Why is it “я родилась” for a woman in Russian?

In the singular past tense, a Russian verb shows the grammatical gender of its subject. A woman says я родилась, “I was born”; a man says я родился. The difference is the ending, -ла vs -л, and it runs through singular past forms: я была / я был (“I was”), я сказала / я сказал (“I said”).

So in the past tense a Russian я often tells you who’s speaking. The singular endings are -л (masculine), -ла (feminine), -ло (neuter); the plural -ли has no gender at all: мы родились, они родились. Reflexive verbs keep -ся/-сь on the end: родилась. The speaker pairs it with origin: я из Казахстана, “I’m from Kazakhstan,” not from Moscow.