As a kid, the city I lived in didn’t have a youth softball league. Instead, I played baseball, with an all boys team of second graders.

I blended in with them. I played as hard as I could -which was better than most of the boys. To us, the fact that I was a girl was rarely addressed, besides the extra minute it took for me to pull a helmet over my ponytail.

And then I bought pink cleats.

“You can’t throw harder than me, because you’re a girl. Look at your cleats.” one kid snarkily argued after I (rightfully) claimed I could throw farther than him.

The entire team’s view on me shifted. No longer was I a normal buddy; I was the girly girl trying to fit in with the “real guys.”

This treatment lasted the rest of the season. I was in a bubble separate from the boys, all because I happened to like pink. No longer did it matter that I could hit home runs and run faster than the others; all that mattered was that I was a girl, because of pink cleats. I was now identified as something because of a choice I made.

The realization stuck with me. As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned what being a girl is “supposed” to mean and how misunderstood feminism is.

People assume being a feminist means being a  “man-hating, independent woman who doesn’t want to be tied down.” And there’s those who feel as soon as a girl gives into “societal gender roles,” she becomes an anti-feminist. As soon as a woman decides to settle down, wear pink or use makeup, she becomes the cliche.

There is this idea that feminism only encompasses those who choose to focus on themselves and choose to fight society. A woman is either feminine or a feminist… never both. If you don’t fit with the ideal definition of a feminist, then you better believe you aren’t one. Feminism has became exclusive. A majority feel it means completely isolating yourself from anything that is feminine, because that will come off as “weak.”

Femininity is not weakness. Feminism is not exclusive.

The very nature of feminism is fighting for a woman’s right to do what makes her happy. Those who identify as a feminist, yet criticize women who take an alternative route in life, hurt the cause, not help it.

You do not become an anti-feminist the moment you decide to have children or put on pink. Feminism encompasses so many ideas and types of people.

My mother: she works nine to five shifts and comes home to make dinner. She is a feminist.

My sister: she goes to school every day dressed different. She doesn’t care if one day she wears pink and people call her “too prissy,” or if the next day people call her “manly” because of her baggy basketball shorts. She is a feminist.

Seven year old me: she didn’t let those boys hold her back.

She learned that pink cleats do wonders for butt kicking.

She is a feminist.