There are countless stories, blog posts, and articles about
girls and the issues they have, the difficulties with self-esteem and being
happy with their lives. I think I have probably read them all in an attempt to
make myself feel better. Whenever I feel down about how I look or my clothes, I
tell myself that there are people in the world who are starving to death right
now, or babies dying of Malaria. I tell myself to snap out of it because things
could be SO much worse.
No media website, no book, no film, no comment from a friend
or relative, will ever hurt as much, or be as hard on girls, as girls will be
about themselves. We quite literally hate ourselves, sad as it sounds. We are
forever picking out the minutest detail about our bodies, or voices, or
dress-sense, or nails, or hair, or mannerism that we hate about ourselves. It
isn’t even a slight annoyance, it is full on loathing.
After having spent my entire teenage years feeling this way, (and now coming
into womanhood) I am sick to death of hating everything about the way I look.
People always say beauty is from within, and while it is actually true, it
seems like a load of rubbish, because no matter what anyone says, if you don’t
feel good about yourself and the way that you look, its impossible to simply
tell yourself ‘yeah but I’m beautiful on the inside so whatever.’ We grow up
idolising an image of a woman, which is completely unattainable, and while I am
fully aware of this it won’t stop me from trying to pursue perfection.
I feel that if girls, stuck together, if they told each
other, truthfully, how wonderful they are, how much they like the others hair
today, or how good their fashion sense is, then we’d all be that little bit
more confident. I think girls are more harsh on each other than anyone else
because of jealousy, if one girl sees her friend wearing a new dress they
wanted they will either act completely indifferent, or will insult them. We
have to remember how we would feel were we in the others shoes, how nice it
feels to be complemented, and appreciated.
Life as a teenage girl is the hardest thing I have ever experienced, the pressure on girls as
they make the transition into womanhood is awful. Even at family parties, as
you come down the stairs in your new dress after spending hours getting ready,
and the family all say ‘Ooo’, and you want the ground to swallow you up.
At school when you have to do P.E in front of a bench full
of boys including the one you fancy, as you puff past red faced and sweaty.
Having to go into school when you’ve just started your
period, the constant fear that you will leak onto your skirt or trousers and
everyone will see, or else someone will grab your bag and your pads or tampons
will fly out.
The pressure of having a perfect body for when the day of
the dreaded ‘sex’ arrives.
Not being invited to a party that all of your friends have
been invited to, and having to look at all of the photos the next day.
Or worse, being invited to the party and frantically
worrying about what dress to wear and how to do your hair, and years later
looking back at the photos of yourself and cringing at your choice in outfit
and at how terrible your make-up looked.
Not being part of the ‘in crowd’ and wishing every day that
you were, so much so that you decide to throw a house party to become more
popular, and being excited beyond belief when all the ‘cool’ kids start talking
to you. When you become the coolest
kid because everyone wants an invite to your party. Then on the night of the
party, a load of kids who weren’t invited show up, including the police, and
your mum who is suffering from stress is in trouble, because she’s a teacher
and she allowed the party to happen in the first place, and the guilt you feel
because you were selfish, and the realisation that none of the kids actually
liked you when you go back into school on Monday and they’re gossiping about
how angry your mum was, and how rubbish the party was. Then forgetting you ever
existed a week later.
Worrying about whether you will have a date for prom, or
which friends you will go with, which dress you will wear and will it be too
expensive. Seeing the photos the next day and kicking yourself for putting on
too much weight, hating yourself for looking fat in that photo, and having a
double chin in that one, or bingo wings in the other one.
Wishing that you could have the contents of some female
celebrities wardrobe and being frustrated when neither your parents nor you can
ever afford it.
Finally, as we leave the god-awful teenage years, we leave
behind the silly flirting with the boys, we try to forget our ‘first time’
because we regret it too much, and have lost the dress we wore to our first
party, and aren’t friends with the people we were when we were thirteen
anymore. We find ourselves at a potentially harder point. Between the ages of
eighteen and twenty-one, we are now women, boys are now ‘guys’, some are even ‘men’.
Its scary, relationships; and of course, friends and family’s never-ending
questions ‘so, do you have a boyfriend
yet? What about a job? Do you think you’ll go travelling? Oh, you look like
you’ve lost weight!’ When really none of us have the faintest idea what the
hell we’ll be doing with our lives after we’ve left University, or finished our
apprenticeships, or where our job is heading. We don’t want boyfriends because
the ‘guys’ haven’t grown up yet, they cheat on us, tell us we’re fat, make us
feel less than nothing. And no one seems to care really, that women still have
to fight for the right for abortion. Still. Women still don’t have control over
their own bodies; I’m beginning to doubt we ever will.
I don’t even know what I’m trying to say, and I’m doing a
really bad job at trying to say it, but girls need to stick together because we
are so hard on ourselves every single day. The world, society, the media, boys,
everyone, including ourselves, batters females with insults and insecurities,
and so we must band together like a community, hold hands and not let anyone or anything diminish our self worth. And to most of all love
ourselves, because if we can’t take care, and love ourselves then how can we
expect anyone else to.
We have to remember that while there are people in the world
who have much harder lives than us, it does not devalue our problems, or how we
are feeling, but we have to remind ourselves of this to not let our worries get
on top of us.
Life isn’t about having the perfect body (even though I’m
still after it), it isn’t about getting a top notch job, or the best degree,
it’s about enjoying every single second because you will never have this time
again. Its about being who you are and not making one single apology for it.
Its about laughter and freedom, love and health and never letting anyone get
you down, its about belief in yourself, its about being a good person, and that is what counts.
