It’s a safe bet that she’s getting the last laugh in response to their hateful comments.
Jade Hameister, a 16-year-old Australian, has established an early career as a result of her toughness and courage. She carries with her the title of “adventurer,” and she’s got the resume to back up that curious job description. She has skied to the North Pole and traversed Greenland’s largest icecap, all before being fully licensed to drive a car.
In her 2016 TEDx address, Hameister used her platform to shoot down the notion of gender roles, using her own globetrotting feats as an example of the limitless opportunities that exist for girls and boys alike.
She stated to the crowd:
“As a young woman I live in a world where I am constantly bombarded with messages to be less. To eat less, to wear less, to be skinnier, to shrink my ambitions to fit in. To wait for my Prince Charming to come and save me or to avoid activities that are ‘for boys.’ I have learned that all those messages I receive daily to be less, are wrong. I have learned that by expanding my dreams it has been impossible to think about shrinking. Instead of focussing on how we look, let’s focus on what our bodies and our minds can do.”
Nonetheless, she’s borne the wrath of internet trolls as have so many accomplished and prominent young women with an online presence. In a comment on the YouTube page for her rousing speech, a snide commenter offered up, “Good on you sweetie, maybe could find a successful husband and make him a sandwich.”
(The comment has since either been removed or is lost among other, equally sexist and dismissive remarks on the page.)
Jade may not have let the negative and bigoted comments deter her, but that doesn’t mean she forgot or forgave. Upon reaching the South Pole — and in doing so becoming the youngest person to pull off the Polar Hat Trick — she offered up an image to her detractors that speaks volumes.
She did, in fact, make them a sandwich.
If she’s tough enough to brave the most extreme conditions on Earth, anonymous internet trolls aren’t going to shake her resolve — or her sense of humor.
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