ST. GEORGE — A new grassroots effort to boost opportunities for women in Utah has some of its roots in Southern Utah.

A Bolder Way Forward is still in its infancy – launched in a joint event with Zions Bank last June – but last month, goals were set to improve the place of Utah women in the home, workplace and community.

Several local leaders have joined up in the effort, including Santa Clara City Councilmember Crista Hinton, K&N Investments owner and former Cedar City Council member Nina Barnes, former St. George Housing and Development Director Shirlayne Quayle and Washington City-based sports marketer Jamie Shaw.

Also joining up is Santa Clara resident Kristi Holt, who St. George News profiled last June for starting up the MECA Project, a mental health resource for teens. Holt acknowledges that A Bolder Way Forward’s goals are broad in scope, but says a multi-faceted approach is necessary.

“It’s unfortunate to see all these statistics on domestic violence, sexual violence and gender equity. All women are dealing with this,” Holt says, noting that the Utah tradition of women just grinning and bearing it has to change. “Society has taught us to just keep a happy face. Most people are silent. It’s time for people to speak up.” 

A Better Way Forward is an offshoot of the Utah Women & Leadership Project at Logan’s Utah State University. Utah State Professor Susan Madsen, known for her books and essays on women in leadership, has spearheaded the project.

“I knew Susan from a business up north and just had to be involved,” Holt said. 

In a statement, Madsen notes that studies show Utah continues to have high levels of domestic violence, sexual assault, child sexual abuse, and gender-based discrimination, while also ranking Utah as the worst state for women’s equality and having low levels of women’s leadership representation.

“Although the needle has moved slightly, it will take three to four decades to make notable progress. And I have to say that’s just too long,” Madsen said. “It is time for Utah to embrace a bolder way forward because when we lift girls and women, we lift all Utahns and that means families too. If we’re serious about ensuring that Utah girls and women thrive, we need to create change much faster.”

Since last summer, Madsen and others have been recruiting other leaders in each Utah county to create coalitions to drive actions in a “spokes on a wheel” model toward achieving several goals for women in the state with checkpoints in 2026 and 2030.

Holt said the idea is to drive progress on the local level and use that as pieces of a framework toward building women’s opportunities statewide. The “spokes” on the wheel consist of 18 areas of focus that each derives from one of five categories: Education, health, workplace, safety and community engagement. 

“The solutions to most things are in different frequencies. The only way to solve problems is at a higher frequency,” Holt said. “Fear and frustration are all in a low frequency. We all want to help the world but helping the community is where really where we can be effective.”

A Bolder Way Forward will be holding a launch event about pre-kindergarten child care in the Salt Lake City area next month and will be continuing to boost its profile at local events and in local government over the coming months, officials said.

Holt will be among those boosting health and wellness efforts for women, including the “spokes” of “health across the lifespan” and “home and family.” 

She said the building phase of the movement is in progress, but the movement itself is just beginning.

“It takes a lot of right people in the right seats,” she said.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2024, all rights reserved.