My days of running through the corridors are almost done. Highschool is over, I’m stepping into the real world. With that, comes a sense of responsibility for the bigger world. As I write this article for my biggest platform yet of over 5000 students, parents, and teachers, I felt the pressure to talk on a non-controversial, but a pressing issue. However, the non-controversial part quickly boiled down when I asked myself what do I really care about: feminism. 

Feminism is often misunderstood: it doesn’t mean that women want to be treated as queens, it just means we want to be Equals-- respected on the same level as men. Feminism of the 21st century is often taken the same way as in the 18-1900s: strive to change the culture where females were openly disregarded and were publicly a subject of lesser value. We are above that in most parts of the world. Now, feminism needs to be tackled on the smallest scales: habits, expectations, and rules, but our methods for feminism are still the same as from the olden times. I want to take this opportunity to provide my view on what it really means.

Dear Parents,

I know your little girl is a precious asset that you want to keep safe. However, every second you trap her in a cage, you’re taking away a moment of her life. Providing education to medical school is not empowering her if her passion lies in architecture. Do not pressure her to marry if she isn’t in love just because you want her to be happily married after. Just like me, many girls want new books over new clothes; just like me, many get make up kits as gifts. 

Understand your little girl is growing. Instead of saving for the day you are going to walk her down the aisle, invest it in her ambitions and careers. Simply put, walking down the hallway to our office tagged “CEO” is our equivalent of walking down the aisle daily. We are already fighting society, culture, norms, so don’t make us fight you too.

You love us, but can’t accept us. Over 40% girls in my class were forced to choose their subjects. Almost 20% did not even want to do A level. And many of us had to win a war to choose our own paths. Frankly, I had to fight more at home than with the outside world to be allowed to chose engineering, why? 

Dear Society,

Are you scared? For every step we take forward, you bring us back by four, all for the sake of convention and culture. You’re promoting us in health care, literature, and art -- “traditional women’s fields”. However, only 9% of silicon valley employees and founders are women. I repeat 9%. In diplomacy, crucial positions for representing entire nations, only 16.7% of G20 countries’ diplomats are female; the highest is at about 35% female diplomats for America and Canada. We all know these are some of the two most influential places and fields in our growing world. Are you scared that involving us here will in turn rewrite history? You’ve made conventions in the modern world for us that no one notices: taking care of children is primarily the mother’s work, even when they are fifteen years old; technical work is not for women; she should hide behind her male family member. This is changing, you need to change with it.

Dear Lover,

She can have a higher income than you, it should not hurt your ego unless she explicitly demeans your value. She can ask you to do the dishes, both of you deserve equal TV time. She can come home late from office, both of you have equal rights to build your career. You can offer to make dinner, she wants to eat without cooking too. This is a partnership, not a dictatorship.

The women in your life are not a tool to reduce stress. It's not their duty to provide a warm dinner once you get home, because believe it or not, they have had a rough day too. This isn’t right. Asking your wife/girlfriend to just take care of family and you isn’t just about controlling their responsibilities, but in fact depriving them of their fundamental right as a human being: the right to expression and choice. 

Dear Girls, 

We are strong emotionally and physically. We can even lift furniture in the house, but we are not ambitious enough! Yes, it is also our fault. Let that sink in. We must learn to think long term: more in our goals than relationships, more in passions than school grades, more in developing a personality than following the set rules. The struggle is hard because a minority is fighting, let’s put all hands on deck and bring an end to these conventions. Over the years, it was said that a man has no choice but to succeed, for his family. Let’s make that a formality for us. Let’s pay half the bill when we’re eating with guy friends, let’s take care of our parents financially as we grow up, let’s be ready to debate and hustle our way through meetings, let’s meet equal rights with equal responsibilities. Feminism is a two way process.  

My hands traced the brown pages of the journal. These pages know me better than I know myself--taking me back to the thoughts of my eleven-year-old self.

“How will Yashvi manage without a father? How will a girl manage without a father?” The words stung. It was only one week since my parents separated. Living with one parent, I knew that my life would change significantly, yett, I was being pitied because I was a girl. Being protected and guarded by a male family member was how it was supposed to be. I was not only angry, but also full of feelings of loneliness, weakness, and sadness. “Why can’t I be my own self? my own identity?”

In one of the many hours I spent exploring the few items my father left behind, I came across an old journal. “2001” it said, the same year I began the story of my life. My urge to be understood by others was turning into frustration. As an escape from reality I took hold of a pen and let my words flow. From conversations with friends to my inspiring relationship with my mom, the writings were--and still are--personal. Reading through those pages now I am not proud to say that my articles were filled with envy for boys.

With time I dove into writing as a hobby instead of something to release my stress. My ideas, and essays, on equality broadened. They included talks with teachers in staff rooms on media and feminism, and the influence of different cultures on sex. Before I knew it, my teachers encouraged me to publish my work, starting with the school notice board. It was then I felt really triumphed. The tone in my journal writings changed as well.

“Don’t you feel like she is becoming really outgoing now? Yashvi should lay low and think more about the long term effects of her work. Who will want to marry a girl who brings chaos” were the next phrases I heard. To me this seemed ridiculous. After all their initial ‘concern’ was that I would be alone and helpless, but I finally found my voice I could use to give my opinions--and myself--a platform to stand on. The mood of my journal quickly changed to its former self of exasperation as I wrote about their reactions. However, instead of giving way to societal constructs, I decided to channel my energy to create one of my largest projects, yet. I brought together and analyzed all the information I had gathered until now about gender equality. The topic that stood out the most was education because that was where I felt that most of the discriminaton began. My inner author voice was awoken with the mind blowing statistics and opinions, leading to an online published novel which is a fictional work promoting the rights to education for women.

Now as I finish reading my own work and look at the over 1,300 reads on my book, I am proud to say that by the end of the book I was neither angry nor envious. I could not be happier that I am a girl because it placed me in a unique set of circumstances: it prompted me to ask “why? why me?” after every stereotype I faced. As an eighteen year old I am able to question the norms society caps us with. I have learnt to question why we do things in a certain way. Most importantly, I have learnt to fight, not just with others, but with myself. There were hundreds of times I wanted to quit writing and raising my voice, but I did not no matter how uncomfortable I am. Now everytime I am the only girl in an engineering or physics career talk, I feel closer to my interest. When I was the first girl to be elected as the school president I found myself mentioning that title more often, not being worried about seen as the ‘odd one out’. Because with every awkward moment I face and go through, I become more aware of how the world has been working and how it needs to change in the future to truly reach our potential as human kind--to me that is the ultimate goal of my life.  

Why?

“Are you sure about engineering and physics? How about something like nursing or teaching?”

This is a question I still hear today. It is already awkward enough to spend my mechanics class with only a few other girls, let’s not talk about the career meetings at school, that my day is sprinkled with these questions. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think one career path is superior to another. But these careers are just not for me; think of a musician studying law. Like a musician, I find sweet melodies in the equations that govern the [multi/uni]verse, and I wouldn’t want to spend my time studying anything else. Naturally, I just cringe when someone tries to question my interests with my gender. Why?

Right now, women have more freedom and power than any other time in history. Most of the countries give women the right to vote, own property, and drive -- most things women couldn’t do just 100 years ago. However, it still strikes me how people’s perception, habits, and expectations changes as per gender. There are many factors leading to these stereotypes, particularly for girls studying the hard sciences (engineering, physics, and computer science). According to me, these stereotypes are not noticeable in the 21st century. They are tiny things we barely notice:

• Boys being rewarded for spontaneous self-dictated behaviours, girls being awarded for learnt behaviours.
• Boys are expected to be leaders, girls are expected to be care givers. In fact, there was a study conducted on Harvard business school students called “Heidi-Howard”(1) where Heidi is a real life successful silicon valley entrepreneur. Half of the students were asked to evaluate her. The same case study was given to the students with only one change: Heidi changed to Howard. Both Heidi and Howard were given equal rating of competency, but Howard’s personality was rated as much more appealing than Heidi’s. A strong woman leader is automatically disliked.
• Toys are literally teaching children stereotypes; boys are given cars and building blocks while girls are given barbies and kitchen sets. These are the first “occupations” children have, which are basically geared to the traditional jobs.
• Women who work full-time still do more housework and child care than their partners.

To me, all of these points add onto the idea of women being incapable of thinking dynamically, diversely, and critically in math and physics; they make girls lose interest in the hard sciences before they even have the chance of really experiencing it. In my series of articles, I want to explore these -- and many other -- stereotypes in more details. In addition, a point many overlook, women are also partially responsible for these stereotypes. Girls create the whole highschool ‘queen’ scenario, where they place the most beautiful girl as the ‘queen’ while nerdy smart girls are kept in a social isolation. I can’t say I have the answers to dissolving all these problems, but I just hope to add another perspective and voice to the international debate.