Girls

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.