Girls are thought to be inferior to boys. We need to let the world know we are here, and we are capable and smart and equal. We need to work together and show the world that we can do anything we put our hearts into.

Girls are described with adjectives that attest to their physical appearance: we are pretty or we are cute, we are characterized by our weight as thin or fat, and we are measured by our level of “hotness.”

This needs to stop. We need to stand up for ourselves and be sure that our personalities and our capabilities and our talents are a part of our descriptions.

We need to unite and support each other and remind one another that we are all beautiful, outside and inside.

Girls have been “trained” by society to be nurses and teachers and administrative assistants. But we are capable of being doctors and engineers and administrators, and societal prejudices should not stop us. Nor should our looks.
We should be able to pursue the careers that we want. And if we want to be stay-at-home moms or nurses or teachers, we should be able to do that, too. And we need the support of other women to help each other grow into the beautiful, fulfilled and productive women we can be.

There are many women who have helped advance the status of women in our society. The expectation that women should remain at home simply to raise children, prepare meals and keep the house neat and tidy is gone. In fewer than one hundred years after women were first allowed to vote, Hillary Rodham Clinton ran for president. She must look back in history to the women who paved the way for her to get there: women suffragists and activists who fought for both women’s rights and civil rights like Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Eleanor Roosevelt, Malala Yousafzai, and all the way up to our former first lady, an activist in her own right. Michelle Obama is currently fighting for worldwide education for women, and there are many other women who are working to keep this movement alive.

We all need to help this movement continue to thrive. On January 21, there was a worldwide Women’s March to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights, as well as women’s rights. It was the largest single-day protest in history, with an estimated five million people who demonstrated. We need to work together.

I am a Girl Scout, and I was able to help this movement simply by building three little free libraries for our Brewster community. It’s actually that simple. This project promoted literacy and it showed that girls can be as productive as they need to be.

So just go out and make everyone aware that girls/women are more than just prettier and softer versions of boys/men. We are human beings.