As a child I play with Legos and Erector Sets but am told I should be a teacher when I grow up. As a teenager I help my grandfather repair trucks and work on construction around the house along with a male neighbor. When I make mistakes I am ridiculed as stupid and for thinking like a girl. When the male neighbor makes the same mistakes, he’s forgiven for not knowing what he hasn’t been taught, and told to learn from what went wrong. Made me feel powerless, angry. Like my interests meant less than the gender role I had been assigned.