Most girls I knew had this phase growing up where they went from the pink sparkly princess-loving girls to tomboys who gagged at the thought of wearing dresses and tiaras, I was no different. I recall telling my cousins how I absolutely detested pink and played basketball like the boys and how wearing heels was too girly for me. That very night I went home to my room with hot pink walls, Barbie decals, a crystal chandelier, and my pink bed. This phase started in elementary school and continued its way to my pre-teens. Now, many years older, my cousins and I look back and poke fun at our old selves and the stupidly strange girls we were; though, I still wonder why. Why were we conditioned to believe our femininity and girlhood were wrong, improper, and embarrassing? I realised we were trying to be different from other girls. We were trying to be boys, we all once believed that we were superior to other girls because we were more like the boys. I genuinely believed that I was special and superior because I was not like the other girls, and that I would be an exemption from the burden, pressure, and expectations placed on me solely based on my gender. I like to believe that this is an ideology from our youth, something long gone and a phase outgrown. However, I still felt this notion when I was one of the few girls in my robotics class and subconsciously tried to make myself less feminine. I cringed when the teacher referred to the girls as ladies, I feared that the few boys who treated me as an equal would realise I was a girl. I was scared of being looked down at and scoffed at with of course the following eye roll, which was the very common reaction I received from male peers when voicing my opinion. Most of us growing up wanted to be looked at as smart leaders who could be as distributive as they pleased just like the boys, rather than the girls who were a pleasure to have in class and the girls who were placed next to the loud boys to keep them quiet and well behaved. I know most girls have grown out of this, I do not feel ashamed to admit my favourite colour is pink and that I listen to Taylor Swift yet I still feel the pit in my stomach, ready to alter my femininity and self to be accepted and viewed as an equal. The worst part of this is that it has never worked out for me. Even through my tomboy phase and the subconscious changes I make now, it has never made any male peers or teachers view me as a boy, whose being no matter how loud or disruptive is ignored or even at times praised and instead labelled as “boys being boys”. What about my girlhood that was altered just so I could exist, just so I could take up space and be chosen when my hand was up? I wanted to be treated like the boys, I did not want to be one. That is why many of us have these phases, why young girls today have them, and why some do not grow out of them. All this, for a chance that maybe someday you will be the exception.