The below piece is the winning collegiate essay in the Network of Enlightened Women’s Essay Contest, sponsored by the Washington Examiner.
Although the United States was built on the ideals of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” it has not always been a free country for all. In 1776, we gained our independence. But no nation is truly free when a good portion of its population is enslaved and half its people have no voice. It wasn’t until 1865, with the abolition of slavery, and 1920, when women gained the right to vote, that America started to become truly free.
Although they have not always had the same rights as men, women across the country shaped history from the very beginning. From Sacagawea to Harriet Tubman and Amelia Earhart to Rosa Parks, the story of our nation is full of women who have changed it for the better. But the woman who has made the biggest difference our nation’s history is not really a woman at all. Nearly every person in the world has seen her face or heard her name, but she can’t even move from her stand. She’s known by many labels, but the most common of these is simply the Statue of Liberty.
I claim this not to belittle real women and their achievements; rather, I do not think it is fair to any of those women to try to pick the single most influential of them. The Statue of Liberty stands for the ideals these women fought for, giving them a voice before they were even allowed to vote. Therefore, I stand by my claim that it is Lady Liberty who has made the biggest difference.
The Statue of Liberty was a collaboration of sorts between France and the U.S. She is a monument to independence, and is a physical representation of the French and American joint effort to create this new country. She bears a torch, representing progress, and a tablet bearing the inscription “July 4th, 1776” in Roman Numerals. She is the image of the Roman goddess of liberty, Libertas.
But she does not only stand for unity and independence; she stands for freedom and equality, no matter one’s skin color or birthplace. She was built for a land where there is no tyrant and no one sort of people better than another, but where people work together for good. The broken shackle at her feet represents the abolition of slavery; she is standing against injustice. She is stepping forward, telling us we must keep advancing. She welcomes immigrants. A section of the sonnet by Emma Lazarus that is displayed with the statue reads, “Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/ The wretched refuse of your teeming shore./ Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,/ I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
America is a place of freedom, and the Statue of Liberty is telling us that it needs to be a place where anyone can live free.
But what does this mean for real women? We must support our sisters, both in America and abroad. We must raise our voices in the streets and the polls, making ourselves heard.
Women around the world face many injustices. Every year, millions of girls are forced to become child brides. A quarter of all women face domestic violence at some point in their lives. Women of various religions are judged, even attacked, for the choices they make on how to dress. We must educate ourselves on injustice, volunteering ourselves to help in the fight. We must listen to survivors, and help women everywhere, no matter how different from one’s self they may be.
The Statue of Liberty is not quite a woman. She cannot talk or move, and is over 300 feet tall. However, she stands for the ideals that women everywhere have been fighting for since the beginning. Even today, women in America and around the world can see her and be inspired. We need to stand together against injustice, against institutionalized racism and sexual harassment. We need to be unified. We need to be welcoming, to help other women no matter where they are from or how different they are from us. We must stand tall and strong, knowing that together, we can weather any storm.
Jaime Fields is a student at Whitman College.
