As a girl, growing up and living my life has been harder than the average male. With a 77 percent salary, a tampon tax and fear of men in the night, it’s been tough trying to figure out who I am, and where I should be going, but I think I’m doing an okay job of it so far. At this moment in time, I know what I want in my life. Some of it is bound to change, but some things are going to be constant, like the fear of having a daughter.

I fear that if I have a daughter, she will be a lot like me. Not in the way she looks, but in how she carries herself. Growing up, I was a force to be reckoned with, and I have to apologize to my mom for that. I gave my mom hell while I was trying to figure out that loneliness was something different from being alone. I worry that she is going to have a worse time finding herself and encounter many more obstacles than I did. I want to be able to be as good a support for her as my mom is for me, and thinking that I won’t be makes me scared to death for her.

I don’t want my daughter to grow up hating her body, but I don’t want to push her to continuously better herself in fear she may think what I’m pushing on her is what I believe in. I don’t want her to grow up and be bullied for being who she is, just like her mother. I know I’ll be able to pick her up when she’s down, I’ll know how to handle it, but the thought of seeing her breaking down drives me insane, and I don’t even have a daughter yet.

I don’t want her to feel compelled to say yes to any man in fear that he may hurt her, or be told that men have trust issues because she chooses to wear makeup. I don’t want her to have to feel undervalued at 77 percent of what a man is worth because some kid may get distracted by her shoulders in school. I don’t want her to think his education is more important than hers just because he can’t pay attention when a shoulder is visible. I want her to have access to sex ed, and women’s health care, including abortion clinics, so that she can always feel like she has a place to go, even if she feels like she can’t tell me what’s going on (which I also hope doesn’t happen).

I fear not only that she may hate herself as society makes her out to be a felon in her own body, but I also fear for her safety in such a society that still values women less than men, so much that her safety, and the safety of others, will be compromised due to a rapist’s athletic record. Brock Turner's trial is just one of many that shows the privilege men, especially Caucasian men, have over just about everyone else in the world. His "20 minutes of action" is only being turned into a three-month jail sentence because the judge didn't want to ruin his life, and yet, children sit in jail or are shot dead for protesting a cause, or having small amounts of marijuana in their possession. These people all had future, but some won't get a chance to get theirs back because they aren't white or athletic. Brock Turner threw away his future the second he decided to drop his pants and rape an unconscious woman. Brock is given the benefit of the doubt because of who he is. So what if he has a clean record, or is a good athlete? It doesn't, and shouldn't, matter. He doesn't deserve to have his life given back to him after he ruined, and basically took away someone else's.I do not want my daughter to lose her self worth because a man decided that it would be an okay idea to rape an unconscious woman. I want her to be respected and not have her clothes or state of drunkenness be a factor in whether or not a man is guilty of touching her without consent. At some point, someone decided that a man's dreams are more valuable than a woman's. A man's life, and safety in jail, is a bigger concern than all the other people who could harm in the future, just because his swim times are supposed to be really good. Brock Turner's life has been put on a pedestal, and made out to be some sob story like all the other college

athletes who do bad things. "Oh, they're lives are going to be ruined," people say, disregarding the fact that they've already ruined someone's life, but hers isn't as valuable as his, and that's disgusting. They made a conscious choice to go out and make someone's life a living hell. Each and every victim was a person, not just a daughter, mother, or sister. She was a person, and the face that women aren't treated as people but as property, makes me fearful to even have children. We should be teaching men to be better, to be respectful, not teaching our daughters to be polite and afraid of a man's intentions. Don't send your boys out to play, and keep your daughters locked away.