On girl(woman)hood: Part I

Being a girl & woman across family, love, school, tech, and beyond.

Prelude: the structure of this essay is inspired by

Robin Yang

’s excellent essay Piano Joy. This photo essay is split into two parts, and will be the final essay of 2023. I hope you enjoy. PS- Thank you for reading and being a part of my Substack journey. Grateful to every single reader here!

I. Girlhood, defined.

As a young child, I was a “girly girl.” Case and point: my clothes were almost exclusively pink. Majority of my toys were Barbies or other “girl appropriate” toys. My mother described me as an especially feminine child, carrying myself like a genteel, elegant woman. “You even sat on the potty like a lady, delicately draping your frock over your knees.” Nothing like your mother telling you that you shat like a girl to make it clear that you are, undoubtedly, a girl. 

But I didn’t mind it. Being a girl was fun. One of my favorite memories was sneaking off with my mom to have her paint my nails. Or my grandmother massaging coconut oil in my hair, adding shine and lusciousness to my hair. It felt nice to have an avenue to express and take care of myself through fashion and beauty. I always felt sorry for my older brother, who always wore the same shorts and T-shirt outfit. Meanwhile, I relished the chance to play dress up in my mom’s closet. 

Baby Vinamrata

I also innately recognized that there were inherent differences in the way girls and boys were treated, at least in my Indian household. I was constantly roped into helping with chores in a way that my brother conveniently escaped from. My paternal grandfather also made it clear that my brother was expected to carry the family name and do “great things,” whereas I was just… there. My brother was always allowed to go outside to play without fuss, whereas when I made similar requests, my parents hesitated or demanded I go with my brother. When I did something wrong, I was scolded less harshly than my brother. This disparity often meant I took the blame whenever something went wrong, optimizing for the peace of the household. It felt like a manifestation of the gender stereotype that boys had to be tough and I was expected to be… the opposite of that. 

What was the opposite of that anyway? Meek? Docile? Obedient? Weak? And did acting in ways that were more like my brother or father take away from the early expressions of femininity, the ones that I actually enjoyed and felt like me? 

II. Rejection

Being a girl stopped being fun at 11. 

That was the age when I started developing into a woman. Puberty was a deeply uncomfortable experience for me, not just because of the physiological changes, but also the cultural shifts, as my ascent into puberty coincided with our move to New Zealand and the States. I went from being called a “cute girl” to a “weird girl.” My food was weird. My clothes were weird. My accent was weird. My interests were weird. It also didn’t help that when I looked at media images around me, the only accepted girls were white, skinny, rich, conventionally pretty girls that cared about boys, clothes, or makeup. In contrast, I felt like a lonely, weird, fat outcast, into strange things like books, science, and history. I learned my deepest fear through living it: not being desired in the way that I want to be desired. 

Awkward, tween Vinamrata

The starkest memory of this that lives in my head rent free was getting the courage to ask a boy in my class (who also happened to live in my building) to go to the fifth grade dance with me, only for him to stand me up. I remember waiting for him in the laundry room of the basement of our building (not sure to this day why we agreed to meet there). I wore the outfit my mom had bought for me, some poofy, colorful dress that probably made more sense to wear three years ago, watching the clock as the clothes tumbled in the dryers. Thirty minutes later, with no signs of the boy, I went back upstairs back to our apartment, crying in her arms. Or maybe I lied and told her that I changed my mind, taking back control of the narrative. I’ve buried the memory so deep inside my brain that I can’t even remember what actually happened. 

This deep seated desire to be desired is what led me in seventh grade, to try shooting my shot again in Computer Lab to pass a note to tell a boy I like him, only for him to tell me he doesn’t seem me that way. Same pattern in high school, when I had a crush on a boy in my French class, and let him copy my homework for three years and played League of Legend (which I had absolutely zero interest in btw), only for him to gently turn me down. 

I think that’s part of the reason why I buried myself in academics and books at such a young age. I felt desired in the classroom by my teachers, who were grateful to teach a kid like me because I actually wanted to learn. I hung out with them after school, even when I didn’t need help with my assignments. In fact, I picked up extra work just because it was a way to feel good about myself. 

III. Devil in the Details

In my head, I associate college with the time when I felt desired by men in a way that I was seeking. But actually, it happened earlier. 

When I was in middle school, I had only one real (male) friend: M. M and I sat together at lunch, sat next to each other in class, and generally had each other’s back. For some reason, M was labeled “uncool.” People also made fun of us, claiming that we were dating, which was baffling because the idea of anything happening between us felt like a stretch. He was my friend, and that’s all there was to our relationship. 

At some point, M told me in fact, he did like me and would I like to be his girlfriend? I remember being caught so off guard that I didn’t know how to respond. So, I ghosted him, or the 2007 equivalent of ghosting. I stopped sitting next to him in class or lunch. I ignored his notes to talk. In my fear of what could happen if I was caught romantically with a “loser” kid, I gave up my best friend that I had in middle school. 

Me and my fave gadget: iPod

I’m deeply embarrassed to admit this as an adult because my behavior was undeniably shitty. It’s even shittier when you recognize that I’ve been on the other side of similar shitty behavior, yet I chose to act in the same shitty way when put in a similar situation. I never got to apologize to M, nor have I connected with him since middle school, but if I could, I would say: I’m sorry M. I did a really shitty thing to you and while I can’t change that, I hope you’ve found some peace and healing since then. 

I’ve often wondered how I could be so cruel. Did I really fear the judgment of my fellow classmates? 

Maybe. 

I think what I feared more was knowing whether someone liked me for me or a version of me. 

In freshman year of college, when I received some romantic attention from men, I remember thinking: I had finally become hot enough for men to be interested in. That was exciting and scary at the same time. It was like I had unlocked some power that I was supposed to have this whole time, yet expressing that power felt… wrong? It was also strange to realize that the only thing that had changed to unlock this change was cosmetic: my teeth were straighter, I wore contacts instead of glasses, and my unibrow dissolved by a thick, white thread. In some ways, I felt like Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality, blending in the shadows until a makeover that transformed her into a ~ hot lady ~ 

It made me question: are people interested in me or this feminine ideal that I’m projecting? Or is this makeover, like one of my female friends told me, making it easier for men to see the “good” parts of me? 

IV. Women in CS

Tech was the first time I became consciously aware of my gender in an academic setting. 

My first time visiting Stanford during Admit Weekend, I spoke with a CS professor (who went on to become my advisor) about majoring in the field. I wanted to give it a shot but I was scared that I was behind. He reassured me that I wasn’t behind, and then connected me to two other women for “more perspective.” I wondered if it was intentional that the two women he connected me with were behind the “Women in CS” club. 

Outtakes from freshman year of Stanford

In college, I went back and forth on whether my gender mattered when I studied CS. In some classes, like databases, I was one of many women in the class, even if the women were still disproportionately outnumbered by the men. In computer networking, that difference was stark. I distinctly remember looking around during the midterm to count the number of women in a class of 200-300. The number fit on my hands. 

I couldn’t figure out why that made me so uncomfortable. It wasn’t like the other horror stories I’d heard of women told by their professors that they weren’t good enough to take the class or refusing to call on them. There were really kind TAs and classmates in my networking class. Plus, people were impressed when I told them I was taking computer networking. I wondered if they would look just as impressed if I was a man, or if a woman in networking made me significantly more “badass.” I liked that I was strong enough to make it through the major, taking on these hard classes, beating the stereotypes. I liked being part of the solution, serving as an inspiration for future women, proving to them that as a woman, you truly can have it all.

For Part II of the essay, click here.

Thing of Note

Recap: This section is my way of bringing attention to a thing, person, or idea that’s meaningful/related to the mission of this newsletter. This week, I want to highlight <Khe Hy’s convo with Art of Accomplishment>

Unlike most people, I am not a podcast girlie. I think it’s because I have an insane backlog of podcast episodes I want to listen to, and everytime I check off one episode, I’m just reminded of all the episodes I need to watch. But as a coach, I am a sucker for podcasts that feature live coaching sessions, especially if they’re topics that I’m struggling with. I find them also helpful as a coach myself, getting a sneak peek into other coach’s methodologies. So, when Khe released an episode with Art of Accomplishment on defining a better scorecard for success and learning to trust himself, I knew I had to listen, since these are themes that are very much top of mind as I plan the next stage of my sabbatical (more on that soon). I loved the vulnerability of this conversation. The resistance in Khe’s body when he was asked to think of self trust as his scorecard, which is such a “fuzzy” metric compared to dollars or follower count or whatever other “hard” metric we can construe, was so real. I struggle so much with this in my life as well, especially as a former PM trained on metrics. It’s brought up some really great reflections for me, and I’m deeply thinking about adopting this metric for my “success metric” for next year, especially in my creative work. 

Thanks for Reading! 

I’m on a journey to create a blended career across the creative arts, tech, and business. This newsletter is my way of sharing my reflections, thoughts, and advice along the way. Here are some ways to support or further collaborate together! 

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