I've seen "Ghostbusters" four times now and will probably end up throwing more money at it. It has made me happier than any other movie I've ever seen and I want it to do well so we can continue to have more movies like it. I want more little girls to grow up with role models like the women in this film. I want them to feel confident with instead of limited by their bodies.

By now, most of you have seen it or read the myriad reviews online about it. Whether you think it's a good movie or not, it's obvious that they did something different that nobody has done before in a major Hollywood movie. It took me halfway through the fourth viewing to realize exactly why this movie in particular feels so different. It is legitimately the first time I have ever seen a woman who looks like me in a major Hollywood movie portrayed 100 percent positively. Abby Yates is never once ridiculed for her weight, she has the respect and love of her peers, her intelligence is never undermined and she is considered an integral part of the group.

This fact makes me simultaneously overjoyed and deeply saddened. In my 26 years on this Earth, I had never before felt positively represented on screen. Every woman who looks like me has always been the butt of the joke. Every woman who looks like me has only existed so that the audience can laugh at how fat and disgusting she is. Every woman who looks like me gets dismissed. That is, until this movie. How sad is it that I had to wait until I was 26 to see myself represented positively on screen? Many other women had to wait longer. I am, however, elated that a new generation of girls will grow up with the female characters in this movie, each of which is so fully realized and positively portrayed. The little girls that see this movie won't walk out of it struggling to connect to the one female character who is essentially useless like many of the movies I had to grow up with. They will see themselves represented and be able to feel confident in their own skin.

Every woman I have talked to so far has felt the same way, however, many men have come out of the movie in extreme states of butthurt. It greatly amuses me how many men are upset that the only male character in the main cast is a useless, yet beautiful idiot. They don't seem to understand that that is what woman have had to endure through pretty much every movie we have seen. They are upset that the villain, who is essentially a walking MRA forum, remind them too much of themselves and forces them to look inward. Many men who see the film quite frankly don't understand a lot of the struggles we have had to endure through constant negative media representation. Pretty much every movie we had seen before this has given the loud message to women that their worth is directly related to their dress size. The only way that a woman can be seen as strong is by knowing martial arts. She doesn't need a personality or intelligence, just a hot body and krav maga training.

I understand that it can be a hard concept to grasp if you don't see it every day. Men are constantly surrounded by characters that positively represent them. They don't have these ridiculous messages beating them over the head every day. This movie isn't for them, but they would do well to pay attention to it. They would benefit from thinking about exactly why Kevin made them uncomfortable. They need to see that men that act like Rowan are not nice guys. These are the things that women have dealt with for our entire lives and we need to be heard here. I want to challenge all the men that saw it and immediately dismissed it as a shitty summer blockbuster to see it again with this in mind. Representation matters. I hope you end up able to see that.