Raurie+L's+Op-Ed+Article



People told you that you weren't pretty enough, so you dyed your hair and covered your face in makeup. Someone made a fat joke about you, so now you barely eat and exercise like crazy. You heard that the boy you like isn't interested in a girl like you, so you started drinking and partying, dressing and dumbing yourself down, just to get his attention. You started gossiping about your friends, freely handing out their secrets, just so people would want to talk to you. You began to resent and defy your parents, because you claim they don't understand what you're going through. Actually, you don't believe that anyone could possibly understand what you're going through. You don't understand how you're always surrounded by people, and yet you still feel completely alone. Well, I understand.

Society puts too much pressure on people, teenagers especially, and even more specifically, young girls. Girls have this idea that they have to be perfect; pretty, skinny, and popular. You have to be that one girl that all the guys want to be with, and all of that attention will attract the one guy that you want. I think the worst part is that all of these girls who are so desperate for attention and feel completely alone with or without it, truly believe that they're facing these problems by themselves. But in reality, almost all girls feel this way.

But girls don't open up easily. Opening up shows weakness, and weakness assumes vulnerability. And the second a girl begins to feel vulnerable, everybody seems to take advantage of her. Everybody, as in (fake) friends, maybe a guy who can make the girl feel accepted.. Well, that is, fake acceptance that leaves the girl feeling even worse.

People, and society in general, assume that teenage girls have such an easy life. But its harder than you can imagine. Not knowing who to trust, who your true friends are, striving for the unattainable goal of perfection, feeling completely lost.. And we're expected to calmly deal with all of this.

I really think all of this needs to change. Society needs to stop putting so much pressure on young girls. Young girls need to stop expecting perfection and putting an overwhelming amount of pressure on themselves.