Dear Society,

I do not want to write this letter, but it needs to be written. Society today is changing in the way it looks at males and females. Rather than teaching boys the right manners and how to be gentlemen, society is telling girls to cover up or that they are asking for it. No female should ever have to be discriminated against. I am not talking just about being discriminated for wearing certain clothing but I am talking about how women get treated in general. Now days young girls are being told if they show shoulder, they are showing too much skin. They are being told wearing leggings to school is dressing for the club. That is not the case. Boys need to be taught that women and girls are people as well. We have feelings. Wearing certain clothing out one night is not asking to be raped. It gets hot when you're dancing and around a lot of people, so girls usually wear tank tops out. Just because a girl is wearing tight clothing, booty shorts, a crop top, or leggings does not mean she wants to have sex. Just because a girl kisses a boy does not mean she wants to have sex. Girls that flirt and then say no get laughed at and made fun of, but the girls that flirt and follow through get called shameful names. A male that has sex with a girl is told "nice job" or "congrats." Guys should not be saying these things to other guys when they sleep with a girl. Things need to change. Colleges are becoming more of a hook up culture which makes women more susceptible to sexual assault. Millennials are not really looking for love in college, we are just trying to make the best of our four years. In middle school and high school, boys need to be taught how to look at women as people rather than as objects. Boys do not how to behave around girls because society puts pressure on them to act a certain way.

All of this has been happening for awhile now but is being brought a lot now because of the Stanford rape case. What Brock Turner did is inexcusable, but look at who he was raised by. His father feels as if he did nothing wrong. This is a prime example of how boys grow into men. They want to be like their fathers. This is why cycles of abuse exist and this is why males do not know how to treat females. Brock Turner is at fault, but so is society. The victim was not asking to be raped, considering she was unconscious. Just because she happened to make out with Turner at a party does not mean she wanted this.

My heart goes out to the victim as a piece of her was taken away when she was raped. Please teach young boys and young men how to treat young girls and young women. This stigma society is creating needs to end.

Sincerely,

A college-aged girl