When I growing up I dealt with a lot of bias when it came to bowling.
I have been bowling since I was 5 and competitively since I was 9.
Growing up there was explicit bias of men being better at bowling
because of their physicality. That being said "men bowl better then
girls because they are stronger, have more control over the ball and
can throw heavier bowling balls." Anyways, when I was younger that
really got to me because I would get intimidated when I had to bowl
against a man. The average male (16+ year old) throws between a
15-16lb bowling ball with an average of 200-225, when I was 15, I
was throwing a 15lb bowling ball and averaging a 210. This impacted
me emotionally, environmentally, socially, intellectually and
physically. When I started to doubt my physical ability, it impacted
my intellectual ability, and then I emotional about it because I felt
defeated. But, that all changed when my sister and my dad told me
"Baby, don't you see, they say that because they are intimidated by
YOU!". "Sissy, are you REALLY going to let this beautiful mind of
yours tell you that you can not beat this boy because you are a girl?
No. you are more than capable and you can do this." that is when my
fear, intimidation and doubt turned in to competitive, drive and
ambition, to beat all of my male competitors. I won the most match
points (33) in my travel league, which was made up of mostly
teenage boys.
This bias has helped me be able to reflect on the feelings that are
trying to be pushed on to me, essentially peer pressure and bullying,
and figure out how I really feel about any situation from that point
on. It has definitely helped me in many aspects of my life and the
drive and ambition has spilled over into my schooling from high
school now through college. Understanding how these 8 dimensions
impact wellness and how bias impacts them, allows me to reflect
more on other events in my life and help identify the areas I need to
work on and where I can improve my wellness.
