The Best Things Someone Never Told Me

Everyone loves good advice, words of encouragement, and feeling like they are making a difference. All of these inspire us, and motivate us to always move forward especially when we are feeling down.

I realized, especially as a girl who’s grown up in India, I’ve had a lot of privileges and advantages that a lot of women in my country (and across the world) might not always have. I’ve been lucky enough to have grown up in a progressive environment with family, friends, teachers, peers and colleagues that have pushed me to always be better, and do better. Sometimes when I think of all the good advice, those words of encouragement, and I feel like I am making a difference, I also think of all the things I never got to hear that play an equally important role in pushing me forward. I try to imagine a world and a reality where I would have been told these things, and the thought makes me sad.

Do you want to know what are some of the best things I never got to hear?

“You’re a girl, you can’t be good at Math or Science”

“You’re a girl, you don’t need to study any more”

“Well ok, you can study more, but you’re a girl so you can’t move out of town for it”

“You’re a girl, you can’t live by yourself in a foreign city, or worse, country”

“You’re a girl, you don’t need to work”

“You’re a girl, you can’t travel alone”

“You’re a girl, you should just get married and stay at home because that’s all you are meant to do”

“You’re a girl, you can’t do this job”

“You’re a girl, you can’t handle this”

“You’re a girl, you can’t just do whatever you dream of”

No one ever told me any of this.

Maybe no ever told you these things either, and that is great, you’ve had the freedom to choose where you should be! But a lot of women the world over do have to hear some, or sometimes even all of these things, at some point or the other in their lives. It is a sad reality I cannot even begin to comprehend, as someone who has been lucky enough to not have been subjected to it at all. I imagine someone telling me any of this and I can understand how it would crush my confidence, and skew my potential and my feeling of self-worth.

No one should have to hear any of this.

So here’s what I’m thinking, if this makes you feel the same way and you want to make a difference, maybe we can start like this. Maybe we never tell a girl any of these things, whether she is 5, or 18, or 25 years old. Maybe we never tell a girl any of these things, even as a joke, in jest. Honestly, maybe we just don’t tell a girl any of this because it’s not really true.

I sit here and think how grateful I am that I never got to hear any of this, and I want other women everywhere to feel this way. It’s a great feeling and every woman has a right to feel this way, or at the least have the freedom to feel this way. Right?

Originally posted on LinkedIn.