Who do you think you are?

I remember parents saying that to me, and other girls, growing up when we stepped “out of line” or “smarted off.”

Isn’t childhood when we are trying to figure out who we are?

When I was young I wanted to play just as hard as any other kid in the neighborhood and yet, some parents thought that was not what a little girl should do. One mother broke up a football game I was playing with her sons stating that “girls should be playing hopscotch and jump rope, not football!”

Until that very moment, I had no idea that I was doing anything out of the ordinary. All the kids played all the games together on my street. We played tag, football, soccer, freeze tag, raced bikes, you name it, we did it.

I knew I was a girl but that meant nothing to me when it came to playing games or setting goals. Then adults interfered.

We started going to school where we were told to sit still and pay attention. Boys were encouraged to risk and girls were told to be perfect and not make mistakes. Girls brash enough to take risks were punished for their actions. I remember one lunch where I was demonstrating how I had to eat my apples, I had lost my two front teeth, by taking a roll and whacking it against my lower teeth, I was reprimanded for “playing with my food” and when the principal walked away I laughed, not because I thought it was funny but because it was a nervous reaction to the situation. That got me sent to the principal’s office. This was all it took to scare me into school submission as I hated being embarrassed in front of my peers and I was already quite shy. I would keep my energy and strength for the soccer field.

Still, even there our coaches were not much better. I remember having two coaches that were really rough. One who insisted we wear headbands and if we forgot them he threatened to cut our hair. I, a flighty 11 year old, forgot my headband, was pointed to his van, I remember crying “you are not cutting my hair!” He was sending me to get a headband, but that experience and the threat ruined much of the sport I loved during that season. The other was the head coach seemed to only know how to yell. He was red carded at a tournament and tried to pull our entire team off the field during the game. These were two dads coaching a select traveling team and they were teaching us that the only way to handle stressful situations were to threaten and yell. I truly believe I would have gone much further with soccer had it not been for these two coaches. What happened was, I went back to club leagues and played until I was 18.

Even in the business world, strong women are more often viewed negatively by their peers and by the company leaders.

Who do I think I am? I am a smart, capable, person, with something to say. My gender has nothing to do with the quality of my words. Period.

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