Jim and I were at a fun dinner this weekend to celebrate one of the Kingston High School’s sports teams’ hard work. Coming from New York City, I never thought that the highlight of my social calendar would be spending Saturday night in a high school cafeteria with a bunch of teens and their parents. But oddly enough, it was a really good time.

As I sat with a group of teenagers, I was excited to see that there were a couple of girls on the team. My energy is generally happier around girls — I have two daughters myself, so I hung out with them a little bit. We chatted about school, and I let them make fun of our plant-based diet while I munched on a baby carrot. I thought about how empowering it is to have boys and girls compete together and support each other on a team.

By the time they are 14, girls drop out of sports at two times the rate of boys. But there are some great reasons for girls to stay on sports teams, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation. Sports teach girls great life skills such as teamwork, leadership and confidence. They are great for physical and mental health. Girls who play sports until young adulthood are 20 percent less likely to get breast cancer later in life. They improve family communication and trust and help girls’ self-image and positive body image.

It was nice to see one of the girls even got an award from one of the coaches. She won most “coachable” athlete. Other boys on the team got titles like “most valuable player,” “most exciting matches” and “most improved.” Jim and I talked about this on the way home. Being the last few days of Women’s History Month, we thought we would share a reflection about one award in particular.

The coach who chose to give out the “most coachable” award meant no harm; he just wanted to praise her for her hard work. But in choosing one of the few girls on the team to receive that award and not an award related to her performance, he was reinforcing stereotypes. Studies show that girls are rewarded in school for sitting still and listening to their teachers, while boys are expected to speak up and be more active. This sends a subtle message to girls: You are better students when you are quiet and passive. Over time, it signals to girls that they won’t win awards for asking questions or pushing back.

Gender bias is so deeply engrained in each of us that we send out signals like this all day long. And as Women’s History Month ends, we think it makes sense to look around and see if we can find subtle moments that may be sending signals to girls and women that they are best seen and not heard. You’re probably not going to get past your front door, or at least your TikTok feed, without seeing an example of this.

We leave you with a quote from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, which ironically, has been attributed to much more famous women and not to this “quiet” author from the 1970s” “Well-behaved women rarely make history.”