but my parents would have been going to school at that time. My parents were raised in an era where those kinds of ideals were generally accepted, along with several other philosophies that are simply wrong. Those grandparents were attending my same college at a time when the ideologies of society were even more constricting. It’s so strange for me to think about that. We’ve come so far.

And yet, here we are in the state of Utah, ranked the “worst state for women” in an article on 24wallst.com, along with my beloved home state of Indiana close by at No. 8. And here I am, the female editor-in-chief of a school newspaper, apparently in the minority of some big statistics.

Before any of you jump up to fight me, let me say, I respect the freedom each woman and man has to choose what she or he believes to be the right path.

My mom got a great education here at USU in the ’70s. She’s told me more than once about a speaker she heard while she was here. The female speaker was preceded by a male church leader whose task was to introduce her but also added in his opinion that women at Utah State should be looking for husbands and if there were any who were there for another reason, he invited them to leave. Though my mother was off-put by the remark, thankfully she stayed to hear Shirley Cazier tell the audience she was disheartened he’d made that remark. Education was important for everyone but especially women. She stressed that some would never marry, others would need extra finances, and so on. Even if some had a goal to be stay-at-home moms, they ought to be prepared to take care of themselves.

I always assumed my mom worked because it was what she wanted to do, but I learned a few years ago that she would have preferred to stay home with us as we grew up. She did for a while, but when I was a toddler, circumstances changed and she had to help provide for our family. Since that time, she hasn’t stopped, and I admire her a whole lot for it.

I know these statistics probably don’t take into account factors such as level of happiness, achievement of goals, etc. I mean, how can that honestly be measured? And maybe if those things were measured, another state would have to bear the shame we face. Nevertheless, facts are facts, and in order to achieve a more equal reality, we need to open our minds more and realize that everyone ought to be given the opportunity to reach their goals.

— Mariah Noble is the editor-in-chief of The Utah Statesman. She is studying journalism, Spanish and multimedia and plans to graduate in May. Please send comments to statesmaneditor@aggiemail.usu.edu.