nevertheless, she persisted.

i've been thinking about how it's a constant struggle for girls everywhere to be self-confident & self-loving.

when we act like we are confident (the key word here is "act") guys, & even other girls, call us stuck up or cocky or conceited. when we get complimented, the complimenter tries to force us into thanking them, as if they did us a service. sure, compliments are great, compliments are encouraged- but do not expect a girl to thank you or to be so grateful that you noticed something about them.

for the longest time, i have been working on self-love & self-confidence & the way i do this is by taking pictures whenever i'm feelin' myself or trying to take artsy pictures so i can try to find the beauty & the art in myself. i think this is a great way to build up my confidence.

but people tell me that i take too many pictures & i post too many pictures. i've gotten complaints about how i take too many selfies & anon messages about pimples & my face & how annoying it is that i post so much. this is how you tear us down.

you tell us to be confident, to love ourselves- that confident girls are hot, they're attractive. then you tear us down by making comments about our faces, our bodies, the little bit of fat here & there, the one pimple that won't go away, the body hair, etc. you tear us down by making comments about the things that we cannot control- the things that are only natural, the things that shouldn't matter.

there's a reason that people say "if you don't have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all." this has been going on since forever- people objectifying women, people judging women, people trying to control women, people trying to make us less of what we are.

telling me to post less, telling me to talk less, telling me to be a certain way, telling me to do this & telling me to not do that, trying to control me- this is how you tear me down. you refuse to let me be who i am, you refuse to let me work on myself the way that i know how, you refuse to let me be visible, you refuse to acknowledge me for me.

you cannot expect girls to love themselves when all you do is show them how to hate the way they look. you cannot expect girls to be confident in who they are when you keep expecting them to be anything but that. you cannot force all these expectations on us- we refuse to follow your "rules," we refuse to be what you expect us to be, we refuse to be anything but ourselves.

why would you want us to be anyone other than who we are? let us be ourselves. let us love ourselves. there's already so much hate in the world, how does hating ourselves do us any good?