The struggles that I have had to overcome due to my identity are nowhere near what other people have had to go through. For this reason, I always do my best to support and help those that are going through other struggles.
In my memories of school, I can remember teachers and other male students looking down on myself and other successful female students. Teachers wouldn’t include us in group discussions that related to anything masculine because we didn’t know enough about it. Sometimes classmates, both male and female would try to discredit any achievements with outrageous accusations and put us down. In Kimmy’s Twitter thread, she writes about having a realization that her culture is powerful and a part of who she is. After watching Angela Duckworth’s TED Talk about grit, I was inspired to use the pessimism towards myself and other female students as drive to get to my end goal. For the first time in my school’s history, the Valedictorian, Salutatorian, and #3 in the grade were all girls and 6 of the top ten students were girls.