Dear Future President,

As the days go by, new problems appear in every direction. Some days people will fix those conflicts, or just hide them away into the back pocket of their dark wash blue jeans. Those problems stick with you everywhere even though you might not exactly realize it. Just like a piece of paper in you jeans in the washer, they go for a wild spin and when you take the jeans out, the piece of paper is in bits and pieces glued to the inside of your pocket. That piece of paper is like a problem, it stays with you until you decide to do something about it. Right now, I am deciding to do something about the problem. I want the paper chunks gone. I want the problem to move away, and never find its way back home. I want the girl who is wearing those blue jeans to be equal to everyone around her. I want her to be able to feel safe in her jeans, not judged in anyway. I want her to be able to take away the chunks of paper. The chunks of paper that state insults for her being female. The issue of inequality to women, even though we were granted rights in the year 1920.

It would be hard to find an American that doesn’t recall the school doors opening allowing a flock of children going bonkers because it is their favorite part of the day, recess. As soon as my foot hit the sizzling black top, I was off. My pace increased and increased until I got to my personal heaven, the soccer field. I spotted the ball. I traveled with the ball like predator and prey. I never took my eyes off of it for one minute. As soon as someone on my team, got the ball, I sprinted into open space, and screeched for the ball, just like a Rhode Island Red Rooster. Time after time, the wouldn’t pass the ball to my orphaned feet, and when I finally yelled at my teammates for not passing, they said the most terrifying words that no girl ever wants to here. “No way I ain’t passing to you, you're a GIRL!” I stood there like a lost child. I had no movements or words. I just walked away, and placed the problem into my back pocket. The problem of women’s rights.

The problem never hit home to me until about one year ago. I was on my Instagram feed, when something caught my eye. It was Carli Lloyd’s post. When I started to read her comment, my mind was blown. In summary, she said that the United State’s Soccer Association, was paying the men almost twice as more than the women, even though the women were playing on turf that could give them cancer while the men were not. I was astonished, and went straight into researching. Women getting paid less than men for doing the same exact job came up a ton, but also that the government was mostly men. Only 5% of the government was women and the rest of the 95% was all men. The website also stated that it could take around 81 years for women to get paid the same amount of money as men, and for the government to be at least half women and half men. I understand that men are suppose to be bigger and better, but it doesn’t mean that we cannot take risks in life. Risks are a way of learning, and learning is a part of life.

To this very date, the cause of the problem has not yet changed. We are the ones who caused this problem. Every single person in this world, boy/girl, man/women, we all take part in this very problem in different ways. Whether it is a man treating a women as a slave, or a girl treating another girl like they know nothing at all. We are all the cause of the problem. We truly are the problem.

It is your choice Future President. We the people should be able to treat each other equally and for that to happen, we need our schools to be educated with equal rights at a young age. We need to grow up learning right to wrong. Are you going to take the blame, when parents complain of their baby girls being treated unequally? Are you willing to see your wife or daughters sobbing in their beds at night wishing they were treated equally? Or are you going to step up? Will you be the person who decides to clean up your pockets? Or will you be the kind of person who will just let the conflict stick to you like pages to a book? It’s your choice Future President. You are the one who will change it forever.

Sincerely,

Bryanna M., Pennsylvania