A Letter to the Girls
Oliver Taylor 

Pink lace, soft, curls, girls.
Small, blushing, never swearing, wearing a skirt, never a t-shirt, never pants.
Wanting to be a good mother, wanting to be a good wife,
This is all society wants a girl to do with her life.
Intelligence, ambition, imperfect vision, she stands without makeup on her face.
When she was younger, her mother told her that one day she’d get contacts
Because they were the key to the selfie’s “natural” beauty hacks.
No, I’m not just listing all of the inconsistencies in society’s sexist sense of piety,
They’ve lied to me.
To us, to her, about the true meaning of her femininity.
It’s not bows or painted toes like the ones you see on those fluffy “reality” TV shows.
It’s cornrows, it’s freckles, it’s strength, it’s a wide range of clothes.
Femininity is not a genie that you can trap inside a bottle.
Femininity is not a Disney princess animated to look like a supermodel.
Femininity is not what the media claims it to be.
They like a good girl, a bad girl, a skinny but curvy, a girl that can hang with the boys but is
not like them.
She knows how to contour and hates science because when pretty girls start to know things
they become defiant.
She must want to play the game but let him win, she must want to respond but waits for him.
She’s classy, elegant, not easy.
She’s young, wild, and never a prude.
They want her to be a sex symbol that isn’t too sleezy but tells her she’s no fun when she’s
“not in the mood.”
People feel that an independent, intelligent woman is dangerous, they try to beat her down to
being not heard, just seen.
What do we have to do is wake up from this bad dream?