A day that my gender significantly impacted who I was and what I could do, was when I was 8 years old outside playing with my older neighbours. We were running out of things to do so my dad came up with the idea to have a race. I watched the boys have one running race and immediately wanted to join in. They said that I wouldn’t be able to compete because I was younger and “girls are not fast enough”. I, however, challenged that regard and asked one of the boys who was two years older than me to race. He denied and repeatedly said that he did not want to “hurt my feelings”. As sad as it is to say, he only agreed with me after my dad questioned if he was “afraid to lose to a girl”. So here I was ready to prove them all wrong but as my dad yelled “GO!” I soon came to realize that my opponent had not started. When I asked him why he waited he told me that he wanted to give me a head start. My 8 year old self was appalled by that and demanded that he started at the same time as me. Though, he continued to give me a head start for the next three tries, until he finally agreed to start at the same time. Then, as we started the race together, I remember racing past him, I remember hearing my dad cheering me on and I especially remember passing the finish line and watching my opponent trail behind me. It was a victory, I won! After the race, he said “Wow, you’re not too bad for a girl”, then managed to come up with every excuse there was, as to why he lost. My gender affected my identity, because it portrayed me for someone who I was not. I was not slow. And my neighbours views upon my gender pushed me to prove them wrong which then lead me to victory. In the end, to this day, I still think about how my neighbour put me into a gender stereotype and even after I broke it he still managed to keep me labeled. Society forces a label upon us and makes it appear that we, women, are incapable of many things, even when we prove over and over again that, that is not the case. They force feed the world these “false advertisements” and display us in these weak and fragile gender norms.

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