Because I am a girl

The 5-year old version of me isn’t exactly alike as the 19-year-old you see today. I used to be a little stout girl with hair held up in pony tails.

Well, I wasn’t just stout. I was fat and round, round as a ball. To put this description into context, I once bumped into one of my classmates and his front teeth fell off!

 My childhood was a living hell as bullies teased me left and right. I was labeled as “baboy” or “baboy ramo nga naka buhi sa tangkal” for every waking day of my preschool life. Things got out of hand when they ruined my project just because I was that. Being the little girl I was, I looked at my fists and realized that they weren’t intended to fight so I simply cried, just like daddy’s little girl, waiting for my hero to save me.

To cut the story short, I was forced to go on a diet after that dreadful instance just to spare myself from another round of humiliation.

Looking back at my life as a little girl, my womanhood today whispers the word fight if I could only talk to her.

No, I wouldn’t want her to start a brawl in preparatory school. What would be left of her? I meant the fight for the right to be who I was supposed to be. Not some Barbie doll.

What we should be fighting for are girls’ rights, a call for gender equality even amongst children aged 17 and below.

There are gender stereotypes in the different cultures of the world. One very common is long hair for girls and a clean cut for boys. If one crosses over the other, then say goodbye to your school or prepare for a reprimand from the principal. It even gets worse in other countries where girls are only to stay at home while boys are sent to school. 

There are cultures that do not issue birth certificates for girls. With no supporting documents of their identity, they are at high risk of trafficking. These girls are usually limited to helping mom at home while their brother goes out to play with other boys.

I was once deprived of the hit gaming console back then, which was coincidentally named as gameboy. The rationale was it was a game for boys.

In a recent immersion with an international organization advocating girls’ rights, I come to realize the significance of gender equality. What more to make its impact more strong than to start with young girls. Even a simple bullying story could not be forgotten until the adolescence, it can even traumatize.

Children may be the hope of tomorrow but how do we make this hope a living spark if they are not even at par with each other? Boys too, should learn the rights that girls have and how society has ordained the norms for boys and girls.

They say that this generation has been topsy-turvy because of the call for equality? But I daresay that this is the way to straighten things out and end oppression. It may be too deep but it is true.

So to the 5-year-old me, I’d tell those bullies that I have rights too because I am a girl.

 ** Published in the Freeman newspaper on October 23, 2012