The way O’Neill and fellow student Sullivan see it, a disorderly woman can make changes or express herself in small ways or by being an activist her whole life.

As part of an American Studies course at the Saratoga Springs college called “Disorderly Women,” the students had an opportunity to explore the lives of women who changed the world in some way and to explore how they viewed themselves as women in the world.

By looking at women’s lives and actions from the mid-1800s to the present — Ida B. Wells, an African American journalist who led anti-lynching campaigns in the late 1800s and early 1900s; Angela Davis, a feminist and civil rights activist who in the 1970s spent 18 months in a women’s detention center before being acquitted of all charges; Malala Yousafzai, who at the age of 11 was shot in the head after writing a blog about the Taliban regime’s view on a girl’s education; and Jesse Lopez de la Cruz, a Chicano-American who was the first woman to organize farm workers for the United Farm Workers — the students began to understand the many faces of being disorderly.

And their time working together showed them that standing up for what you believe in often comes with big consequences, both good and bad, they said, adding that some women paid a heavy price for stepping out from the norm.