Women Share 25 Unfair Expectations They Had To Deal With As Young Girls

Just like parents, money and culture play a big role in influencing who we become as people, so do our genders. Being born a boy or a girl decides how you may be treated in the home, what jobs you might be prepared for in the future and what role you may be expected to play in society. Recently, someone online asked, “ Women, what do you feel is the hardest part about growing up as a girl? ” Female netizens rallied forth with their answers from which we’ve shared the most popular in the gallery below.

#1 We don’t get to be carefree little girls for long due to so many men being goddamn predators.

#2 The fear / reality of sexual assault. Oh and periods.

#3 Being sl*tshamed and harrrased, always having to take care of others and being the bigger person, being told you purpose in life is giving birth.

#4 Sexual harassment and occasional assault from heterosexual men.

#5 The relentless sexism that puts a clamp on your life and infects everything.

#6 Learning how to deflect unwanted sexual advances from men/relatives from the time you hit puberty.

#7 The constant mixed signals like the speech in Barbie. Be yourself but not if you’re too loud or girly or not girly or like sex but don’t like it too much. Be smart but able to be dumb at a moment’s notice. Have an opinion but not THAT opinion. Like your body but don’t say it out loud. Always criticize yourself out loud but not just for attention. Be successful but acknowledge all the other people who helped you even if they didn’t. Are you eating that? Again? And that much? Why aren’t you eating? Don’t cry. Cry but only when someone else thinks it’s valid. God you’re a cold b***h don’t you have any emotions? Know everything all the time but don’t let anyone else know that you know. God you’re such a follower. God you’re too independent you know that?

I could go on and on and on. It’s exhausting.

#8 That women can be their own worst enemy and drag down girls and young women with them. Like supporting/voting for misogynists. Edited to fix a missing word.

#9 As a girl: Being thrown into a world made and designed for men with no one to help contextualize this properly so I understand better why I’m not actually a huge failure at what I choose to undertake.

As a teenager: being taught everything that is dangerous about sex (unwanted pregnancy, STDs…), but not about how to be comfortable with my own sexuality, or how pleasurable sex can be for women, how important it is, and how to achieve this – would have helped me so much more growing up

So far for my entire life: Periods. Seriously. Inconvenient. Uncomfortable. Painful. Sometimes can lead to major embarrassment. Can put a damper on: events, vacations, sometimes I even have to adapt what I wear based on the day and flow… F**k tampon commercials trying to make anyone believe women need to live through this by dancing around in a white dress feeling pure bliss.

#10 The body shaming started really early for me. I was called fat by everyone from my classmates to my father to my medical providers, then I slimmed down but my breasts grew big and fast so I was mocked for that; my mom started insinuating I was a s**t by the age of about 12. I didn’t even lose my virginity until I was almost 20 because I thought I was a big ugly monster.

It took me so, so long to unpack the trauma of growing up in the early/mid 2000s. Now I’m 34 and just dipping my toes in the water of intentional weight loss after decades of not being able to do it without spiraling into an eating disorder, because I’m edging on high blood pressure and want to be able to go hiking w my friends without being a drag.

Don’t get me started on navigating the minefield of dating hetero men.

#11 The day you realize that little boys are treated better than you.

I didn’t want to be a girl when I was little. I truly hated being a girl. I didn’t want to be a boy either. I didn’t have gender issues. I had society issues. It took a long time to realize that me being a girl wasn’t the problem. The problem was that every successful person we talked about was a man. The other was that little boys could physically assault little girls, and no one cared. The other was that girls had to play nicely and sit nicely because of our clothes.

The realization that being a girl means moving through the world so differently is devastating.

#12 Expectation of having children. I hate feeling like I am worth less because I do not want to put my body and mind through a pregnancy.

#13 Being constantly dismissed and therefore denied adequate help, compensation, etc.

#14 For me it was mostly seeing how there were different rules for me than for my brothers, especially in terms of freedom.

Edit to say: I’m kind of baffled with all these replies and grateful to say that my wonderful parents raised me as the tomboy that I was with (almost) no complaints. My comment was addressed at things like going out alone or being out after dark. .

#15 I was lucky and didn’t have a lot of the terrible experiences that girls and women have, but for me it was the double standard. My brother can do no wrong and he was able to do more because he was a boy and “it’s different for girls”.

#16 Body issues… I learned to hate my body at a very young age. In my mid thirties and I’m still struggling to learn to love myself the way I am.

#17 My father once said to me “if you didn’t want to cook and clean, then you shouldn’t have chosen to be born a girl.” My mistake. .

#18 Being expected to be “polite” to everyone – take s**t from everyone, have low standards, accept manchildren as your partner, try to “see the best” in people who wrong you, people please.

Being sexualised from infancy.

Being treated like an infant in adulthood.

#19 The patriarchy. Sexism, misogyny, double-standards, assault, predatory men, etc etc etc.

#20 Abuse. You pick the type.

#21 EARLY SEXUALISATION / HARASSMENT -> lifelong trauma and damage.

PARENTIFICATION which stunts childs natural development (for example in case of younger siblings girls are required to look after them).

WASTED POTENTIAL (not enough spaces to nourish girls talents in science maths chess and IT).

Edit: oh and a f*****g bonus point if you are a girl growing up in a religious family.. Constantly being told your purpose in life is to birth children and be a good wife. ???.

#22 I’ll second sexual harassment, catcalling, and body issues from a very young age and add not being able to display your emotions and still be taken seriously. I hear so much from men saying that boys aren’t able to express their emotions, and while this is true to some extent (the patriarchy hurts everyone!), they can express anger and have it be taken seriously. For women, it’s immediately dismissed as hormonal/PMS/stereotypes (e.g., “angry Black woman”). If we express sadness, see above. If we express a legitimate concern (especially medical), it’s dismissed as “anxiety”. Women/girls aren’t allowed to express emotions without societal repercussions any more than men/boys are, it just looks different for us (and can have more disastrous consequences, esp. medical).

#23 Worrying about body image from quite a young age. Am I fat? Am I too fat? Am I fit enough? Am I too muscley? Am I too skinny now? Am I skinny enough? Endless. .

#24 Being underestimated and questioned while men are seen for potential; I had this incredible self confidence as a kid that was crushed in my teen years that I’ve worked my whole life to find back.

#25 Finding out what kind of p*rn men like. That our pleasure doesnt matter. That many men m**turbate to women/girls suffering.

Shanilou Perera

Shanilou has always loved reading and learning about the world we live in. While she enjoys fictional books and stories just as much, since childhood she was especially fascinated by encyclopaedias and strangely enough, self-help books. As a kid, she spent most of her time consuming as much knowledge as she could get her hands on and could always be found at the library. Now, she still enjoys finding out about all the amazing things that surround us in our day-to-day lives and is blessed to be able to write about them to share with the whole world as a profession.