I am a woman, and that is my superpower

This article is part of the #ChooseToChallenge campaign by Hashnode.

As a girl growing up in the society, I was always told to think a certain way, like certain things and aspire to certain professions. Regardless, I aspired to be more and put in that work to lay the foundation to get me to more.

I'm not the only one with this story. There are so many women out there that have been conditioned from the day they were born not to be too ambitious because it would scare men off. As a result of this poor conditioning, in today's world women that even try as hard aren't rated enough.

On social media, I see a lot of cyberbullying, mansplaining, slut shaming and gaslighting happening to women on a daily basis. It's difficult being a woman already because we literally have to think like men, look like young girls and work like horses to be noticed. After that stress, the burden of the social media wars also exist. I think it's ridiculous and I would tell you why.

A few weeks ago, a lady in tech shared on Twitter that she's open to new roles and that tweet had the compensation she wanted. The thread was all shades of horrible because a lot of people made her feel silly for trying to command that kind of salary when some of them earn a lot more that what she asked for.

It's a very huge problem and something must be done. This year, within my local community, I #ChooseToChallenge:

• The gaslighting: Women know what they want and shouldn't feel stupid for asking for it.
• The mansplaining: If nobody asked for your 2 cents, keep it in your wallet.
• The unconscious bias, profiling and stereotyping: It's NOT okay to assume that women should look a certain way or only take up some certain roles in tech
• Slut shaming or sexualizing women: Look beyond our bodies, we are not sex tools to you.

Overall, I #ChooseToChallenge all forms of cyberbullying and bad behavior.

I know that it's hard to make an impact on things as sensitive as this over random social media fights especially with people you don't know. However, I believe that the only way to see real change is when there is a mindset shift. We can start by trying to make this impact by influencing the people in our local community and empowering those people to influence other people that in turn go ahead to influence more people.

That way, we can teach a lot of people about respect, inclusion, the effects of cyberbullying and why unconscious bias is a bad thing.

Together, we can make this happen and we can see a change in this world, I #ChooseToChallenge bad behavior, and I #ChooseToChallenge you to do the same 😊