Barnard Supplemental essay
Any advice on this supplemental for Barnard would be greatly appreciated!
Pick one woman in history or fiction to converse with for an hour and explain your choice. What would you talk about? (100-250 words)
I imagine myself sitting in a Barnard lecture hall, the only audience-member left after a recent discourse. The landscape of white walls, warm brown paneling, and dark-cushioned chairs broken is by the bright figure next to me. Rather than stand at the podium, or pace the floor at the front of the room, she chooses to sit beside me, a reminder of her constant pursuit of equality.
I initially imagined talking to Nellie Bly about her fearless approach to journalism, or perhaps meeting Josephine Baker, a performer who used her widespread acclaim to smuggle secrets for the French Resistance and advocate civil rights. Instead, given the opportunity to converse with one woman, I chose someone who has used the collective power of women to affect lasting international change. Despite experiencing loss on a catastrophic scale, she decided to use those experiences to help others, culminating in in a women's peace movement that played an important role in ending the Second Liberian Civil War, and continues to impact the country's social and political landscape.
Despite my initial nerves at meeting such an intensely driven leader, the warmth and strength she radiates quickly eases my anxiety. We discuss the importance of women in social justice, and how achieving unity across ethnic and religious lines is vital in the pursuit and preservation of peace and gender equality.
Later I would walk through campus, marveling at the courage, poise, and indomitability of peace activist Leymah Gbowee, and wonder how she would change history next.
Word Count: 250
