Over the past year, “girl power” has become a phrase more widely known and proudly used.
Girl power has been positively represented by celebrities such as Taylor Swift, Gigi Hadid and Selena Gomez and their “squads.” Groups of very successful girls who are all best friends and want nothing more than to see each other succeed.
Girl power is more than an image of self-confidence. Girl power is also about empowering other women to be the best they can be. It’s about putting jealousy and envy aside and commending other women on their hard work.
Nothing is more inspiring than seeing women work together to fight for equality.
Growing up an athlete, I was always told “You kick pretty hard for a girl” or, “You’re pretty tough for a girl,” as if being a girl automatically made it impossible for me to be good at something other than playing house.
However, I was always lucky enough to have teammates that empowered me and gave me the confidence and strength to keep grinding and better myself in every aspect of my life.
The idea that one girl is better than you because she has something you don’t is something we need to let go of.
We are women.
We are strong.
We are terrifying, strange and beautiful.
The source of girl power stems from the ability to appreciate each others differences and use them as ammunition against people who think less of us because we are women.
As women, we also need to stop adding fuel to the fire.
As Meg said in the movie "Hercules": “I’m a damsel, I’m in distress, I can handle this. Have a nice day.”
While it is nice to let a man change the lightbulb or change the oil in our car, it is so much nicer to do it ourselves.
It’s time we stop belittling other women for choosing the married life or for choosing the wild life.
Instead of making them feel like they’re throwing their lives away for getting married so young, why don’t we encourage them and say “You go girl! You have it together.”
Or when a girl chooses to go out and have a few drinks, instead of making them feel irresponsible and dumb we should raise our glass to them because it’s important to treat ourselves.
Become the hero you need. Support other women on their journey of self-empowerment. Don’t let them make you small and always remember that another women’s success is not your failure. When one of us succeeds, we all succeed.
