For My Sisters.

Self respect. Confidence. Self Worth. Inner beauty. Independence.

That is what I wish for my sisters. I have 4 younger sisters, in case you didn't know. The oldest is 20, the youngest is 13.

The world is full of pressure. Pressure to be hot, sexy, and every man's dream. In the 50's the way young girls were taught to catch men was an easy bake oven, a baby doll, or tea sets. Today it's sex.

Young girls are expected to idolize women like Lindsay Lohan, the Olsen twins or Paris Hilton. Why not, they have their own perfume, they make teenage-geared movies, have their own make up line, clothing. etc. Saturday morning TV shows have tween aged kids dating and running after the opposite sex. When I was growing up Stephanie Tanner did not run after boys. Explicit music about sex and drugs is geared towards teens. Then there's the overt sexualization of girl in magazines, movies--the media.

The media isn't the only problem- padded bras for girls younger than 10, thongs, stiletto heels, racy Halloween costumes, and the desire to be sexual. It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

Who can blame girls for rising to the occasion of sexualization? I mean at 12 years old you're just trying to fit in. It is almost imperative to fit in at this age. The sexual socialization girls go through is very real and serious. The American Psychological Association suggests that the proliferation of sexual images of girls and young women in the media is harming their self-image and development. This can lead to an unhealthy development of a girl or young woman in several different areas It can ruin her confidence and make her feel dissatisfied with her body, this can result in negative self-image and lead to feelings of shame and anxiety-and eating disorders.

And it's all really confusing at 12 because no one is talking about sex, or not in any real way. There's abstinence only education in schools while everyone other outlet is educating girls about how to be sexual. I wish you could teach tweens about sex and self worth in a real way. They know what it means to be sexual, they don't understand the implications of it or what to do with it.

The peer pressure is ridiculous. Every outlet of society-from toys, to clothes, to media is telling young girls to sex it up. Who can blame a young girl for having sex before she's a teenager.

Sadly, it's society's way to control women, from a young age, just as it always has done. It used to be easy bake oven and babydolls, now its just lacy underwear and padded bras. The domestication of women failed to control, so now sexualization of women as control is the new tactic of control. And it works...just look, young girls are putting on makeup and their pushup bras, starving themselves and convincing themselves they cannot be worth anything because they don't look anything like the women in the airbrushed magazine, they want to be like Brittany Spears.

Young girls are ruining their future to fit in. 3 out of 4 teens will have sex before 20, and 1 out of 10 have sex before age 15. They want to fit in; they want to fill their role in society.

Change, Change Go Away, Come Again Another Day

I am a creature of habit, I hate change. It's unsettling; it makes me have that sick pitted feeling in my stomach that you get when you have a huge presentation--a feeling of dread.

School is ending; people I have shared 4 years of my life with everyday are leaving. I hate saying goodbye. So, much that I didn't actually say goodbye. No more talking about each other's papers, no more talking about loving lives, drinking too much, what you did over winter and summer break. No more. No more harassing each other about missing class or for writing meaningless English papers. No more lunches together.

It doesn't even make sense to say "hey, I'll see you sometime over summer." That's not the kind of friends were are--we're seasonal friends. Like a part of your life has closed and along with that goes the relationships in it. I don't want it to end. I don't want it to change.

Maybe it would be different if I were graduating, too. Perhaps not. I'm not even upset about not graduating. I just hate change.