Girl Stereotypes

Throughout my life I have heard the term “you throw like a girl” used when someone throws soft and weak. This is a representation of society's views on girls and women, that they are weak, bad, unintelligent. The life of being a girl is waking up knowing as soon as you walk out of the house your are going to face these stereotypes. These stereotypes plague girls life at school, at work even at home. I don't believe that girls are weak or stupid, when I hear the word girl I think warrior. Girls are tenacious, intelligent individuals, with the mindset for success. Even when girls are told that they can’t, they take that negative energy and use it to fuel their success.
Girls are strong
Now, I am not talking about girls being physically strong here, seeing as though
you could literally just google “crossfit girls” and that would be the only piece of evidence I needed. I am talking about mental strength, whether it’s in school or trying to get hired in a male dominated industry girls know how to power through obstacles to get what they want. For example, time and time again by one coach or another I have been told that I wasn’t good enough to be on their team and I would never play a certain position because of one reason or another. Yet every single time I have managed to power through and continue doing the thing I loved and every single time I have managed to come out on top. Whether it involved my team run ruling theirs or hitting a triple off of their “stud” pitcher. Every time this happens I feel this power and it makes me think, maybe girls aren't all that weak.
Not only this, but Women are getting jobs. Though this might seem like not much of a big deal, it really is. Women have been told for decades that we just need to stay in the house, cook and clean.
If for some reason you don't believe that women are fighting for their jobs and winning here’s a statistic, in the year 1900 fewer than 20% of women were in the labor market but now the number is approximately 75% and growing. Along with all of this we can look at my doctor, this women graduated with a bachelor's degree from Harvard as well as a doctorate degree from ucla. Yet, when she went in to get her first job at a hospital the first question she was asked was “how many words can you type per minute”. I thought this was outrageous, she sits here with a harvard and ucla degree and she’s basically told that she's going to be secretary. Now if she was weak maybe she would have accepted this, but she was a strong woman. She now sits with her Harvard degree on her office wall.
Girls are put under pressure under pressure, she became a diamond, under pressure she became unbreakable. Girls are put under insane amounts of pressure yet somehow we withstand the pressure and stay strong. For example, I go on any social media platform and I see people talking about who or what is body goals. You see guys talking about what they want in a girl, you see girls judging girls who aren’t
their definition of perfect. We look at magazine headlines “how to lose 20 pounds in days!” “ Is your bikini body ready?” I’m not gonna sit here and act like this same body pressure is put on men because it is. It just seems like a trend among magazines and social medias to focus most of their attention on women’s bodies and what they're are supposed to look like. Girls are pressured to have “the perfect bodyu” but a lot of times the perfect body doesn’t exist, it’s just an image created by makeup and photoshop. Also the image is so blurry on what a good body is, is it a thinner tall frame or is it a more hourglass figure. No one quite knows what the perfect body is yet we are all pressured to have it, which could cause many people to quit trying yet girls still keep their heads up and fight for self confidence. Another pressure towards girls is mentioned in a speech by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in this she talks about how girls are told to have ambition and success but not too much, for the fear that it will intimidate the man. This Is a pressure girls are put under,though we don't talk about it much girls are put under the pressure that they should not be too “out there” they should give 60% effort not 100% in the way where she will intimidate the man. We are told that we don’t want to be better than men or too aggressive because this will be unattractive or wrong. This pressure is just another obstacle course in a girl's path to success. Girls are told that they need to compete, not for jobs or success but for men. You see many girls worrying more about whether their boyfriend is better than sally’s rather than whether her grades are better. This makes girls think that their main priority should be boy’s and pressures them to date the best and also that they should marry. Along with all of these there is also the pressure that faces both girls and guys, the pressure to dress well. This pressure is put on girls severely, seeing as though girls are stereotyped to be into fashion and beauty This pressure is very noticeable even in my school. If you're not wearing lulu who are you, if your outfit isn’t perfect everyday you're not fashionable or worth anyone's time. Also no boy is going to like a girl with no fashion sense. These are thoughts that come to a teenage girl's head when doing something as simple as picking out an outfit for school. The fact that girls are taught that they should worry more about an outfit than their grades or success is terrible. And still to this day girls are working hard to focus on grades and be successful all while looking good doing it.
Girls Enjoy sports
As a female athlete, I felt this was a necessary issue to cover. Girls are passionate, dedicated, and competitive in sports. Girls will spend hours in the gym or on the field to get better at their game. I go workout with my personal trainer, and i’ve spent hours in the batting cage all for the love of the game. So do thousands of female athletes across the nation yet, girls sports are still under appreciated. For example, you go to almost any average high school girls hockey game and who do you see in the crowd? No one, people don't care about this game that these girls take ever so seriously. They don’t associate girls with sports for some reason. They still see girls as fans and not as athletes. Like seriously, I actually like and care about my sport, isn’t that crazy. A great example of a dedicated female athlete would be Hilary Knight, she is a highly respected athlete featured in sports illustrated. She went to Uw Madison and is now in professional hockey. She is a focused athlete and living proof of girls passion for sports. She is dedicated to the point where she is recognized as a ambassador for women's hockey and an inspiration to girls across the country. So yes, believe it or not girls like sports.
Girls do not do everything for the attention of men
Whenever I go onto social media I see men commenting on girls makeup saying something stupid such as “I think you look better without makeup or “I hate girls who wear a lot of makeup.” I do realize that guys like anyone are allowed to have their own opinions but it just seems like they think that girls do their makeup to impress guys. Like no I do not wake up in the morning and think what would jimmy like my makeup to look like. The whole guys thinking we do things to impress them seems to be a trend, such as outfits. For some weird reason guys feel the need to voice their opinions on whether or not they like our outfit, like we asked or something. Or they talk about how we are begging for attention from guys in our short shorts. Sorry to break it to you but girls are wearing their short shorts because they want to look bomb for themselves. And for guys to think that we are doing it for them is stupid. I’m not going to sit here and act like girls don't do anything for the attention of guys but not everything is for guys and they need to get that through their head.