When I was six, I wanted to be a veterinarian. I wanted to attend college and then go to graduate school to further my education. When I would tell people this, they would often act surprised. Some would encourage me, but some would instead tell me how hard that would make being a mother. I grew up thinking I could not be a good mother and have a high level of education and a high-up career.

When I was nine, a boy made fun of my hairy legs and said that they were hairier than his were, and that just was not right. I went home and shaved right away.

That same year, two boys joked about putting their penises between the gap in my two front teeth. It was then I started to want braces to fix this gap. I was only nine.

When I was 11, I learned it was not OK to be accepting of my body and instead I had to shame it. This would later lead to serious body image issues that I still deal with over seven years later.

When I was 13 and in middle school, the girls my age were all getting boyfriends. Some were even dumbing themselves down to impress boys. Furthermore, girls were belittling each other and tearing each other down. It was a girl-eat-girl world at just 13.

In high school, I would hear guys talk about girls and how if she slept with too many guys, it made her a slut. Yet, the same boys would talk about their friends and boost them up for having slept with a multitude of girls.

In high school, I would see girls who were supposedly best friends talk about each other behind their back and then continue to upkeep this facade all throughout high school.

In high school, I joined a feminist club. When I went to attend the meeting one day, my guy ‘friends’ made fun of it and made being a feminist sound like a bad thing. I skipped that meeting and did not apply to be on the board of that club the next year.

I did not grow up as an underprivileged child. I grew up in a two-parent household and my dad was able to make enough to allow my mom to stay home and make sure my brother and I were OK. Yet these things still occurred to me. Why? Because I am a girl and because being a girl is seen to be something that is demeaning and lesser than that of being a boy.

I was only six when these phrases started, and for some, they start much earlier. Be careful with what you say to young girls. Words are powerful. Don’t tell them that they are “smart for a girl,” just tell them that they are smart. Don’t use their gender as a weakness, use it as a strength.