On my school’s robotics team the team leader said that I could not work on the robot because “You are a girl”. I was distraught and angry, how could something like this happen to me in the year 2016? Some people have lessened his words to a joke, but that statement, no matter how “meaningless” was easily the shittiest thing that has ever happened to me.
I’m a seventeen year old girl and experienced something for the first time a few weeks ago. It was a Saturday and I was leaving the mall with my boyfriend and one of the drivers in the parking lot slowed down, leaned out of the window, and shouted to me “Hey bitch turn around!” and to my boyfriend “Hey I’m gonna fuck your bitch!” It’s nothing compared to what some women deal with on a daily basis, but it hurt me in a way that I didn’t expect it to. It’s really insulting and degrading in a way that I can’t explain. A few months earlier, I was at school with one of my boyfriend’s friends, Will, and while we were standing there, I noticed within the first 30 seconds that Will was staring at my breasts. I tried to ignore it, but then he said “You’ve grown a lot since your freshman year.” I was confused as to what he meant at first, but then he said, while still staring, “I meant your boobs got bigger.” I was worried. Nothing happened, but I still have to see him every day and It’s uncomfortable to talk to him.