Being the youngest of 8 children is a pain because not only am I the youngest but I’m also a girl.  My closest sibling to my age was my brother Ben.  I wanted to do everything that he did but of course I couldn’t.  My parents were very protective over me.  I would always ask my parents why couldn’t I do certain things that my brother was allowed to do and I would receive the same response every time.  They would tell me no because I am a girl.

            Being a girl in my family’s eyes means that you wear dresses, keep your hair done, sit with your legs closed, use clean language, don’t play ruff, and so on.  Growing up as a child I was the opposite. In my case I was a tomboy to the fullest. I loved to run around all over the place, play fight, climb trees, play basketball, and video games.  I hated wearing dresses, playing with dolls, getting my hair done, and most of all sitting up straight.  I wanted to act just like my brother by wearing big clothes, slouch over when I would sit down, play ruff, and I even had a foul mouth when I would get into arguments.  It was hard trying to understand the double standard that society has placed on the gender roles.  I would hate it when my brother would do something with out getting in trouble but as soon as I did the same thing I would be in a whole world of trouble.  I felt that I should have been able to act and do everything my brother did especially since we are so close in age.

            Society stresses the fact that boys should act like boys and girls should act like girls.  You always hear men telling their sons to suck it up and take it like a man and mothers telling their daughters to act lady-like. As we get older the gender roles are even more prevalent.  In society it is ok for males to receive more privileges early than females.  Boys have later curfews than girls, boys are allowed to go certain places by their selves before females, and sometimes they can date before females in some situations.  As I got older I grew to understand the society’s meaning behind it’s reasoning.  Society is only trying to protect its young ladies and society feels that males can protect their selves. Men are more independent and women are more dependent.  Men are strong and women are weak.  As a young lady, I can personally say that women allow society to believe that.  Respectively, we are the ones who make a man feel like a man so with out women who would have the power to do that? Women are really the strong ones and keep everything going.  Without women, the world would be nothing but pure chaos!  We just like to make men feel good about their selves.

 - Brittany Gardner