Letter to the Editor: Paper researches women in workplace

Dear Editor,

My name is Bailey Hession, and I am a senior at Willard High School. Lately, I have noticed what teenage girls like me are facing in our day-to-day lives. There are so many pressures on us, and not a lot of them are positive. We are constantly told we are not good enough, we have to look a certain way or we have do things to be a real woman. Most of these aren’t true, but if this is the only message young girls are getting, what are they supposed to believe?

I decided I would write a paper about the tremendous changes that women have made in the workplace. In this paper, I described, in depth, what women have that makes them an asset to the workforce, along with what they are doing and how men are adapting in response. Now, I want to bring this idea to life through a project that would help other people, namely teenage girls, in our community. There needs to be someone to tell them they are worth it and they can do whatever they want in life. In my paper, I describe the multiple opportunities women are starting to have and the immense amount of change they have brought about.

Someone, like me, would like to let them know, in a cool way, what that is all about. Since most people would not want to read a 15-page research paper, my teacher gave me the idea of letters or pieces of advice. This advice is going to become a collaboration of all of the professional responses that I receive from this letter.

So I ask you, what kind of advice would you give to a teenage girl, work-related or not? Is there anything you wish someone had told you about work or life? What are some examples of great female role models girls our age need to hear about?

It would be a great privilege to hear from as many people as possible, and everything would be anonymous. Please help me, and other teenage girls, see a new perspective. Thank you for your responses.

—Bailey Hession, bhession06@yahoo.com, Willard High School