Because I was a Girl, I was told ...

There will be no female president come January. But in the days leading up to the election, there was a distinct possibility that this 227-year-old gender barrier would be hurdled, and so we asked women to tell us about their own vividly recalled barriers. Almost 1,200 of you responded. Here are some of your stories.

… I couldn’t do the job

Sherry Knowlton,65, Newville, Pa. Photo: The New York Times

In high school, I applied to be a Senate page. I can still remember my disappointment when I received the reply from Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania that girls were not permitted to serve as pages. I was a straight-A student, among the top in my class, active in the school newspaper, a bit of an overachiever. But I wouldn’t even be considered because I was a girl. I was devastated. And then I got angry. My resolve to approach life with the belief that I could achieve anything I wanted rose out of the ashes of that defeat. It took me far in my career in state government and the health insurance industry, and now as a suspense author. Along the way, I’ve encountered other gender roadblocks — many insurmountable. But few affected me as much as the one from Senator Scott. I can still remember standing in our dining room after school and tearing open the letter with the fancy gold Senate seal — only to find I’d been rejected. Not because I wasn’t qualified, but because I was born female. I’m getting angry all over again, 50 years later, as I write this.

Barb Iovan,63, Livonia, Mich.

I was 5 years old and in kindergarten. I was playing with a set of plastic milk bottles in a metal carrier. A boy wanted to play with them and the teacher told me to give them to him since he was a boy and only boys were milkmen.

Lt. Cmdr. Onege Maroadi,43, Washington Photo: The New York Times

As kids, my brothers and I were a boisterous trio. Our bedtime ritual was to don our bedsheets as capes, yelling “Supermaaan” as we “flew” from the tallest closets and slammed onto our beds below. Our favorite daytime event was an epic truck race down the steep sidewalk, which always ended in a delightful pile of steel, knees, elbows, joy and laughter.

We lived in Los Angeles, but my dad often had government work in Washington DC so my mom and I would go with him if it was during the summer. As a teenager in the 60's, I hung around the Top 40 radio station my father owned, and I loved watching the DJ's spin records, talk on air.

I wanted to be an "altar boy" and was told absolutely not by my parents and by the nuns and the priests of my parish. So I asked what else.

Twenty years later, I thought my U.S. Navy mentor, a former Blue Angel, could not have been serious when he suggested that I request a pilot slot as my top career choice. A job obviously for people like … him! From my fearless childhood had emerged an adult who held on to the limitations of cultural norms. I embraced gender barriers, forgetting that once upon a time, I was superman.

The Blue Angel made me clarify my reluctance to other pilots. With conviction, I explained that I was just a mathematics major, to which one pilot retorted that he was just an English major. They were like my brothers after all. Before long, I, too, became a pilot and mentor, encouraging others to rise above their obstacles, even when they own a broken wing — or cape.

Jane Schwabe 54, St. Joseph, Mo.

In ninth grade we had to take a self-assessment for career guidance. It was 1976. I had had straight A’s since fourth grade. My assessment said I excelled at spatial and mechanical reasoning, math and foreign languages. Boys with similar scores were advised to look at careers such as engineering, medicine and scientist. The recommendations for me were stewardess, teacher and bank teller. Not that any of those were bad professions. They are wonderful and much needed. But they were certainly not the best use of my aptitudes, and they were obviously gender-biased suggestions. So I continued to pursue my dream of becoming a physician. I’ve been a practicing cardiothoracic surgeon for nearly 20 years.

Susan Silver, 68, New York. Photo: The New York Times

I was casting director at “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” but I really wanted to be a writer. They said no, as the writers were all men and worked out of an apartment. They wanted to be able to “fart and strip down to their underwear,” and having a woman there would make that uncomfortable! I found a manager, the comedy icon Garry Marshall, who managed young writers and was supportive of women, and he got me an appointment for a new woman-focused show. So I went on to become one of the first writers of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” where they actively sought out women! I’ve just finished my memoir and there are lots of similar stories in it.

…Technology Wasn’t for Me

Alyssa Furukawa, 18, Los Angeles. Photo: The New York Times

I was 16 and a junior in high school. I had been appointed co-captain of my school’s robotics team. Two boys who applied weren’t selected. One was a friend. He didn’t talk to me for a week. My victory felt like a loss. A few months later, we were having a conversation and he said, “Well, you’re only a captain because you’re a girl.” I felt utterly invalidated, and crushed that a peer saw me that way. He didn’t think I had earned my title. I cried in the bathroom. I shared this story during an English class discussion on gender.

Many classmates sat in disbelief, and one simply said: “I can’t believe someone would say that to you. Especially you.” I thanked that boy for his kind words. I thought about that discussion later, and was saddened because I knew how little the boys in my school knew about the way girls are treated every day, and how it deeply affects us. I really think if we had more conversations about gender, and began to talk about this unacceptable treatment, maybe things could be different. That was when I first became a feminist.

Jayda Imanlihen,32, Washington Photo: The New York Times

When I was in college I went to a learning center to find out how I could purchase a student version of Final Cut Pro, the video editing software. The man who ran the center was usually very helpful to me. I said, I think I’ve grown past iMovie, how can I purchase the student version of Final Cut Pro? He looked at me and said, I don’t know, that program has a really high learning curve; it’s really hard. I ended up with a master’s degree from Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts, where I studied film. Now I am an award-winning independent producer.

Faridah Koledoye, 20, Atlanta Photo: The New York Times

I am a senior at Georgia State University and a double major in computer information systems and business management. I encounter gender barriers daily but a common one would be the shocking reaction I get when people find out that I am interested in information technology. I get that reaction from people I’ve just met as well as from men in my cohort. That a young woman would be remotely interested in this field genuinely baffles people. It has been hard to stay motivated, but I do it for all the little girls who are told what they can and cannot do.

Louise Jones McPhillips, 62, Birmingham, Ala. Photo: The New York Times

In 1966, I met with our 7th-grade school counselor after taking a “career aptitude” test. On the test, my match for a dream career was architect. The counselor told me that wasn’t possible because, as he explained, architects had to know a lot of math, and girls “didn’t do” math. Deflated and dismayed, I apologized for not knowing that such a path was not open to me. My second choice from the aptitude test was kindergarten teacher. The final report I gave to the counselor consisted of the most elaborate and detailed designs and drawings for a kindergarten classroom ever. Some years later, I got my master’s in architecture and became one of the first female registered architects in Alabama.

（To be continued）