1992, high school gym class baseball. The teacher divided the class by sex then had the girls play on a muddy, disused soccer practice field with aluminum bats and rubber balls while he coached the boys up on the baseball practice field with real equipment. Two girls and I complained to the principal, who suggested that maybe the gym teacher was just "trying to keep the girls safe." Next class, girls were given the option to play with the boys, which wasn't what we wanted...we wanted to use the good equipment and the good field like the boys did, or at least trade off. One friend and I did go play with the boys on principle, even though it was incredibly embarrassing. It would have been so much better if the rest of the girls had gone with us, and I never got why they didn't. This biography of Alice Paul helps me understand a little of how some of those girls might have been thinking.

Not that I'm remotely like Alice Paul except in the sense that I'm argumentative and difficult to get along with, but I can relate to her frustration a little bit, I think. ( )