Written responses

“I am scared of walking alone in the streets at night”.

- Anonymous

“When I was a young girl, I didn't care about looking presentable or being proper. I would run around with my friends and played rough on the playground with boys. But as you grow older, American society throws all of these rules and expectations for women that are contradictory and unfair. It's exhausting having to keep up with all trends and making sure you always look cute. It's obvious how, from the jump, girls are taught how to cook and clean and boys don't have as many responsibilities. Whenever people say that girls mature faster than boys, it's because society has set standards for what women should be able to accomplish by what age, and what men should know how to do. I think growing up in upstate New York and seeing so people stuck in a cycle of perfection has definitely impacted how I see myself and how I function. On the inside, I compare myself to other people a lot, most of the time without realizing it. I also don't say everything that I am thinking, because I get scared that I will be judged. However, on the outside, I try to be cheery and pretend everything is completely fine when it's not always ok. I have a hard time opening up to people and sharing parts of myself, because the idea of not being accepted by everyone else is pretty daunting. My past experiences with my identity and being the new girl in school a lot has taught me a lot. I have to always be on my toes and constantly be ready to defend who I am, because there is always going to be someone who wants to break me down. When I was little, I wore a lot of dresses and headbands, but now that I'm older I purposely choose not go along with society has created as 'normal', because I don't want to be like everyone else, that's just not who I am. I don't look like most women, my hair is different from them, I'm shorter than most people, and I'm not as confident. But I work hard and try my best, because society has taught shown me time and time again, that if I don't put in the work, it will always be 10 times harder for me, to get things in life.”

- Anonymous

“I grew up playing basketball in a community where there only people being intense in a sport were males. When I fell in love with basketball, there weren’t many girls who were as intense about basketball as I was; except for guys. I started to play pick up at the park with a group of guys. At first they didn’t really pass the ball to me and when they did, they played weak defense. I had to prove myself to these guys before they started playing with me like I was just as good as them, if not better. Whenever I went to pick up games in different places, I would take some of these guys with me. They would always tell the rest of the people there “no don’t play with her she’ll take you out,” and people would play me straight up; but when I tried to talk myself, no one would listen. I had to have a guy talk for me to make everyone take me seriously. Now, everyone knows me at these pick up games, but there’s always someone new who comes in thinking “oh she’s just a girl go easy” and every time I play how I play and prove them wrong. But they still have this narrative that since I’m a woman in sports, no guy will take me seriously until another guy supports me.”

- Anonymous

“Growing up in an entirely different country, or continent even, growing up as a female is an entire different experience than being in America as a current student. I went to an American school, so it was given that I was surrounded by American culture and lifestyle. After being sexually assaulted in my old school, I blamed the culture that the school and its students were raised in. Instead of blaming the guy who did it, or the girls who judged me for it, I thought I had a right to blame the school and the culture it was cultivated on. Although the females that surround us in America have different stories and entire different perspectives, we share the same fears, insecurities, and the same American female experience.”

- Anonymous