As a girl, when I was 2 I learnt to walk and at 12 I learnt to run. As soon as my hips started to widen, I became a target of attention I didn’t want. Men old enough to be my father whistled and leered at me, called me “baby,” detailed how they’d like to touch a girl who barely understood what they were saying. When I hit puberty, I learnt to run. I studied the language of my gut, the way I felt boulders in my stomach when I didn’t feel safe, the way my skin prickled whenever something was wrong. At 2, I learnt to walk and at 12, I learnt how to stop. Stop walking at night, stop walking alone, stop walking without keys between my fingers. I understood, then, what my life would be, what my gender meant, what the future would be. And I was terrified.

When I was 18, for my graduation, I got a lockbox to protect my valuables at college and a rape whistle to protect myself. I got another gift of self-defense courses. But long before this, I had learnt that neither of those things could protect me much. I knew statistics, I had heard stories, I knew that I was more likely to be sexually assaulted by a person I knew than by a gruff man lurking in the shadows on my walk back to my dorm. I had restless nights with the weight of this information sitting on my chest. I had restless nights thinking about how growing up as a girl just wasn’t fair.

When I was 4, my mother taught me how to hold my mouth while she applied lipstick before a dance recital, how to look up while she applied mascara so it didn’t get into my eyes. At 14, I taught myself how to do it all on my own. When I got to high school and started wearing makeup most of the time, I found out that all that teaching had never prepared me for the reactions I got. Boys told me, “You look prettier without all that gunk.” Then people told me I looked tired without it. I learnt I was wrong whether I wore makeup or not. At 14, I learnt that my life would be full of contradictions of this kind. Conceited or ugly. Prudish or promiscuous. Harpy or too meek.

When I was 5, a boy laughed at me for crying after he threw a rock at my head. When I was 15, a boy laughed at me for crying when he shattered my entire world. I learnt that big girls don’t cry. I learnt that if I wanted to be taken seriously, I would always have to speak in a measured voice. I felt the embarrassment of being ridiculed when I lost my temper in a fight. I felt the pain of someone invalidating anything I had to say because my voice cracked when I said it.

When I was 16, I learnt that big girls cry, sometimes. When I was 16, I learnt that I was made of steel. I looked around and saw all the girls, all the women who surrounded me, and how each one was a Sisyphus. I learnt that I could carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I learnt that females were strong as hell, and we--I--could live through anything that the world had to throw at me. I already knew that the world would continue to throw a lot of things at me.

As a girl, my entire life, I learnt what David had felt like, fighting against Goliath. At every turn lay another threat, in every corner lurked a new thing from which I had to protect myself. My entire world has been a Goliath. But I grew and I got ready to fight. I built armor the best I could. This life is a battle, and it always will be. But I am prepared the best I can be. I am always scared. But I know I can tough it through anything. That’s what growing up as a girl taught me.