Teen Feminism: 'The Day I Proved To My Class That Sexism Still Exists'

This is a teen-written article from our friends at Youth Communication, a nonprofit organization that helps marginalized youth develop their full potential through reading and writing.

By Alice Markham-Cantor

My 12-year-old neighbor grinned down at me from the tree house. “Girls aren’t allowed up here. They can’t get up here,” he boasted.

I glared at him with all the force my 10-year-old face could muster. He was standing on the trapdoor over the ladder, and there was no way I’d be able to budge his weight. So I went around the back of the tree house, climbed a fence, wedged my foot into a knothole in the tree trunk, and hoisted myself up so that I was clinging to the railing of the tree house. I swung my legs over and drew myself up to my full, very short height.

"Who says girls can’t get up here?”

The occasion was one of many when I was reminded -- usually by a boy -- that I was “just” a girl, and used it as motivation to show what girls can do. I wasn’t about to accept limitations placed on me because of my gender.