Liv Jones didn't wake up one morning and decide that she was going to be the face of teenage feminism.
But with one tweet, the shy 14-year-old found herself at the forefront of an online social media movement.
It began when Liv's school decided that its newly built classrooms would be named after inspiring historical figures. Each teacher had put forward lists with five potential names. Upon seeing the lists, Liv was disappointed that only one in five of the figures was female.
With the encouragement of her mother and a few close friends, she started a petition and Facebook page called Rooms of Our Own. The petition on change.org asked that the administration would give the student body fair representation and name half of the classrooms after women.
"The original plan was to get some people in our school behind it and then go to the headmaster at the end of the week and say, 'These people think it should be equal, too,'" said Liv.
"But then obviously it blew up massively after Caitlin Moran tweeted about it.
Liv began to get hundreds of signatures and online supporters.
"It was quite scary. We were checking it throughout lunch and later in the day and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, what is happening?'"
With the online exposure, Liv found herself the target of abuse.
"The cyberbullying started almost straight away with a boy who got his internet friends involved. They were saying some really nasty things."
Anonymous users began leaving sexist comments on her petition page, calling her a "femenazi." At the same time, Liv was also facing criticism from her school administration.
"I didn’t go to school for the next two days. I sat home crying thinking that I didn’t want to do this anymore. But my friends and my mom encouraged me to carry on," said Liv. "Because it had gotten so big, we didn’t want to shut it down. And after Deborah (host of the podcast The Guilty Feminist) got in touch, we thought, 'Okay, let’s just carry this on and see.'"
Deborah Frances-White reached out to Liv and asked her if she would like to speak about her campaign on the podcast.
Liv told her story to a room full of feminist podcast listeners who were impressed by her tenacity. Deborah gave the teen a suffragette coin necklace to encourage her to continue her campaign.
The support that Liv received the podcast audience and from people online gave the shy student a massive confidence boost.
"It just so crazy that people are reaching out to me from New Zealand and Australia and I think it’s so cool that the message is spreading so far," said Liv. "It’s meant so much because I really did want to stop, but now I can’t go on my Facebook page or my Twitter without getting more than 10 notifications from so many lovely people."
Liv never imagined that her petition — intended to gather support from her fellow classmates — would grow into something larger, but now that is has, she has expanded 'Rooms of Our Own' to encompass a greater message.
"Stand up for what you believe in"
"Now we’re trying to make it more about celebrating the unwritten women from history because there are so many moments in history in which people are realizing that women played a part," said Liv. "I think it’s very important to celebrate women throughout history who weren’t in the books, but whose lives were important and deserve more awareness."
Liv has taken her role as an teenage social movement leader in her stride. She's still navigating her journey through the online space, but her convictions have kept her going.
"I think it’s important to not listen to people who want to put you down and to be confident. I know it might be difficult, but people will respect you more if you’re willing to stand up for what you believe in."
You can still sign Liv's her petition here.
RSS Feed
