I can remember back in the day when I was just young girl. My mom loved dressing me up in dresses. I being too young to dress my self and be presentable to the public, just usually would let her dress me. I never from what I can remember liked wearing dresses but it is how my mom chose to dress me. I remember one day, it was nice outside and I think we were at a local park with lots of kids around and I was running around, with so much energy, the kind of energy I wish I still had today. I was spinning around and doing high kicks and summersalts, running, skipping, slidding down the slides, being a normal, carefree small child. After a while, I saw a group of girls doing hand stands and cartwheels. I wanted to go join them. So i did. After looking silly, trying my best to figure out how they were doing these things. I was standing on my head and my dress was flipped almost completely off of me do to gravity. I remember my mom came up to me and told me, "Georgia, young ladies do not behave like that". I was astonished. I couldn't believe it, I was with a whole bunch of young girls trying to do handstands with them. I remember it resulted in crying and I just couldnt understand why I wasn't allowed to do these things like the other girls. My mom then reminded me that i was wearing a dress and as a lady, you should never flip up side down wearing a dress. I remember crying and crying and saying I didn't even want to wear the stupid dress! That was the first interaction that I remember being a young girl and being taught I needed to act appropriately as a girl.
The most recent gender expectation that i ran into was unfortunately at work. I work at a small place where security is highly necessary. I generally do everything that a manager does at my work. Normally, there are just two people at my work at a time. Often it is just my receptionist there with me. And recently my boss has decided that their can not be just two females working. Which I somewhat agree with. So they bring in an extra security person just because there are two girls working. Not to say that I couldn't handle myself appropriately in a bad situation, but they think a man has to be there for it to be "safe". Also to go along with that I am an expert in my field and know a lot about the product I sell. However, it happens so often that when customers come in with questions. They think that since I am a female, I don't have experience, or the answers they are looking for. So often they will ask if the guys are there to answer questions of which I could answer easily! This makes me upset often because I am highly qualified and can give just as good of an answer that a guy could. Often too when these customers come in, they won't even look me in the eye. They will just ask if a guy is around to help them. This often frustrates me but I understand that unfortunately some men in this world are still very sexist. I just try to brush it off my shoulder as it's nothing. However, there is a strong impression that females don't have the safety or amount on knowledge that my fellow male co workers have. But its okay, It's a secret I keep. I know that I know just as much as they do. :)
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