 As they screamed at her, my aunt looked at me, shook her head, and said, I wish you were a boy. See, if you were a boy as her parents' first child, you would have been able to intervene. Anger welled up within me. It was the first time in my 15 years I had ever been made conscious that my being female accorded me fewer rights. It was the last time my father was ever in our home.