We asked the women of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about a time they experienced subtle sexism. Here are 25 of the responses that took place at school.
Note: Some submissions include topics of rape and sexual harassment.
1. "My junior year of high school, I requested to be in the welding class. Not only did they not place me in the welding class, but they put me in the fashion design class instead."
2. "At my old school, I was the only girl on the soccer team. I was never allowed to play in games because 'a girl should only watch the boys play' and 'I needed to leave sports up to the boys.' I was constantly told to crop my jersey and start 'acting like a girl.'
3. "When I was in high school, I went to pay for some dance ticket with all ones — tips from my job at an ice cream parlor. The teacher said, 'Wow, you must be doing really well at the strip club,' while looking at my boobs."
4. "I took this class in high school that explored the existence of extraterrestrial life. We split into groups and this guy started going on and on about black holes. I asked him questions about it and he was like, 'Oh, well, it's very complex, blah blah blah.' I said, 'Right, far too complex for my tiny female brain to comprehend.' He didn't say much else after that."
5. "In middle school, I was in a history class that did a lot of poster board–type projects. I was kind of known for making presentations with colors and decorations, but also with the best content. But whenever we did group projects, I was asked to just 'print the pictures' and 'make them look pretty,' even if I knew the most about the topic.
6. "One day back in high school, we were getting ready to play baseball in gym. The teacher was going over the rules and began to talk about throwing the ball. He went, 'And for the girls, when you throw a ball, you always make sure to step with the opposite foot first.' Then he proceeded to demonstrate in an exaggerated motion.
7. "When I went to get my high school physics teacher to sign off on my AP Physics placement for the next year, he told me, 'To be honest, when I look at someone like you, you don’t look like you would be good at this, but you ended up being my brightest student!'"
8. "In a dance program we had at school, the girls weren't allowed to do backflips or cartwheels, but the boys were. When we asked the teacher why, she said, 'Boys can handle it; girls cannot.'
9. "In middle school, I was bullied by this boy. I went to the vice principal multiple times, and every time he brushed it off. Once, he said maybe we had crushes on each other."
10. "I was giving tours at my school’s open house. While showing the group some of our 3D printers, I mentioned that I use them often. One of the fathers on the tour started explaining to me, incorrectly, the software this specific brand of printers runs on. Because the program the printers came with sucks, I coded my own. So he was going into great detail about software I designed.
11. "I went to sign up for my middle school’s students-versus-teachers basketball game, and the gym teacher in charge said, 'Whoa...a GIRL signing up?!?'"
12. "In my high school environmental science class, the female teacher decided to spend two weeks on self-defense and gave handouts to all the girls about how not to get raped (don't wear a ponytail or skirt, carry keys, etc.). There was no discussion with the boys on not raping women."
13. "I was in high school marching band on the cymbal line — the only girl on cymbals. The percussion director decided to appoint a cymbal captain. The boy who got chosen was immature and constantly late for practice and had a tendency to mouth off for no reason. My director said he talked to all of the cymbal line before choosing him, but he didn’t talk to me at all.
14. "Boys at my school make fun of me and tell me a woman shouldn't dress as masculine as I do, that women wear dresses and skirts, not basketball shorts."
15. "One of the coaches at my school made the boys run like four extra laps, while the girls could 'sit down and relax.'"
16. "I’m a high school student, and I’m part of a leadership team for a club. Both years I've been on the team, I’ve been the youngest member. My opinion is constantly looked down upon and regarded as not good enough.
17. "My high school had a pool, so swimming was a gym option. Once a month, I opted out for a week because of my period, but my male gym teacher told me to 'just wear a tampon' because that's what the girls on the swim team did. I don't wear tampons and it was none of his business why, but he failed me in swim class anyway."
18. "This was in like third grade. My class would play boys-versus-girls keep-away every recess, and this one kid would throw around sexist slurs, saying girls couldn't do anything, we were idiots, etc."
19. "I'm one of the oldest kids in my class, along with two boys. One day, some boys a year younger than me asked my age and the year I was born. I told them. They then tried to mansplain to me that I am a year younger than my actual age.
20. "Band started in fourth grade. I asked for a tuba. 'No, honey, try this instead.' They gave me a euphonium, which is like a baby tuba. I was as tall as or taller than the two boys who received tubas."
21. "I took a drafting class as a ninth-grader, and the teacher told me I was really good for a girl.
22. "My PE teacher told me to be careful not to break a nail while playing football, and he told me I could sit out if I was too tired.
23. "We have class rankings my teacher writes on the whiteboard. I am always on the top. My name is gender neutral, so whenever a male substitute teacher comes, he assumes I'm a guy and says, 'Now, where is this boy at the top of the class?'
24. "In ninth grade, I was talking to these guys and I said I liked sports. One of them said, 'Me too. I love football. I especially love that the Detroit Lions make it to the Super Bowl basically every year.' I obviously said to him, 'Ummm...I’m pretty sure the Lions have NEVER made it to the Super Bowl.' And this boy literally said, 'I know that. I just wanted to see if you were lying about liking sports.'
25. And finally, this theme: "A few students helped my elementary school gym/health teacher move desks and things out of a trailer. The boys got to lift the 'heavy' desks and do the fun stuff, but we girls had to sort through dry erase markers because we 'weren’t strong enough to lift the desks.'"
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.