Thirteen

"Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women" - Maya Angelou

    Let me start this by saying that this post is very very opinionated and I am not sorry at all if you're offended, because if you are something is wrong with you.

    Earlier today, I was walking with one of my male friends to class. A girl walked in front of us and he says (and I wish I was lying): "Mmmm. Do you think girls know what yoga pants does to their bodies?" I slightly lost it at this point (two days of no sleep and living off coffee will do that to you). I quickly informed him that that girl was not wearing yoga pants for him to stare at her. She's wearing those pants because she is exhausted and they are comfortable and she should not have to dress up and put on ten pounds of make up for her to get any respect from a guy. Now there might have been a few other choice words in there, but that's the gist of what I told him. He was taken aback for a minute because me going off like that is not exactly completely normal. But I'm done with it.

    Since middle school I have been told that according to that oh so lovely BMI test that I am almost overweight or I am overweight. My mom used to hide them from me, she'd tell me that that test wasn't important and none of those results mattered. But when they started giving me those results, it completely shattered how I felt about myself.

    I don't consider myself "fat" (isn't that just such an ugly word?). No, I'm not a size two, but according to the media I would definitely be a "plus size" model. But as a thirteen year old, being told that you're "overweight" is horrible. I would skip breakfasts and lunches, eat nothing but salads for weeks at a time. Crunches, lunges, squats, I did it all in the privacy of my bedroom so no one would know and they would all think I was just naturally skinny. Even with all of that going on people would comment on how I looked, "You're too skinny", "You need to lose a few pounds", I was never good enough for everyone. Eventually I quit doing that. But the self esteem was never built back up to what it was before then.

    I'm truly worried about society at this point. I have younger sisters, my youngest sister is thirteen. She's started wearing eyeliner and make up and while I know I did at her age, it freaks me out because I know how young she is.  Luckily she's home schooled and I hope and pray that it will help her to avoid those people who will attempt to shatter her extremely high self esteem.

    I truly hate that the media puts so much pressure on women to be what they consider a woman to be. Some women are meant to be the president, some are meant to be moms, some are meant to go to space, no one woman is exactly like another. But yet, society has this expectation that every woman should be exactly the same, and society's standards are absolutely impossible to meet.

    Back to the original story, I don't wake up in the morning and go "Oh, these pants will make (insert body part) look good." No, it's much more of an "Alright, I have two tests today, a presentation, some studying to do for a test on this day, I got three hours of sleep, five emails to reply to, sweats it is." Sorry to disappoint some of you males, but your opinion is one that I won't be considering for quite some time. I'm truly disappointed in this friend for saying anything like that. It's not something I expected from him, but he's just one of the many people in this world that the media has set unrealistic expectations for.