Even after my mother’s death, I continued to visit my maternal family in Croatia as much as I could. This sustained my friendship I made with a girl, named Maja, while enrolled in second grade in at a Croatian school. As we both grew older and developed from free-spirited children to young adults, I have noticed where our paths diverged. Not because we had different interests, but because Croatia did not offer her the same opportunities I had as a girl growing up. It is because of Maja and other females I know in the same situation, that when someone says that as a society we do not need feminism, I speak on their behalf. I strongly believe that girls everywhere are experiencing sexism that hinders their opportunities to become the great and
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We constantly drew horses, excelled at our school work, and loved burek, a Croatian delicacy. But it wasn’t until I moved to Germany in third grade that our support systems in school began to drastically differ. I went to a DoDEA school where my teachers encouraged everyone equally to pursue whatever they liked. My other best friend at the time, Justyna, even went onto win our school’s science fair. However, Maja and her female peers were not always so equally encouraged to pursue their dreams. Although everyone was pushed to do well in their academic work, it was the boys who were always taken seriously when they expressed a dream in having a career in stem fields. Maja expressed to me that she had always wanted to be an architect She was completely capable and well gifted in math to pursue a career in architecture but, she always felt that as a girl she would not fit in. There was never anyone at school to inspire and encourage her to follow her dream. I found this incredibly frustrating because it is the hardest thing to sit and watch someone not pursue their dream only because of their gender. I offered to help her with whatever she needed to apply to colleges or simply gain insight into the array of opportunities she could have out of Croatia. But, no matter how much I tried to tell her that she could, she always told me to not “to be
We constantly drew horses, excelled at our school work, and loved burek, a Croatian delicacy. But it wasn’t until I moved to Germany in third grade that our support systems in school began to drastically differ. I went to a DoDEA school where my teachers encouraged everyone equally to pursue whatever they liked. My other best friend at the time, Justyna, even went onto win our school’s science fair. However, Maja and her female peers were not always so equally encouraged to pursue their dreams. Although everyone was pushed to do well in their academic work, it was the boys who were always taken seriously when they expressed a dream in having a career in stem fields. Maja expressed to me that she had always wanted to be an architect She was completely capable and well gifted in math to pursue a career in architecture but, she always felt that as a girl she would not fit in. There was never anyone at school to inspire and encourage her to follow her dream. I found this incredibly frustrating because it is the hardest thing to sit and watch someone not pursue their dream only because of their gender. I offered to help her with whatever she needed to apply to colleges or simply gain insight into the array of opportunities she could have out of Croatia. But, no matter how much I tried to tell her that she could, she always told me to not “to be