I Don’t Need A (Or Any) Man

Sleepy-time for teens
Franny Gonzalez.
Sleepy-time for teens
Franny Gonzalez

Being a teenage girl in 2017 is hard and, frankly, I don’t like it.

There is all this pressure on young girls my age to act, look, and talk a certain way. The canon is skinny with long hair and perfect skin. I have always been chubby, and maybe I will always be chubby, but I love myself more than any skinny person I know.    

Homecoming is less than a week away, and all anyone talks about are dresses and dates. Young girls are expected to go with a date, or just not go at all. This is bull-malarkey. Teenagers are easily influenced—and everything we learn at this age we retain and it influences us in the years to come. Is that really what society wants to teach us? That we shouldn’t do something if we don’t have a guy to take us?

If you answered yes to that, please stop reading this article immediately. School dances are meant to be fun. Although I have never been on a date, I have done research, and in 99 percent of teenage movies (my own statistic), the dates are awkward. Why would you want to be awkward and bored at a school dance? Being awkward and bored isn’t my personal preference, so I am going with friends.

We are going to dance the night away, eat whatever we want, and have fun not caring what other people think. Doesn’t that sound like more fun?

I expected a bunch of my friends to be going to Homecoming, but to my chagrin when I asked around, I could count all of the girls going on one hand. I asked them their reasoning, (insert eye roll here) and they all replied, “Because I don’t have a date.” This frustrates me beyond belief, so much so that I wrote an article about it!

Girls should not be pressured or feel pressured to get a date. And girls, if you aren’t going to homecoming for another reason, at least go out with your best friends and have some fun, go to the movies or out to dinner.  The very notion that we need to have a date is “out-dated.”

It is 2017!  I don’t need no man and you don’t either.

Franny Gonzalez is a freshman at Miami Beach Senior High School.


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3 COMMENTS

  1. Excellent article. Congrats to this young lady helping raise awareness of such an unfortunate trend. Keep on campaigning and helping young girls like yourself understand that they too can have fun and socialize without a date.

  2. WOW! I am impress, you are such a brave, wise, intelligent, cool and naturally beauty young woman. Loved what you wrote and shared. My true respect and admiration to you.
    Hope you will continue writing more so I could follow your thoughts. And wish that you will find more reasons to stand tall as you just done it, Franny.
    Sincerely
    Lorena Rivers

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