Thankfully, I never felt that my gender affected me negatively as a child. I never felt prohibited to pursue any tasks or activities as a child. Both at home and in the classroom I was encouraged to always be the person that I wanted to be and at a young age, it never occurred to me that my gender could have ever held me back. My reservations were more about lack of ability or skills in certain tasks; not the oppression of my gender. In primary school I was in the football team. I was awful and lacked all coordination but I was still encouraged to be part of the team. I have faint memories of peers, the boys of the team, sneering at the prospect of a girl playing football.However, the coach and teachers all continued to strengthen my confidence in myself and my abilities.
I attended a small primary school in a rural town, with approximately 130 pupils and I loved primary school and all of the teachers that worked there. Oppression of gender is not something I remember from primary school, apart from a classmate crying because he had to wear tights to be peter pan in the school play. The teacher profusely tried to explain that tights are not ‘just for girls’ but he refused to wear the bright green tights. That is my only memory of gender constrictions being made obvious throughout primary.
I never felt that I was oppressed as a child and even now, as I’m fully aware of the global wide oppression of females; I refuse to accept that I “can’t” do something, simply because I’m female.
