I am still grappling with the abuse that my parents gave me (both of them), which is inherently sexist — they had fixed ideas of what girls could and couldn’t do, and what boys could and couldn’t do. But they seemed to be a bit more open for boys. My male cousin hated football and loved caring for animals, and he came under fire by his parents for it, but my parents were like, ‘cut him some slack, dude, he loves animals for fucks sake’. But in my case? “Oh, girls can’t play drums.” “Girls can’t ride bikes.” “Girls can’t get into the music industry without being made to sleep with someone.” Girls can’t this. Girls can’t that. Everytime I wanted to tell them I could, or even prove to them I could, I would be beaten up very badly. (This is just the tip of the iceberg, because the abuse runs far deeper than that, but I thought of sharing the sexist element here.)
