India’s day of “One Billion Rising.” Image from rawstory.com.

There are so many “Women in 2013” lists floating around the web right now, it seems silly to do a recap. Last year women around the world dealt with explosions of backsliding, shaming, and marginalizing discourses that served to maintain systems of inequality and injustice.

• American women, continuing to face significant gaps in wages and lack of representation, also found themselves confronted by an ever-shrinking confidence in their ability to make reproductive decisions for themselves.

• Women in India gained global acknowledgement for their increased fervor in demanding tougher anti-rape laws, but also endured significant levels of ineptitude from politicians and public figures as a result.

• Women in Afghanistan have been subjected to increased levels of brutality while women in Morocco are looking at the possibility of improvements in “rapists shall marry their victims” law.

• Countries around the world tried to improve the status of women and the overall gender gap; however, women in Libya, Egypt, and the Philippines can all attest to the fact that geopolitical turmoil- whether the result of conflicts or natural disasters- bodes ill for women within its reach.

That being said, not everything is bad news.

• Women are using all kinds of creative methods to explore and express the politics of gender and identity representation.

• A 16-year-old gunshot survivor brought the YouTube world to its knees.

• Things may still be awful in many places, but there are always the small victories that indicate that progress may be happening.

• Even gaps between women in the same nation – gaps based on race, or sexuality, or level of ability – stand a chance of closing within our lifetimes. In other words, when we look for the small victories, we can paint a more optimistic picture than the headlines do.

However, I want to challenge all of you to grow beyond this. As much as I love the tiny signs of progress, I’m hungry for something bigger. I want major victories – the kind that give us the right to vote, to choose our own partners, to walk down the streets free from harassment. In 12 months I want to look back on a year that absolutely trounced inequality.

Realistically, what could this look like? Some ideas:

• Proactively declare your support for equal rights. Proactively condemn the power dynamics that keep all women marginalized, and particularly condemn the dynamics that marginalize some women more than others.

• Participate in rallies, marches, letter-writing campaigns, blog-a-thons, and other movements to express support for positive social change.

• Continue to be an active bystander when you witness an act of gender-based violence, especially verbal violence. Intervene.

• Practice being an ally as much as being an advocate.

• Be aware of the intersectionality of your identity; what may be culturally easy for you may be much harder for someone else.

• Critically inspect gender norms and boundaries in your culture of origin as much as you do when traveling.

• Be vocal! One voice might not change the world alone, but many voices together can and will.

So here it stands. We rest on our laurels no longer; in 2014 we demand equality on a level heretofore unseen. Between small acts of activism and awareness, and larger demonstrations of our expectation that our basic human rights be respected, how can change not happen?