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.