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I hope that they will not be coerced into STEM just because their parents feel the need to “start early.” Instead, they should be able to ignite and pursue their own curiosity, whether it’s through putting mentos in coke or trying to burn something using a flashlight. More than anything, I wish for young girls around the world to have the freedom to do what they want.
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I’m tired of filling out identity charts at Women in STEM events. I no longer want to try to commodify myself into an object that companies like Amazon want. And I no longer want to see STEM as a mere stepping stone to a stable life. I want to be driven toward pursuing technology to create an impact, not amass more wealth.
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After my family learned I was a lesbian, I separated myself from church because of their homophobic treatment toward me. But now that I’ve become aware of its true history and purposes in Latin America, not only do I not want to be associated with it for its homophobic rhetoric, but also for its undeniable role as colonizers.
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If I decide to show no skin, or if I want to wear the smallest skimpiest dress in the world, that is my decision. A community full of young women shouldn’t treat each other differently depending on their outfit choices. A sorority should be a space in which women are uplifted through sisterhood, and by regulating their dress code and enforcing the concept that a woman’s worth is correlated to her modesty, a sorority is failing to do so.
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It’s taken a lot of energy and effort to try to combat my impostor syndrome and stop comparing myself within STEM. Whether it’s taking the time to write or calling an old friend in between classes, I try to remember the things outside of academia that make me who I am.
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“You know, us Mexicans are indigenous, too,” I told my sister once while talking about ethnicity and Mexicanidad—Mexicaness. While living in Mexico, I never thought of people in terms of race, we were all just mestizos—of mixed race with indigenous descent––despite our skin color or physical traits. I grew up
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My workload that semester had been more than overwhelming, and I was running tight on money, so attending every Greek event wasn’t realistic. Additionally, I hadn’t been excused for missing our sorority’s weekly meeting because I had missed them to study, which didn’t count as an acceptable excuse.
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I’m tired of the humanities being viewed as more feminine and therefore less valued than STEM fields. I’m tired of being told I should drop my major in English to a minor so I can focus on CS, when in reality, I am more committed to my English degree.
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I don’t want to be rare. I don’t be want to be tokenized, valued to a heightened degree and put on a pedestal because of aspects of my identity I was born with or because of the ways I challenge expectations in my field.
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I now put conscious effort into decolonizing myself by challenging gender binary expectations. Even though I sometimes catch myself saying sorry when I shouldn’t, speaking too softly, or moving to the side to let men pass, I am self-conscious of those actions.
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