Because I Was a Girl

by Melissa de la Cruz

  I grew up in a small, rural town where the girls dressed in jeans and played as if they were boys. I had horses and rode a bike and learned to mow the lawn as well as clean the bathroom. My friends were the kids I went to public school with from kindergarten through graduation. Everyone was taught to work hard, period.

  Throughout school, I went after what I wanted—recognition from my teachers, the highest test grade, the academic award. My teachers pushed me with difficult math problems and English essays and made sure I applied to top-level colleges. I understood that if you wanted to succeed, you had to go for it. And it worked—I graduated as valedictorian and was the first person from my family to attend college.

  College was the same. My roommate and I were science majors, and we made our marks by participating in research projects and attending conferences. There was no question we would succeed, and the fact that we were women never crossed our minds. I graduated magna cum laude from Juniata College and went on to graduate school at the University of Virginia. Working toward my PhD, I was mentored by a community of diverse male and female scientists. The only time I was treated differently because I was a girl was by the male undergraduate students when I was a teacher’s assistant. Their comments and behavior were easily brushed off. Currently, I work as a staff scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

  So is this story, in which I was never treated differently because I was a girl, common? Or am I in the minority?

  According to the Association for Women in Science, women make up 28 percent of scientific researchers worldwide. About half of biology graduate students are women, whereas only 18 percent of full professors nationwide are women. Compared with other STEM disciplines, salaries in biology are lower and competition for jobs is higher. Sexism is exemplified by statements from Nobel Laureate Tim Hunt, who noted that girls in the laboratory are an issue because “when you criticize them, they cry.”

  I’ve been lucky. Unlike what the statistics show, about half of the employees in my group at NIH are women, as is our immediate supervisor. We are educated women with families who manage work, school, sports, etc. Though gender inequality exists in many research institutes, it is not present where I work. As in my childhood, I am surrounded by people who challenge, respect, and inspire me.

  Despite my accomplishments, I did have an experience where I felt I wasn’t supposed to do something because I was a girl. And it didn’t happen when I was growing up or going to school or at my job.

  It happened last year.

  My children attend a small private school where parent volunteers help with various activities. I agreed to coach one of the boys’ basketball teams since my son was on the team and I had played in high school.

  I prepared—I found my old basketball playbook, I looked up drills online, I put together practice and game lineups. I walked into the first practice with my whistle and clipboard, ready for the challenge. Before practice, a father was looking for the coach, and rather than ask me (the adult with the whistle, clipboard, and basketballs), he asked another dad if he was coaching. I introduced myself, telling him how excited I was to be heading the team. He turned away dismissively and eagerly greeted the assistant coach, a dad who had arrived late and took over the drills I had started. For the rest of practice, I was essentially demoted to ball girl. I went home angry and questioning everything.

  Did those dads assume I had no idea what I was doing?

  Did I allow the prospect of being “head coach” to go to my head and show up unprepared?

  Or was it simply because I was a girl?

  I vented to my husband and to other moms and double-downed on my coaching responsibilities. Still, I felt the same disregard I had felt at that first practice from other male coaches during games, and I realized that it was because I was a girl that I was being treated this way. Gaining acceptance into the boys’ club was going to require some work. That pissed me off, because I hadn’t ever experienced this sort of blatant sexism before, not growing up, not at college, not while getting my PhD, and not ever at work. My instinct was to quit—I was supposed to be having fun, not proving I could coach nine- and ten-year-old boys.

  But I didn’t quit. I was patient and accommodating—sharing ideas for new skill work and splitting practices with the assistant coach. I willingly helped the less skilled players and let him focus on the more proficient players. Honestly, the boys did listen to him better and tended to goof off when I ran practice. That changed when we won some games; the boys even started calling me “coach” outside of practice. Not surprisingly, my son was my biggest supporter—he was the first to follow my instruction and not fool around during practice. Besides winning some games, having him back me up was my proudest moment.

  It was 40-plus years before I was made to feel I was incapable of succeeding because I was a girl. It was lousy and made me feel incompetent. Looking back, I realize how ridiculous it was—especially since my reaction was to step back. I should have stepped up and used those years of empowerment to take control at that first practice and show that I belonged there with that whistle. I coached basketball again, and it was an overwhelmingly positive experience, primarily because of the support from the dads (who called me “coach” from day one).

  Most important, my takeaway from this experience was that I showed those boys that a mom can do whatever she puts her mind to—graduate as valedictorian, be successful at her job, coach a boys’ basketball team. She does it because she works hard and holds high expectations for herself as well as for them … even if they are boys.

  * * *

  MY TAKEAWAY FROM THIS EXPERIENCE WAS THAT I SHOWED THOSE BOYS THAT A MOM CAN DO WHATEVER SHE PUTS HER MIND TO—GRADUATE AS VALEDICTORIAN, BE SUCCESSFUL AT HER JOB, COACH A BOYS' BASKETBALL TEAM.

  * * *

  CHILDREN’S BOOK EDITOR

  Photo credit: Joyce Lee

  ZAREEN JAFFERY

  My parents made it clear throughout my childhood that the reason they emigrated from Pakistan to the United States was to give their children a good education. This was equally true for both my brothers and sisters—my parents didn’t discriminate when it came to academic expectations. And lucky for them, all five of us were studious. Each week, my mother would take us to the local library, where we would check out as many books as we could carry—fiction or science or history, we had no restrictions. Every book was an opportunity to learn.

  As I got older, my ambition turned into something sharper than that of my siblings. That drive stemmed from our family history. Particularly, my mother’s history.

  My mother was the first woman in her family to get a graduate degree. She attended university in Peshawar, Pakistan, in the 1970s and got a master of science in botany with the intention of having a career as a scientist. Since she regularly got the highest marks, she didn’t think it would be difficult to find a job. But despite graduating at the top of her class and appearing in local newspapers in lists of students with academic honors, there was no job for her after graduation. She volunteered her time at a lab, taking a long bus ride each way, hoping that once the other scientists saw how great she was, they would hire her. That was not the case. They were happy to have her free labor.

  Disheartened, she eventually quit the lab and decided to get married. She was soon introduced to my father, and once they were married, they moved to the United States, where she had five kids in eight years. Although she never got a job once she got to the United States (having five kids to take care of was plenty of work!), we grew up with beautiful rose and vegetable gardens in our yard, thanks to my botanist mom.

  I had heard this story—of my mom’s working for free in the lab—many times. My brilliant mother, who worked hard her whole life, was not able to get a job … because she was a girl. The unfairness of it stayed with me. Somewhere along the way, I became determined not only to get a great job after graduating college but also to succeed in whatever my chosen career turned out to be. I needed to do this as he
r daughter. To push back against societal standards that put people in narrow boxes based on gender or race or any other factor, and right what felt like a deep wrong.

  I’m in my thirties now, the same age my mother was when she was telling my siblings and me stories about her childhood in Pakistan and taking us to the library to read as much as we could. My chosen career in children’s book publishing is every bit as inspired by my mother as by my drive to succeed. And in 2016, after fourteen years of working in publishing, I launched a history-making children’s book imprint, Salaam Reads, which publishes positive representations of Muslim kids and families, the first imprint to do so.

  The news of the imprint was first introduced in the New York Times’s “Arts” section in February 2016, and from there, word spread. Given that the imprint’s launch comes at a time in US history when the rights of Muslims, and other marginalized communities, are under attack, book lovers around the globe received news of the imprint as a step toward empathy and compassion in a world that seemed hostile to differences. My work on Salaam Reads was also mentioned in Dawn, the oldest English-language newspaper in my mother’s homeland of Pakistan. It turned out I had made the papers, too.

  * * *

  MY BRILLIANT MOTHER, WHO WORKED HARD HER WHOLE LIFE, WAS NOT ABLE TO GET A JOB … BECAUSE SHE WAS A GIRL.

  I HAD RARELY LET MYSELF CRY IN THE WORKPLACE. I HAD INTERNALIZED THE CRITICISM THAT BEING EMOTIONAL WAS GIRLISH AND UNPROFESSIONAL.

  * * *

  When I first announced the creation of the imprint at a meeting at my company, I couldn’t hold back my feelings. I had rarely let myself cry in the workplace. I had internalized the criticism that being emotional was girlish and unprofessional. Although I tried to stop crying, it didn’t work, and I cried through the entire presentation. Maybe I was emotional because I am a girl. Or maybe because I am my mother’s girl, and I had succeeded.

  THE 1980s

  •    IN 1980, FOR THE FIRST TIME, A HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN THAN MEN VOTE IN A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION—AND A HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN THAN MEN WILL VOTE IN EVERY FUTURE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION THROUGH 2016.

  •    THE NATIONAL WOMEN’S HISTORY PROJECT SUCCESSFULLY CAMPAIGNS FOR MARCH TO BE DECLARED NATIONAL WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH ON THE FEDERAL CALENDAR.

  •    THE FIRST COED CLASS OF THE US MILITARY ACADEMY AT WEST POINT GRADUATES 62 WOMEN AS SECOND LIEUTENANTS IN THE US ARMY.

  •    AT 21 YEARS OLD, MAYA YING LIN WINS A PUBLIC DESIGN COMPETITION FOR THE VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL AND FACES INTENSE DISCRIMINATION BECAUSE OF HER GENDER, LACK OF PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE, AND ETHNICITY.

  •    FLORENCE DELOREZ GRIFFITH JOYNER (FLO JO) SETS WORLD RECORDS FOR THE 100- AND 200-METER DASH AT THE 1988 OLYMPICS, RECORDS WHICH HAVE YET TO BE CHALLENGED.

  •    APPOINTED BY PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN, SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR SERVES AS THE FIRST WOMAN JUSTICE OF THE US SUPREME COURT.

  WRITER AND NATIONAL POETRY SLAM CHAMPION

  Photo credit: Stephanie “She” Ifendu

  ELIZABETH ACEVEDO

  The studio was dark and small, with just enough room for three chairs and a console full of buttons that added more bass or increased the volume. The producer sat in the one swivel chair, which allowed him to easily reach his laptop and control the recording. I sat in one of the other chairs, and one of my brothers in the third. Two other dudes stood behind the producer. I was fifteen and the only girl in the room, and they were all waiting for me to open my mouth.

  When I was fifteen, I had my heart set on being a rapper. My brothers bought me instrumental mix tapes for my birthday, chaperoned me to open mics, and asked me to recite what I had scrawled in my notebook late at night using the light of my cell phone. I was committed to my dream of telling stories through music, and it was by no means a secret.

  All the guys in my neighborhood knew me as my brothers’ sister and as the “li’l rapper”—a title that was part condescension, part endearment, and mostly the way people in hip-hop are nicknamed. I was thrilled whenever a drug dealer on my block stopped me on my way home and asked me to “spit something.” Elated when the older basketball players in the Little Park would bob their heads, grunt under their breaths, and clap me on the back with a “yooooooo!” whenever I spit a particularly dope verse. In a neighborhood where wannabe rap stars were as common as bird shit on fire escapes, I stood out, yes, because of my age … but mostly because of my gender.

  I was the only girl I knew practicing her flow and internal rhyme, and not just listening to rap but studying it. Anytime I met another girl who spit, my initial reaction wasn’t kumbaya sisterhood, it was an immediate sizing up of the other young woman to determine if she was a threat to my standing as The Girl Rapper. I was indirectly taught that there was not room for more than one. It seemed only one or, at most, two women dominated in hip-hop at a time, and to be the best, I had to crush all the other girls around me. And despite how much love my neighborhood showed me, being the only girl was a lonely position to hold and one that was quickly challenged when I reached high school and people started coming for my content, not just my style.

  When I was fifteen, and finally ready to start recording music, it was in that little studio in Spanish Harlem that I was told for the first time, “You’re good, but if you want to make it, you need to go harder. Spit some real shit.” The silence that trailed the producer’s words felt like it’d been plugged into the amplifier: It was loud and clear. By “harder,” I was being told that the stories I focused on were too soft, too feminine, too much girl. I needed to be grittier and tougher and to pay homage to the tropes that made men in hip-hop—and many other musical art forms—famous: sex, drugs, and violence. The themes I commonly wrote about? Being catcalled, the injustices in my community, the abuelitas who sold pastelitos, and my immigrant background. Those stories were my most honest truth, and now I felt ashamed of them because I was being told they weren’t enough.

  Soon that same critique began to pour in from other producers and rappers in my community. I was told I needed to talk about how my hands could silence other girls, and how my ass would make boys holler.

  * * *

  IN A NEIGHBORHOOD WHERE WANNABE RAP STARS WERE AS COMMON AS BIRD SHIT ON FIRE ESCAPES, I STOOD OUT, YES, BECAUSE OF MY AGE … BUT MOSTLY BECAUSE OF MY GENDER.

  THOSE STORIES WERE MY MOST HONEST TRUTH, AND NOW I FELT ASHAMED OF THEM BECAUSE I WAS BEING TOLD THEY WEREN’T ENOUGH.

  * * *

  Rap was the house I walked into when I felt unheard in the world. It was the home where I pulled my dreams across the windows so I could sleep at night. It was hard to be evicted from my home because I didn’t fit the singular idea most people involved in rap had of A Girl Rapper. So I quit. Perhaps if I’d been older and more in charge of how my sexuality could be deployed, or if I had been braver and defiant in the face of the guys who shook their heads no, or if I’d had a stronger sense of ownership in the craft, I would have been able to push past the lack of representation and the feeling that there was no place for me in this music I loved. But I was fifteen, without any immediate role model in the game to mentor me, and with only men determining how far I could go. To this day, I wonder, What if I’d kept going?

  I continued telling my stories—I just shifted how they were told. When I moved to spoken word and poetry, I was able to transfer my love of rhyme there. I rode that love to a bachelor’s degree in performing arts and a master’s degree in creative writing. I now perform poetry at high schools and colleges and community centers and teen prisons, and when I tell students that I found poetry through my love for hip-hop, without fail, a student, often a girl, raises her hand and asks me if I still rap. Usually in my show I’ll recite an old verse or two, so it’s not a surprising question, but I always feel a jump in my chest, like the tick tick tick of the metronome. I shake my head.

  “No, I don’t rap anymore,” I say with a shrug. “But maybe it’s not too late.”


  STAND-UP COMEDIAN, WRITER, PERFORMER, AND PRODUCER

  Photo credit: Sharon Attia

  JENA FRIEDMAN

  A few months into working at The Daily Show, I was struggling. It was the most exhilarating and challenging place I had ever worked, but my background as a writer and performer had not exactly prepared me for the job I had been hired to do. The “field producer” role required a set of skills beyond writing and performing. It also included directing, producing, and editing, as well as shooting in strange and sometimes hostile locales, coaxing performances out of nonactors who were often either camera shy or just reluctant to play along, working with unfamiliar local crews of varying skill levels, and dealing with a slew of other variables. Oh, and the work we created all had to make sense and be funny. I found it really hard at first; not only did I have no experience in the technical elements of filmmaking, but I was also the only female producer in my department and often the only woman, besides maybe the correspondent, on the majority of field shoots.

  In one early segment, we were filming in a cancer clinic (I know, LOLZ) to illustrate a point about how the potential government sequester cuts would hurt cancer funding (those were simpler times). I was so out of my element and in my head during shooting that I forgot to get a crucial shot for the story. After botching the piece, I wondered if I was cut out for the job at all. It turned out my bosses shared similar concerns and called me into their office the next day to talk about it. They told me that they believed in me (I was lucky to have such great bosses) but that I had to “be more aggressive in the field.” With those notes, they sent me back out into the world to produce my next segment, which I knew would make or break my career at The Daily Show.