Youth Over Violence

My mother makes me clean the living room, bathroom, dining room, and the kitchen. While my brothers do nothing but eat, sleep, and run around in the streets all day. This showed me that women’s role was to clean.

My brothers were allowed to get tattoos when they were 13 but I had to wait until I was 16 to get mines because I am a girl. This taught me that boys have more freedom that girls.

As a child, I was forced to wear bright colors but I wanted to wear dark colors and my mom told me that was for boys.

I was taught by my dad that I have to keep my legs crossed at a young age. Now that I am older, he now tells me to keep my legs closed (basically telling me not to have sex).

I was told in elementary that I couldn’t play football because I was a girl and I would get hurt. This basically instilled in me that girls are weak.

During my sleepover for my 7th birthday all of us girls played in make-up for fun. This taught me that girls are supposed to wear makeup.

In elementary I wanted to be a fireman, and my classmates laughed at me and said I couldn’t be a fire”man”, because I wasn’t a “man”

I was told that I couldn’t have a boyfriend until I was 18 but my brother could have a girlfriend at 16. This wasn’t fair and I learned that girls and boys don’t have the same privileges

At 13, my grandma was dying of cancer and she wouldn’t let any of the women know (not even me) because she thought we weren’t strong enough to handle it.

When I was 4 or 5 years old, my mom told me to only play with my sisters and female cousins because my brothers were too rough. I was advised to be careful so I wont get hurt.