Society is something you eventually learn to live with. You learn to ignore it—ignore people’s opinions, find your voice, and be yourself. That’s both easier and harder in the age of social media.

Social media can either empower you or tear you down. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram constantly tell people—especially women—who they should be. There’s still this idea that women have to act a certain way to be seen as attractive, feminine, or admirable. And while things have improved over time, the pressure hasn’t disappeared.

As a woman, it can feel like you’re never doing enough. You should be prettier, skinnier, smarter, quieter, more successful, more maternal—the list never ends. There’s this constant pressure to appear put together, even if no one can really explain why. It comes from outdated expectations, from a time when the “ideal” woman stayed home and stayed quiet. Things are better now—but not perfect.

As a teenager, it’s even harder. You’re constantly seeing women in their twenties who look like they have everything figured out—perfect, polished, effortless. And before you know it, you’re wishing your life away, wondering why you don’t look like that. Social media teaches you that women are supposed to look like the Kardashians, your favourite influencer, or Sabrina Carpenter.

But women look like you, too.

You don’t have to be perfect all the time. You don’t have to have kids, be skinny, quiet, petite, or traditionally “girly.” You don’t have to like pink, or matcha, or whatever trend is popular right now. You don’t have to follow what society—or TikTok—tells you to do.

Just because everyone and their dog is drinking matcha, for example, doesn’t mean you have to like it. Personally, I think it tastes like grass. And still, I see women bending themselves to fit whatever trend is loudest that week, chasing approval from people they don’t even know.

So why would you shrink yourself just to blend in? Who actually benefits from you being less of who you are?

This is me when I was 16. Society taught me that pretty girls didn’t wear glasses—unless it was some overly sexualised “teacher” costume. So there I was, in 2021, walking to maths class with my glasses on my head, barely able to see, but at least I looked cute doing it. Maybe a cute boy would notice me in the corridor—not that I would’ve noticed him.

I even spent the first few weeks of college the same way: glasses on my head, full face of makeup, trying to be something I thought I had to be. It wasn’t worth it.

Because the truth is, the prettiest version of you is the comfortable one.