Every day of my life, I have been affected by a powerful and crippling institution that has made my life hell. That institution is gender and the social normalities that come with it. Millions of women and girls are very well-versed in the effects of this institution because they too live under its presence. I spend hours doing my hair, doing my makeup and trying to look and act a certain way because that’s the way girls are expected to be. It’s all about aesthetics these days, and the expectations for girls and women are through the roof. Today, the ideal woman is placed high on a pedestal and is expected to be teeming with beauty at all times. On the covers of teen magazines are women who are put in place as role models to millions of readers. And these women, who are essentially forged to embody perfection, are the ones average girls — like myself — are being compared too. This seems hardly fair. Today, this new average is what is expected of all girls, and it appears that it can never be accomplished. I know I will never look, even closely resemble, these types of women — yet I keep trying. Why? Because if I want to be viewed as a somewhat acceptable member of our society, if I want to be seen as “beautiful,” if I want to have a prosperous life, I have to look like the women on the cover of Teen Vogue. Examples of how the “ideal” woman is stacked up against the realistic woman are size and body issues in the U.S. The average U.S. woman’s size is a size 14, however the average supermodel size is 0 or 00. While most of us are closer to a 14, we still want to be smaller and try to meet the expectations of a deluded society. The way we are expected to look enforces generation after generation of insecurities and low self-esteem and it administers tons of unnecessary worry and effort into trying to perfect one’s self. I have spent hours on end primping and obsessing over how I look. I try to maintain a certain image because I am afraid people won’t like me if I don’t wear eyeliner and flat-iron my hair, or if I’m not skinny enough. It’s about time we put an end to all this nonsense and start being comfortable in our own skin. We need to begin being happy with the people we are so we can focus on the more important events going on in our lives. As said millions of times before, life is too short to worry about the little things, and this applies fully to the matter at hand. — Lindsay Felice is a High Tech High School student.