There’s a moment that happens before you speak.
It’s quiet, almost invisible to everyone else, but it feels loud inside your own head. You look around the room, count without meaning to and realize you’re the only girl there — or one of very few — and suddenly your thoughts feel heavier, like they need to be polished and perfected before they’re allowed to exist out loud.
I’ve felt that moment more times than I can count.
As a sports journalism student, I spend a lot of my time in rooms that don’t look like me. They were places where discussions move quickly and confidently, where opinions are thrown out without hesitation and where the majority of voices belong to men who seem entirely comfortable taking up space — both literally, aka manspreading, and metaphorically.
So, like any overthinker, I used to sit there and wonder if I needed to know more, prepare more or somehow prove myself before I earned the right to speak.
But being a woman in a room full of men does not mean you need permission to have an opinion.
That realization didn’t come to me all at once; instead, it came in moments where I forced myself to speak even when my voice felt uncertain, and in moments where I stayed quiet and later wished I hadn’t. It came through experience, through discomfort and through learning that confidence isn’t something you wait for — it’s something you build by showing up anyway.
Working with sports teams made that feeling even more real.
Walking into practices, covering games and navigating spaces that have historically been dominated by men, I became hyper-aware of myself in a way I hadn’t before. I thought about how I stood, how I spoke, how I was perceived. I wondered if my ideas were “good enough,” if I was being taken seriously, and if I belonged there at all.
There’s a pressure that comes with being one of the only women in those environments, whether anyone explicitly puts it on you or not. It feels like you’re representing more than just yourself, like every interaction is being quietly evaluated.
And for a while, that pressure made me shrink. To be frank, I’m still trying to figure out how not to consider backing out and shrinking myself again.
I don’t shrink in an obvious way because most people don’t. I hesitated before speaking, I softened my opinions and I let other people talk over me instead of pushing back. I convinced myself that maybe it was better to stay quiet than risk saying the wrong thing.
But being a woman in a room full of men does not mean you need to shrink yourself to make them comfortable — literally or metaphorically.
That applies everywhere, not just in classrooms or professional spaces. It’s in the moments where you feel physically pushed back, like in a crowded concert pit where a group of guys tries to edge you out of your spot, and it’s in the moments where the push is quieter, like in a group project where your opinion differs from everyone else’s and you feel the pressure to just go along with it.
In both situations, the instinct can be the same: step back, make space, don’t cause friction.
But you’re allowed to hold your ground.
I remember one specific discussion in a sociology class that stuck with me long after it ended.
We were split into groups, and mine was predominantly men, facilitated by men as well. The conversation moved through topics like race, political beliefs, education and geography — important, complex barriers that shape people’s experiences in the world. Everyone had something to say, and the discussion flowed easily and confidently.
But there was something missing.
At the end, the student leading the conversation asked, “Is there anything I missed?”
And there it was — that moment again.
I could have stayed quiet. It would have been easy to assume someone else would say it, or to convince myself it wasn’t necessary, or to avoid the risk of shifting the tone of the conversation. But I raised my hand anyway.
I said that being a woman is a barrier in social settings.
I talked about how gender shapes the way you’re listened to, the way you’re interrupted and the way you’re perceived before you even speak. I gave a few examples, trying to articulate something that felt obvious to me but, judging by the room, wasn’t obvious to everyone else.
And the reactions told me everything.
Some people nodded. Some people seemed to really hear it, as a perspective had clicked into place that they hadn’t considered before. Others, though, clearly zoned out, like it didn’t apply to them or wasn’t something they had ever needed to think about.
But what mattered most happened after.
The two other girls in my group came up to me and told me they were glad I said something. That they had been thinking it, too, but hadn’t known how — or when — to bring it up.
I try to think back to that whenever I start to doubt my place, since it reminded me that speaking up isn’t just about being heard by the people who already understand you. It’s about saying the thing anyway, even when it feels uncomfortable, because there might be someone else in the room who needs to hear it — or who needs to see that it can be said at all.
Being the only girl in the room can make you feel like your voice is smaller, like it carries less weight, but the reality is, your perspective adds something that wouldn’t be there without you.
It’s easy to convince yourself that you don’t belong in a space simply because there are more men than women in it. That the imbalance means something about your place there, or your right to take up space within it.
But numbers don’t determine belonging. Passion and interest do. Most importantly, the fact that you showed up does.
You don’t need to earn your seat at a table you already chose to sit at, and you definitely don’t need to give it up just because it feels uncomfortable at first.
Discomfort isn’t always a sign that you don’t belong; it’s often a sign that you’re stepping into something new, challenging and totally worth it.
Don’t let yourself get pushed out of a space you love because you convince yourself that you don’t belong there as much as the men around you, simply because there are more of them.
You deserve to be there just as much as anyone else. So speak, even if your voice shakes. Hold your ground, even if it feels easier to step back. Say the thing, even if you’re not sure how it will be received, because the more you do, the less intimidating it becomes.
And one day, you’ll walk into a room that used to make you second-guess yourself, and you won’t hesitate in the same way. You won’t shrink or soften or wait for permission.
You’ll just exist in it, fully and confidently, like you always had the right to.
Think about the world today, and all the ideas and creations that came from a woman who stood tall as the only woman in the room and carved out a space entirely her own.