I hope you aspire to be more than just "hot," that you view your looks as a nice bonus and don't give them priority over anything of importance, and that you understand that while looking nice is going to get you somewhere, if it's all you focus on, it will get you about as far as a man who only appreciates you for your appearance. And someday that will matter to you. I hope you realize that while your  happiness in high school may lie in your popularity, for the rest of your life it will be your intelligence, your passion, your enthusiasm, your energy, and your persistence that will sustain you. I want you to take pride in who you are as an emotional, capable being and not someone who has been busily priming herself to be a sexual object. I want you to know that while that side of you is nothing to be ashamed of, it should not be for public consumption.

Until we really have these conversations with girls, I don't know how we're going to expect them to live up to all the pressure we place on them. We want female doctors, lawyers, politicians, professors, executives. We also keep trying to sell them "starter" make-up kits and thongs when they're still in elementary school. We try to teach them how to be physically appealing to men, how to play mind games in order to keep them intrigued. We ask them about boyfriends instead of school. We continue to shred female politicians to pieces for their looks.

We need to encourage and invest in their growth instead of oversexualizing them from childhood, criticizing women's bodies in the media at every turn, screaming at them to improve their test scores, and then wondering why this generation is struggling. Yes, we have come so far. We also have very different ideas of what empowered womanhood means. Hint: it ain't about porn. Ask Gloria Steinem.

Of course I want people to think I'm pretty, but I honestly want to them to think I'm intelligent first. That's probably my favorite thing about myself.
Sorry if this sounds a bit insufferable. I get this way sometimes. Okay, a lot.

And as an aside: Carly Fiorina, you're really going to attack Barbara Boxer for asking to be called "Senator" instead of "Ma'am?" That's all ya got? And you think you're some kind of feminist. P.S.- she did work really fucking hard for that title. Get a better campaign.