Recently, I went to a formal dance for the first time since I was in high school. It was a lot of fun, and one moment in particular stands out in my memory of the evening. Beyoncé's song "Run the World (Girls)" played and every girl in the room started singing and dancing along. We all loved the song and had a great time dancing, but more importantly than that, every girl knew every single word to the song.

While it was playing, I looked around and saw genuine joy and excitement on the faces of my fellow ladies in the room. The lyrics are fun and catchy, but they're also deeply impactful. Our society has a tendency to ignore the accomplishments and power of girls and focus only on the accomplishments of men. In fact, in my astronomy class, our professor went out of his way to highlight female astronomers who had made groundbreaking discoveries. In almost every case, the woman's work was taken from her and men took credit for the discovery, and it is only now that we are discovering the women who were truly behind the research. Isn't that ridiculous?

Songs like Beyoncé's are so much fun to listen to, and the message they carry is so important. Girls need to be reminded how strong they are and how much they're capable of, and doing it in an easily consumable way like a pop song is a perfect delivery method. As the other girls and I sang and danced along to the song, I could see us all internalizing the meaning. Girls really do run the world.