You hit like a girl!

I still remember the first time someone told me, “You are such a girl.” I was about seven years old and had just started getting better at tennis. I was in the same group with two other boys my age, and we trained together and traveled to tournaments regularly. We were around each other almost every day. You would think that seeing each other so often would make us close friends, but that was not the case. The boys would often team up against me, giving me nicknames or telling me I did not hit hard enough because I was a girl.

Being around boys for most of my tennis career until college, I became used to their comments day in and day out. At first, it did not bother me much because I was too young to understand the meaning behind their words. At that age, we were also constantly competing against each other, going back and forth on who was winning. As we got older, I began to understand what their words really meant, and while it started to affect me, it also became a source of motivation. I have never been someone who backs down from a challenge, and the more I was teased, the more I wanted to improve and beat them. In the long run, those experiences made me better, tougher, and pushed me to fight on the tennis court until the very last point.

After I graduated college, I became a tennis coach and experienced situations where some boys did not want to be coached by me because I was a woman. I also had parents tell me directly that they preferred a male coach for their child. At first, I did not let it affect me too much because I trusted my abilities. Instead, it motivated me to work even harder with my players and teach them everything I knew. Over time, something changed. After a few months, some of those same players requested to be placed with me as their coach after observing my coaching style and enjoying the way I worked with them. That experience reinforced for me the idea that actions speak louder than words in a professional setting.

Fast forward to 2025, while taking a Master’s-level course titled Gender and Sport, I learned that female athletes have been navigating these stereotypes and biases for a long time. While I have personally experienced many of them, I did not realize how much research exists on this topic. It was eye-opening to read studies that reflected experiences I had lived myself—such as being aware of my body and avoiding becoming “too muscular” for fear of being perceived as masculine, or hearing repeated messages that I was not as strong or fast as boys. I was also told, directly and indirectly, that I should prioritize academics over sports, or that my future would revolve around motherhood and household responsibilities because that is what is expected of women.

This course brought out a range of emotions and made me reflect on my journey from childhood to now, reconnecting me with the many sexist experiences I have encountered along the way.