Dear Future President,

Play "like a girl" or "don't do that you're a girl", all these comments cause many young girls lose their self-esteem. Girls should NOT feel this way at a young age. Girls can do things that boys can, for example: boxing, cross fit, wrestling, WNBA, body builder, army, football, etc. Girls should get the same equal rights as boys. We shouldn't make the male gender sound "strong". We shouldn't question their sexuality.

When girls get told "you're a girl" they stop what they are doing because "they are girls" the girls actually listen and they quit , what they have worked on for so long they had to give it up, what they had in mind for what they wanted to be when they grow up goes to waste. If us girls become what we are "expected" or "supposed" to be then the world would be different. Girls will always have to live with limitations, girls would never have the chance to live the way we want to live, we would have to live by the way society wants us to live. When we are told all of this many times we start to get scared to do what we want to do. Society should accept that girls want to do the extraordinary and do what no other girls would do, they either want to make history, or become a role model to younger girls.

Another thing that limits girls are what they have to wear. The dress code for a girl is: dress/skirt, heels/flats, hair down, make up, and accessories. NOT all girls will be the same. Some girls like to wear: jeans, shorts, sneakers/ tennis shoes, t-shirts, hair up, sometimes they look like boys, or like to wear guy clothes. Girls get judged all the time and people detail them. Just because we are girls it doesn't mean that we have to look like a girl every day. There is the occasional dress up from time to time. But looking like a girl all the time is just making us girls look like the same, is like if us girls won't be able to "look different because something 'bad' might happen." All we want to be is comfortable and not be judged, we just want to be ourselves.

The reason why I am writing about this topic because I always get told this by my mom almost every day. I am the only girl in my family, I have an older brother and a younger brother so I basically grew up with guys and doing "boy" stuff. Sometimes when my brothers have clothes that don't fit them anymore or they just don't want it anymore they would just hand them over to me like jeans/ shorts or shirts. I would sometimes wear them (not all the time) and I am actually comfortable in them, when my mom sees me in my brothers clothes my mom would tell me "you look like a boy... you are a girl, not a boy." I understand that I am a girl, but that doesn't mean I have to look like a girl all the time. When I am helping out my brothers lift up stuff my mom would tell me "don't do that you're a girl" or sometimes she would tell me that "that's for boys not girls." I am really limited in my family because I am the only girl and that is really unfair because simple stuff that I "can't do" my younger brother gets to do. 

I would like for "you're a girl," or "like a girl" or any of those comments to stop because us girls get insulted and we stop or even quit what we are doing, and we turn into the girls that society wants us to become, not the girls we want to be in the future. To all the girls out there that get told "you're a girl just stop" don't listen to them, keep doing what you are doing, prove them wrong . If people tell you to stop they don't want to see you succeed. Keep doing what you want, make your own path, they'll eventually realize that they were wrong in telling you to stop because you will succeed and become someone greater in life. Be unstoppable, be the change don't let the fact that you are a girl change that because people that support you will see a bright future ahead of you.

What is a difference between a girl and a boy?... There is NO difference. Boys and Girls can play the same sport do the same activities as one another. The girls that play "boy sports" keep doing it because there is no limit towards what you like doing. Don't let others beat you up with comments because what you like to do is your personality and your person, keep looking forward to what you love not what others think about you.

Please Future President take a look at this situations that young girls and teens are facing. Help us bring their self esteem, and confidence back. Help all the girls become what they want not what they are forced to be.

Sincerely,

Mariana Martinez