Girl Power

Women unfortunately get underestimated all the time in the work field, school, and even amongst friends. Taking this class has made me realize that I sadly have experienced this from people around me. I work with middle school students, so many of the boys have this concept that they are better than girls. For instance, I am assigned to supervise the sports. One day I challenged to play a one on one basketball game with one of the students. He looked at me skeptically and laughed. He declared, “Really? You know that I’m going to win.” I replied with “Why do you think that?” He answered back with, “Because you are a girl.” I was not necessarily shocked. That has been the mentality embedded with many of these kids. I happened to beat him twice. After that more of the boys started challenging me. I beat three more other boys. I wanted to demonstrate to these boys that women are just as capable as playing a sport. The girls in middle school would continuously tell me “girl power.” I personally feel like I’m impacting these girls. I am teaching these girls to stand up for themselves and believe that they have potential.

At work I got evaluated and my supervisor wrote, “Veronica is young and petite. Sometimes the students take advantage of that.” The word that threw me off was “petite.”

Petite: (of a woman) having a small and attractively dainty build

I was greatly confused when I saw that. Because I’m “petite” the students don’t listen to me?

I believe I have the capability to take charge not because of my gender or race, but because I have the skills to perform the task needed. For instance, a student reached out to me to take a manager position to start a mutual fund. I was glad to know that people do see those skills in me.

By the way, on Twitter Daneira Jacobo & I started trying to trend #GirlStrength on Twitter.

We mentioned in class, male domination and sexist thinking. Women have to stand up and take charge. I feel like girl strength has more of a positive connotation then girl power. Women need to unite and help one another grow.