Raising awareness for feminism and rallying government officials to take action in making Kansas a more equal opportunity place to live were goals for sophomore Ivy Auletti during frequent visits to Topeka in October.

“People may not see the problems with equality in the US but it’s so much more than that,” Ivy Auletti said. “It happens in pretty much every country and my job as a fellow woman who has an advantage is to educate people about inequalities everywhere.”

Auletti is a part of a volunteer program for Daughters of the American Revolution. According to the DAR official website, the organization is a nonprofit, non-political volunteer women’s service organization dedicated to promoting patriotism, preserving American history and securing America’s future through better education. Their headquarters are located in Washington D.C.

“People aren’t educated on the problems involving inequality,” Auletti said. “People take the term ‘feminism’ isn’t a bad term, but it just means that we support equality for everyone, whether it’s race, sexuality or gender. We should all be feminists.”

Within the past few weeks, she’s spoken to a bunch of government officials, including Governor Sam Brownback, .Representative Sydney Carlin and Senator Pat Roberts, about what this all means to her and ways that they themselves as our government officials can improve things locally.

“They all enjoy my speech because it says more than women are better or equal to men,” Auletti said. “It says that everyone is created equal.”

She uses quotes from books and other famous speeches, like “We Should All Be Feminists” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which is where she got the title of her speech from. It’s a personal essay from the Nigerian author about the social struggles and why being a feminist is a good thing.

“Hopefully once I express my views someone else will pass it on until it’s noticed and something bigger is done about it,” Auletti said.