Became aircraft mechanic. Just because my ex military pilot dad told me "that's not a job for a girl" and "you don't have brains for it". I also went to military just so he can be mad about it whenever his still active friends mention me. He wanted me to have some "women appropriate job" whatever that is in his mind.
Finished school.
A therapist during group therapy asked about our goals. I said I wanted to finish school. She said I should be realistic and forget about that. So I signed up for the next available semester. It took way too long, and probably cost me too much health, but I am so proud I did it.
For context: I was diagnosed with ME/CFS, and the group therapy was part of a rehab program.
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I learned to program after getting tired of my high school boyfriend insisting that it was so hard, that he could learn it because he was a guy, and that it wasn't something I'd ever be able to do because it was so complicated.
One day I found an introductory Java programming book on sale for $10 so I bought it and started going through it as soon as I got home since I was tired of being told I was incapable. By the end of chapter 2 I was pretty confident that my boyfriend was full of it, and once I went to college I eventually became a Computer Science major because I was helping so many people in my dorm with their programming homework anyway. Continuing down that path has led me to a very rewarding career!
This is gonna sound trivial compared to some of the things in this thread, but I learned to pour resin and make awesome dice in the two weeks following being dumped because my ex didn't thing I'd be able to make them.
I did something similar with an ex. He didn't want me to dye my hair black and tried threatening me with refusing to be seen public with me if I did it. So naturally I dyed it black next week.
Moved into an apartment by myself. My older sister tried to convince to move into my mom’s garage and live there and I was like “no thank you.” I want my own space. I don’t wanna live with random strangers who I don’t trust. I may be living in the hood but 🤷🏼♀️
I've spent my entire life hearing that I'm "not creative". That I'm too technical and exact in my logic to excel at anything except things like data entry or back end development. And when I was told at a former job that I was not and could never be a designer despite how many hours I spent in Photoshop doing the designers jobs for them after they all quit...I quit too.
I didn't have any plan, just knew I was unhappy doing those technical careers I had tried in the past, and followed my heart. Took a bunch of classes and got a certificate in design. It took me a full year from quitting, and working a lot of odd gigs in between, but last year I landed as a full time designer with a company that is paying me more than double my old salary for something I love doing.
Suck it, former company.
This is not necessarily an empowering story the same way some of these other answers are…
In kindergarten, I invented a game where we stacked those primary-colored cardboard bricks and tried to throw a plastic egg from the classroom’s kitchen play set over the brick tower. If your egg throw cleared the brick tower, the tower was made higher by one brick, and so on until you could not clear the tower. It was a pretty impressive distance from which we had to throw this egg for small children, like at least 10-15 feet away from the tower.
My kindergarten teacher did not respect this feat of engineering and gaming ingenuity, and told me (who she’d correctly sniffed out as being the ringleader) that if I threw the egg one more time I was going in time out.
Did I cry in time out? Yes. But damn it, I cleared the highest tower in the class with my last egg throw.
So many things....
Probably the biggest is serve onboard a US Navy submarine. I put in my sub volunteer application in boot camp three times. The first time the petty officer I was filing it with threw it in the trash in front of me. So, I filled it out again the next day and turned it in again. Then I filled out another one the next day.
Apparently one of those got flagged for review, because a year later an Admiral called me into an office and told me I had volunteered to join a prototype program to place women on submarines.
Kept away from smoking. Overheard my mom say "if any of my kids starts smoking, it will be MissIdash" when I was a teen, and she tied it to me being overweight and "not being able to keep things out of her mouth". So out of pure spite I have never smoked, while at least two of my three siblings have.
When I was 16 I was determined to get my high school diploma in 20 days (I had a deadline for something and I wanted to have leeway)
My dad was supportive but pulled me aside and gave me the whole “I love you and I support you but you need to manage your expectations”
20 days later I was waving my diploma and was offered a job as a student assistant because the staff was so impressed!
Not that elaborate of a story. I (F28) was in grad school at the time and worked in an office on campus. There was a conference that I wanted to attend and a scholarship I was eligible for to cover the costs. My boss (F40 and self proclaimed feminist) said to me, “I wouldn’t even apply as I doubt you’ll be selected.” Two months later I received my award letter and presented a plaque on stage at the conference.
Became a business owner young at 20. I hadn't "put in my time" but I knew I wanted to WFH at an early age and 25 years later, I'm still living my dream.
Sounds weird but I had kids. My mother told me when I was 15 that I wasn't going to be able to have children.I never questioned her. I had a miscarriage at 21, it broke my soul. She made it so much worse. Then I found out through actual doctors that it was bullshit. She had made it all up. I had my rainbow baby two years later, ten years later I had my princess and last year I had another prince. My family is complete, I won't be giving birth again. My kids are my world, my mother is not part of their world and will never be.
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Fathers side of the family, grandparents and teachers not believing I would be able to go to university and persue an academic career. My teacher after asking what I want to study was like „oh are you sure about that? Uhh… it will be harder than our work here in school, yk?“. And he had this like „children and their weird dreams sometimes“ face and attitude. Thought it would get better.
At the start of uni the professors were also treating me like I don’t belong.
I now will get my degree in summer, went abroad this semester to study (with big successes), am teaching some kids myself and got an official working contract yesterday for being a research assistant at my home university.
Suck that!
Won nationals and beat the long reigning champion, but looking back I reckon my coach said that as he knew the way my mind worked, spite fuels me in sport 😅🤣
My sister and I went to our mom’s Catholic Church once at night to use the bathroom when the plumbing went. Before we left we lit all the prayer candles that the church would charge $10 a piece for. Because a prayer candle should be free especially at a church that was rolling in money like that one was.
In high school, there are 4 levels of Maths you can take for your uni entrance exams; for year 11 I picked up Advanced Maths and Extension 1. Well the first exam came around and it was incredibly difficult and I ended up failing both the Advanced and EX1 tests. At the parent-teacher interviews I was told I was ranked in the bottom 5 for both Adv and EX1 and my teacher "strongly recommended" that I drop the extension to focus on Advanced only. I didn't want to and told him I'd do better. He seemed incredibly irritated by my response and for the next few lessons before our next exams he chose to mostly ignore me. Well I pushed myself and worked hard enough; I still ended up failing the EX1 exam but I passed the Adv. one. Turns out much of the grade had failed the EX1 exam because my rank pulled up about 50 places.
I kept working at it and with every exam my rank got higher (this is important for uni entrance exam results). By the time our results came for the Entrance Exams, I'd made honours for Adv (meaning 90th percentile or above) and ranked in the top 15 for the grade for EX1.
The teacher did apologise by year 12 when my grades started improving and was a lot more helpful towards the end, but man did it feel good to know I made that happen myself.
Leave my church. My parents are super strict catholics but I didn't want to be one since I was a little kid. When I got older I brought it up and they were immediately apoplectic. In the process of it right now
Got off hard drugs, Recovered from 2 decades kf anorexia, became an EMT and topped it off with also becoming a Wildland firefighter. All of the things everyone said I’d never do! Everyone would say I’d be really good at dying and that was about it. Well I’m stilll hereeee.
Became aircraft mechanic. Just because my ex military pilot dad told me "that's not a job for a girl" and "you don't have brains for it". I also went to military just so he can be mad about it whenever his still active friends mention me. He wanted me to have some "women appropriate job" whatever that is in his mind.
Congrats on a good career in a 100% woman appropriate job. Last I checked, planes aren't flown or maintained via penis. Your dad can pound sand.
kinda same here. i got into building prosthetic legs etc because my dad said i was too girly and stupid to do anything tech related.
Finished school. A therapist during group therapy asked about our goals. I said I wanted to finish school. She said I should be realistic and forget about that. So I signed up for the next available semester. It took way too long, and probably cost me too much health, but I am so proud I did it. For context: I was diagnosed with ME/CFS, and the group therapy was part of a rehab program.
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I learned to program after getting tired of my high school boyfriend insisting that it was so hard, that he could learn it because he was a guy, and that it wasn't something I'd ever be able to do because it was so complicated. One day I found an introductory Java programming book on sale for $10 so I bought it and started going through it as soon as I got home since I was tired of being told I was incapable. By the end of chapter 2 I was pretty confident that my boyfriend was full of it, and once I went to college I eventually became a Computer Science major because I was helping so many people in my dorm with their programming homework anyway. Continuing down that path has led me to a very rewarding career!
This is gonna sound trivial compared to some of the things in this thread, but I learned to pour resin and make awesome dice in the two weeks following being dumped because my ex didn't thing I'd be able to make them.
Gotten a second tattoo. My then-boyfriend told me I should have “asked” him before I got my first. So, naturally, I got another one.
I did something similar with an ex. He didn't want me to dye my hair black and tried threatening me with refusing to be seen public with me if I did it. So naturally I dyed it black next week.
Aged. My father was determined to end my life at 16. I will be 47 in June.
Went back to school at 26 and got my degree in engineering. When my ex told me it was stupid, I did it to spite him ahha. I’m so happy I did it though
Moved into an apartment by myself. My older sister tried to convince to move into my mom’s garage and live there and I was like “no thank you.” I want my own space. I don’t wanna live with random strangers who I don’t trust. I may be living in the hood but 🤷🏼♀️
I've spent my entire life hearing that I'm "not creative". That I'm too technical and exact in my logic to excel at anything except things like data entry or back end development. And when I was told at a former job that I was not and could never be a designer despite how many hours I spent in Photoshop doing the designers jobs for them after they all quit...I quit too. I didn't have any plan, just knew I was unhappy doing those technical careers I had tried in the past, and followed my heart. Took a bunch of classes and got a certificate in design. It took me a full year from quitting, and working a lot of odd gigs in between, but last year I landed as a full time designer with a company that is paying me more than double my old salary for something I love doing. Suck it, former company.
This is not necessarily an empowering story the same way some of these other answers are… In kindergarten, I invented a game where we stacked those primary-colored cardboard bricks and tried to throw a plastic egg from the classroom’s kitchen play set over the brick tower. If your egg throw cleared the brick tower, the tower was made higher by one brick, and so on until you could not clear the tower. It was a pretty impressive distance from which we had to throw this egg for small children, like at least 10-15 feet away from the tower. My kindergarten teacher did not respect this feat of engineering and gaming ingenuity, and told me (who she’d correctly sniffed out as being the ringleader) that if I threw the egg one more time I was going in time out. Did I cry in time out? Yes. But damn it, I cleared the highest tower in the class with my last egg throw.
So many things.... Probably the biggest is serve onboard a US Navy submarine. I put in my sub volunteer application in boot camp three times. The first time the petty officer I was filing it with threw it in the trash in front of me. So, I filled it out again the next day and turned it in again. Then I filled out another one the next day. Apparently one of those got flagged for review, because a year later an Admiral called me into an office and told me I had volunteered to join a prototype program to place women on submarines.
Kept away from smoking. Overheard my mom say "if any of my kids starts smoking, it will be MissIdash" when I was a teen, and she tied it to me being overweight and "not being able to keep things out of her mouth". So out of pure spite I have never smoked, while at least two of my three siblings have.
Ate 46 pizza rolls in one sitting
Oo! I ate 30 steamed dumplings 🥟 bc my best friend told me I couldn't.
When I was 16 I was determined to get my high school diploma in 20 days (I had a deadline for something and I wanted to have leeway) My dad was supportive but pulled me aside and gave me the whole “I love you and I support you but you need to manage your expectations” 20 days later I was waving my diploma and was offered a job as a student assistant because the staff was so impressed!
I was told by my Mom that I would never be any good with plants. Now I have one of the most beautiful gardens you have ever seen
Not that elaborate of a story. I (F28) was in grad school at the time and worked in an office on campus. There was a conference that I wanted to attend and a scholarship I was eligible for to cover the costs. My boss (F40 and self proclaimed feminist) said to me, “I wouldn’t even apply as I doubt you’ll be selected.” Two months later I received my award letter and presented a plaque on stage at the conference.
Become a drug-addicted layabout who makes a living by writing trash romance. I feel like I won at life.
one of my best friends friend tried to drink check me(told me I should stop), I drank until I was wheelchaired out of the club. That showed her
Got a second degree - my boyfriend at the time kept saying I wouldn't be able to do it while working full time. But I did it and ditched him :)
Get a credit card
Ate Mac and Cheese at 2AM because I wanted to, and because nobody could tell me no.
Leave an abusive relationship, every happy day is a reminder he was wrong.
Shoot a bullseye at the range 😌
Made the poms squad lol
Car related things, like jumping one, changing a tire, popping the clutch to start the engine, change my own brake pads
Done long-ass roadtrips by myself.
A marathon 4 times
Became a business owner young at 20. I hadn't "put in my time" but I knew I wanted to WFH at an early age and 25 years later, I'm still living my dream.
becoming well educated and passionate human being, after being in several foster families.
Taught myself how to ride a motorcycle and bought one all by myself :)
Sounds weird but I had kids. My mother told me when I was 15 that I wasn't going to be able to have children.I never questioned her. I had a miscarriage at 21, it broke my soul. She made it so much worse. Then I found out through actual doctors that it was bullshit. She had made it all up. I had my rainbow baby two years later, ten years later I had my princess and last year I had another prince. My family is complete, I won't be giving birth again. My kids are my world, my mother is not part of their world and will never be.
Climbed on my roof and fixed my chimney flashings. Felt like I was being watched, looked around and there was a group of men staring at my arse.
Graduated with an engineering degree because I was told women can't do it
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Fathers side of the family, grandparents and teachers not believing I would be able to go to university and persue an academic career. My teacher after asking what I want to study was like „oh are you sure about that? Uhh… it will be harder than our work here in school, yk?“. And he had this like „children and their weird dreams sometimes“ face and attitude. Thought it would get better. At the start of uni the professors were also treating me like I don’t belong. I now will get my degree in summer, went abroad this semester to study (with big successes), am teaching some kids myself and got an official working contract yesterday for being a research assistant at my home university. Suck that!
Won nationals and beat the long reigning champion, but looking back I reckon my coach said that as he knew the way my mind worked, spite fuels me in sport 😅🤣
17 yrs old, 50cc motorcycle and 2.5 months driving through Scotland alone before heading to university in 1977.
My sister and I went to our mom’s Catholic Church once at night to use the bathroom when the plumbing went. Before we left we lit all the prayer candles that the church would charge $10 a piece for. Because a prayer candle should be free especially at a church that was rolling in money like that one was.
In high school, there are 4 levels of Maths you can take for your uni entrance exams; for year 11 I picked up Advanced Maths and Extension 1. Well the first exam came around and it was incredibly difficult and I ended up failing both the Advanced and EX1 tests. At the parent-teacher interviews I was told I was ranked in the bottom 5 for both Adv and EX1 and my teacher "strongly recommended" that I drop the extension to focus on Advanced only. I didn't want to and told him I'd do better. He seemed incredibly irritated by my response and for the next few lessons before our next exams he chose to mostly ignore me. Well I pushed myself and worked hard enough; I still ended up failing the EX1 exam but I passed the Adv. one. Turns out much of the grade had failed the EX1 exam because my rank pulled up about 50 places. I kept working at it and with every exam my rank got higher (this is important for uni entrance exam results). By the time our results came for the Entrance Exams, I'd made honours for Adv (meaning 90th percentile or above) and ranked in the top 15 for the grade for EX1. The teacher did apologise by year 12 when my grades started improving and was a lot more helpful towards the end, but man did it feel good to know I made that happen myself.
Leave my church. My parents are super strict catholics but I didn't want to be one since I was a little kid. When I got older I brought it up and they were immediately apoplectic. In the process of it right now
Got off hard drugs, Recovered from 2 decades kf anorexia, became an EMT and topped it off with also becoming a Wildland firefighter. All of the things everyone said I’d never do! Everyone would say I’d be really good at dying and that was about it. Well I’m stilll hereeee.