As someone who identifies as a feminist, I support the empowerment and advancement of women to the point of equity. Personally, I long for women to become more than equals. I long to live in a world run visually and physically run by women. There’s something satisfying about the idea of turning the tables on the patriarchy of our world and launching a full-scale matriarchy. Every underdog has dreams, however innocent or not, whether they will act upon them or not, of rising to the top and being put in a position of power over those who have kept you down for so long.

White, heterosexual, cisgender males have had a strong grip on our power of choice as women. Education, physical health, employment, code of conduct, and dress are all areas where women have been coerced into a certain set of standards they must struggle to meet while being set up to fail by the contradictory messages thrown at them daily. Dress in a way that gives men a boost in their sexual drive, but don’t wear so little that society calls you a slut. Go to college and get an education. Prove that you are smarter than men, but then never get promoted at work or acknowledged for the extra hours and effort you put in only to get second place. Work harder, try to please everyone, but know that the men around you won’t recognize just how much courage and bravery it has taken for you to be standing where you are today.

Remember all the times you outperformed a misogynist. Remember all the times you were forced into silence by a man who pressured you into submitting to his will. Remember the injustices and use them to fuel your hunger, your drive, your fight.

I will decide what is right for my body. I will get a good education. I will not be forced into filling the gender roles set in place for me by the men who came before me and the men who continue to follow such outlandish, outdated traditions. I will be comfortable in my skin. I will be unabashedly loud. I will be bold. I will not let any man tell me what I cannot do.

Every time that any male has ever tried to do me harm or put me down, I have fought with resistance. I am so stubborn. I get pissed very quickly when you insult my identity. To call me names, make crude or unjust comments, or act with the power and authority given to you by the society we live in is to take a hit at the very fabric of my being. Expect glares. Expect the rudeness you delivered to me thrown right back, harder and wrapped in a pretty bow just for the hell of it. Expect me to speak out against you in class. Expect me to have zero tolerance for your bullshit. Expect me to not back down.

You see, that’s the thing about me. That’s the thing about women everywhere – we don’t stop, and we won’t stop until we receive what was rightfully ours since the beginning of time: equality. The chance to be an individual and not an object. The chance to make a life for ourselves. The chance to live as boldly as we choose. The chance to show you just what women are made of: more heart, brawn, and brains than you ever thought we had, and maybe, just maybe, more than you ever will.