Last year I did a post about the unfounded stereotypes against the teenage brain. I've noticed many people use the same sort of arguments about hormones. As a teenage girl, I have two strikes against me.
I'm a teenager.
I'm a girl.
Let's look at that second one first, shall we? Everyone knows women's hormones act up once a month. In the past (and, in many cases, today ) this was used as an argument against women. Women can't be strong. Women can't be rational. Don't trust them with anything important.
Of course, if you try saying that in front of a woman at the wrong time of month...yeah. So that argument pretty much fails.
But wait, even if they can be rational and strong, women are still different from men, right? They can have kids. Pregnancy sets our hormones crazy. You can't have a woman in any sort of position of authority. What if she decides to have a baby? She'll transform into a sappy bucket of tears that leaks out every time a Band-Aid commercial comes on TV. She can't think straight anymore. We're all doomed.
But I don't need to tell you that women are rational creatures. That our emotions, opinions, and problems matter. We've spent the last several decades debating this and finally came to the conclusion that women are not inferior to men because of our hormones act up every once in a while.
Yet the argument still stands with teens.
Apparently teenagers aren't capable of true emotion. If we fall in love (never mind that people do get married out of high school and marrying later doesn't guarantee a happy, divorce free marriage) it's not real. It's not because we're in the process of becoming adults. Adults, those people who are supposed to find people they care for, get married, and raise a family.
It's just hormones running wild.
If we get offended, it's not because we have strong personal opinions that conflict with someone else's.
Our hormones are just acting up.
If we feel insulted, ignored, and beaten down, it's not because we've been insulted, ignored, and beaten down.
Life is just fine.
We're the only ones wrong here.
But it's not our fault, no, it's just the hormones raging in our body the compel us to fight back.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
This will pass.
It's just hormones.
We're not even real people yet, just men/women-in-training.
None of what we feel right now will matter in the future. As adults. In real life.
There is nothing more insulting to your own humanity than to be told your thoughts don't matter. That's you're nothing more than a collection of impulses and mood swings. Because if you can't think, why live?
I'm a teenager.
I'm a girl.
Let's look at that second one first, shall we? Everyone knows women's hormones act up once a month. In the past (and, in many cases, today ) this was used as an argument against women. Women can't be strong. Women can't be rational. Don't trust them with anything important.
Of course, if you try saying that in front of a woman at the wrong time of month...yeah. So that argument pretty much fails.
But wait, even if they can be rational and strong, women are still different from men, right? They can have kids. Pregnancy sets our hormones crazy. You can't have a woman in any sort of position of authority. What if she decides to have a baby? She'll transform into a sappy bucket of tears that leaks out every time a Band-Aid commercial comes on TV. She can't think straight anymore. We're all doomed.
But I don't need to tell you that women are rational creatures. That our emotions, opinions, and problems matter. We've spent the last several decades debating this and finally came to the conclusion that women are not inferior to men because of our hormones act up every once in a while.
Yet the argument still stands with teens.
Apparently teenagers aren't capable of true emotion. If we fall in love (never mind that people do get married out of high school and marrying later doesn't guarantee a happy, divorce free marriage) it's not real. It's not because we're in the process of becoming adults. Adults, those people who are supposed to find people they care for, get married, and raise a family.
It's just hormones running wild.
If we get offended, it's not because we have strong personal opinions that conflict with someone else's.
Our hormones are just acting up.
If we feel insulted, ignored, and beaten down, it's not because we've been insulted, ignored, and beaten down.
Life is just fine.
We're the only ones wrong here.
But it's not our fault, no, it's just the hormones raging in our body the compel us to fight back.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
This will pass.
It's just hormones.
We're not even real people yet, just men/women-in-training.
None of what we feel right now will matter in the future. As adults. In real life.
There is nothing more insulting to your own humanity than to be told your thoughts don't matter. That's you're nothing more than a collection of impulses and mood swings. Because if you can't think, why live?
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