The Cottonwood Heights Youth City Council (YCC) has a new mayor. Mary Ann Jensen was elected (for a one-year term) this spring to lead the 30 youth members of the council into 2025. 

“We are the future of Cottonwood Heights so we can prepare for when we are taking those roles,” said Jensen. “We take time to learn about what the city does.”

YCC members meet with various city leaders, responders, and service providers throughout the year to learn more about local government. The youth councilmembers work on annual service projects as well, such as cleaning up city parks. They also assist with Butlerville Days and other city-sponsored events. 

Councilmember (and YCC Liaison) Ellen Birrell introduced the new Youth City Council mayor during the city council meeting on Aug 6. Previously learning Jensen had qualified for a national debate/auditory tournament in Iowa, Birrell asked Jensen to perform her award-winning speech. 

“I can really appreciate the fantastic skills she has developed,” Birrell said. “One of the great things about her performance is the movement that she has created to communicate.” 

Jensen participates on the Brighton High School Speech and Debate team. For the original auditory event, participants were asked to prepare a 7-10 minute speech on a topic of their choosing. Jensen’s speech is called “The F-word.”

“In the English language there is one word above all that is striking, highly misused, and has a very negative connotation attached to it…the F-word…Feminism,” Jensen began her speech.

Jensen invited her audience along with her on a historical journey to trace the etymology and roots of the phrase. Starting in the Museum of Ancient Cultures defining the term and law of equality, moving to a courtroom in the 1960s where Emma DeGraffenreid first documented the term intersectional feminism, to the Mattel headquarters where the Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells, Sally Ride, and Rosa Parks dolls were released in 2018. 

While overviewing DeGraffenreid’s court case for her audience, Jensen introduces the audience to Kimberlé Crenshaw’s explanation of the term “intersectional feminism.”

“Let’s imagine the road…is ‘gender road’ and the intersection road is ‘racial road’…Emma gets in a car accident in this intersection. A police car zooms onto the scene; as the officer is writing his report, he asks her which road she was on when she got in the accident. She would say both…. Intersection-al feminism,” Jensen emphasized. 

At the end of her speech, Jensen challenged every member of the audience to use the F-word correctly to help pave the way to equality. 

“Your speech is inspiring,” said Councilmember Shawn Newell. “I get to go back and tell commissioners that there are good things about intersections within our social environment.”