An Open Letter to Society

Dear Society, 

My whole life you have been there to guide me along the journey of growing up. Yet, I am exhausted from upholding your perfect standards of being a female. I feel like you just expect too much from me when I am still young. We can’t keep going on like this

You ask and I give a little more of myself to you. Can’t you see that this is one-sided? From a young age, you tell me I need to be skinny, that I need to be a model. You tell me I need to like the color pink and sparkles. Well, I am sorry to burst your bubble. But I am not that type of girl.

I love being outside and scraping my knees, riding a bike, and failing. I like video games, guns, and Hotwheels. I love building with legos and roughhousing with my boy cousins. All these things you tell me I am not supposed to like I do. You got me with the horses and the dance.

As I grew older, beauty standards became more and more of a pushed ideal. You asked me to wear makeup, to dress more provocatively, to appeal to men. I would ask you, “why? Why does this matter?” and you responded with, “well don’t you want to be pretty? Don’t you want to have a boyfriend? Don’t you want to have pretty friends?” to that I would have no words. I wanted to fit in to make sense of what I was doing to myself. 

Next, you asked me to be skinny, like all of the girls I’ve seen in movies and shows. Because they were pretty, weren’t they? I ate so little. I learned to ignore the pain in my stomach when I had not eaten that day, just to please you. All because I was worried about the size of my jeans. 

You tell me how to act, that I should always use my manners and that I should always be kind to others even when they are not kind to me. You tell me how to sit, to dress, to eat. You tell me that I should eat the less nutritious salad over the heart healthy veggie burger my dad made me. You tell me that I need to always cross my ankles when sitting. You tell me that the slouch in my back is unladylike. The way I rest my chin on my hand is boyish. I am supposed to be pristine, clean, and pure. 

Our relationship lasted for years, from middle school all the way to college. That is where I learn to tell you no. That is where I learned that I had a voice. The voice you stripped me of years ago. Instead of allowing you to feed me the lies, I allowed myself to become the flower that I was meant to be. Now I see you trying to do the same to my sisters and the younger girls. You are a predator and no one ever tries to stop you until it is too late. 

You tell me I am supposed to save sex for marriage, because no one wants used goods. However, you tell me that a man likes an experienced woman. “What?” I would ask, “how is that attainable?” you just shrugged your shoulders. You tell me that if I were sexually assaulted it had to be because of what I was wearing, or that it was my fault because I should have just said yes. But, even then, no one would want me because I was used.

The pressure you put us under is unbearable, unacceptable, and frankly unattainable. You want us to be pretty then let us find beauty within ourselves. You want us to be skinny, then let us find our healthy body weight because the weight I see now is just numbers. I am tired of your constant nagging and bitching about how I am not up to your standards. That I have flaws that I should be ashamed of. 

I may have scars, stretch marks, cellulite, acne, freckles, sun exposure, everything you deem to be unlovable and tainted, but I have found people who love me for my flaws, including myself. While you sit there and sulk thinking you lost a potential America’s Next Top Model, I am becoming stronger and more accepting of the way my body looks. So tell me I am ugly, tell me I am not beautiful, because I have built a wall between you and me. You are no longer part of this relationship and journey, you are now just a distant memory. An Ex if you will, a past toxic lover. 

I wish I could give you the goodbye you wanted, but I can't stand you. How do you justify it? How do you think that your conscience is clean, that you are only trying to help? You have ruined so many of us females' lives. You have made us hate our bodies and learn to starve ourselves for the standards you hold. Many have learned to stay silent, however, there are far more than are willing to criticize you and try to dismantle you. We will win in the end. 

Unapologetically not sorry, 

Me