Isheta Kulshreshtha 

As a young girl, I had the opportunity to visit my grandparents, cousins, and relatives in India. While we spend our time there meeting friends and family, we also paid a trip to the school my grandfather implemented for girls near a village. My grandfather has always been an uplifting voice, whether to my mom, to me, or even to young girls striving to learn. This school symbolized a woman’s power, and without it, these young women would never have gotten the chance of a good education. When I visited this community, I was immediately inspired by the lack of opportunity for girls without my grandfather’s school. Later, during covid, I came across an article detailing antiquated legislation in numerous countries around the world. Shocked by the blatant sexism in-laws, the standard of society, I did more research. As I looked into it, I found more and more examples of legislation that subjugated women’s rights, careers, etc. And with that, the Leveled Legislation journey began. I reached out to multiple friends, strangers, and youth and in just 2 months, we already had 40 members actively engaged in fighting for girls worldwide. This is when I saw the potential for Leveled Legislation to succeed.

Leveled Legislation tackles two problems. The first is sexist and antiquated legislation. We advocate for policies that increase gender parity and against new and existing prejudiced law. The second issue is promoting youth civic engagement. In today's age, it is essential that young people are engaged in political processes and have a say in formulating the present and future of politics. Youth’s active contributions can bring democratic values to life and new perspectives to the table. Thus, it is eminent to inspire young people to harness their value and motivate them to get involved. Many teens I have directly worked with did not previously know they could simply reach out to an assemblywomen or senator and talk to them about present day issues that are important to them. Empowering teens and young people to become active political participants is so incredibly important, not only for me, but also for the communities we reside in and the future of democracy. Shifting this diminished youth outlook on voting and politics can alter the civic dynamic forever.

We’ve established teams (research, policy & education) to tackle the problem. These teams advocate for women's rights by writing new policy proposals, sharing them with legislators at town halls, doing research on gender injustices & educating younger kids about gender equality. Our research team has published 11 articles on topics regarding gender parity in legislation, the workplace, pay, etc. Our policy team has met with the offices of several legislators (e.g. assemblywoman Lisa Swain, policy coordinator for NJ State Senator Singleton, etc). These policy meetings allow us to build a deeper understanding of present state and federal policies.

Recently, our teams have come together to host the #RoeAndMe: Global Reproductive Justice Summit. We started a video marketing campaign highlighting the voices of feminist thinkers & activists across the globe. We asked all participants “Why does Roe matter to you?” and illuminated experiences, from around the world. The summit was grounded in reproductive advocacy in people, perspective, and humanity. We had some amazing speakers – Saba Mehrzad (iFeminist), Gabrielle Perry (Thurman Perry Foundation), Barbara Lee (California Congresswoman), Sophie Beren (The Conversationalist), and more!

We have also recently instituted LL chapters, promoting more localized change in the UAE, Taiwan, New Jersey, Virginia and New York (more to come!).

I have onboarded a director for each team - Policy, Marketing, Education and Research. These directors lead a team of interns who complete work on a weekly basis. To bring in new interns, we currently employ the simple framework of reaching out to people on LinkedIn & spreading the word through Instagram & Discord channels. In addition of a strong team with invaluable skills in leadership, project management, and communication, the team has an incredible passion for this work, encouraging them each day to work towards a brighter future for women internationally.

Our recently implemented chapters have also set up our project for success. These chapters allow for more localized change to occur and run largely with their own leadership teams and strategies with the Chapter Coordination team’s support. Each chapter has the opportunity to thrive and be sustainable in the long-term as they build relationships with their local representatives and congress-people.

This international organization has inspired those most affected by the problem to reach out and join the movement. We have members from india, latin america, south america, the UAE, africa, and more, some of the most directly targeted places with sexism present in legislation and societal outlook. I have pushed others to pursue creating a Leveled Legislation chapter to create their own solutions to the issues we address. Through Levled Legislation, I’ve also led others to take action in the community around me through our election workers campaign. In this campaign, I encouraged our team members to volunteer as poll workers on election day (novmeber 8th in the US). We created a state-by-state compendium with resources for our national members and this compilation has reached more than 50 people now