Girls are raised differently than boys. That's just an obvious fact, and many things contribute to that. Part of that contribution is how we are raised to be submissive, to an extent.

We're raised to not be defiant. We're raised to follow the rules and do as we're told, no matter who is instructing us. We're raised to be polite, sweet, as a woman should be. This causes us to become afraid of seeming harsh, seeming tough, or seeming unfriendly and unlikable.

It causes us to be hesitant about saying "No."

Growing up, I remember hearing from my female friends that they said yes to a guy asking them to be their girlfriend because they didn't want to "be mean" and say no, even if they had no romantic interest in the guy whatsoever. I remember them also being afraid of breaking up with their then-boyfriends for the same reason.

I was always confused by this because I've never been one to not speak my mind, which my parents have always had a love-hate relationship with. Why on earth, I'd think, would any girl do that? Just say no, right?

In theory, yes. Growing up, I've realized there are two factors as to why a girl does this: She wants to seem desirable to men and they can't usually handle a defiant woman, and there have been far too many examples of horrible things happening to women who have told a man no, for even the smallest of things.

That can't stop us, though. We can't let the fear hold us back, and we can't let making other people happy cause us to be submissive to anything, whether that's agreeing to plans you don't really want to do or saying yes to make some guy happy.

You can be a good person and still say no.

We've been raised and conditioned to think otherwise our entire lives, but that ends now. It's time that us women stand up for ourselves and become independent, defiant women who won't be silently submissive to anything, or anyone.