Our entire lives we are told to be confident. We are told to speak with a purpose, to stand strong in our beliefs, and to say something when you disagree... until now.

I don't know what happened, but we've started hating the confident girl. We praise those with obvious insecurities,? telling them to embrace them and to not be ashamed. But, what about the girls who don't show that on the outside? What about the girls who keep it to themselves, and who are loud, boisterous, flirty, etc? We're basically told it's wrong. We're told that it's not right.

"Stop being so bossy," when you try to show leadership skills.

"Stop being so loud," when you are tired of people ignoring you.

"Stop being so forward," when you don't believe in the traditional stereotype of girls being docile and shy.

"Stop being such a b****."

It's come to a point that we can do nothing, for fear of being labeled one of the negative terms that we as a society have come to associate with strong women.

It's not a surprise. We have presidential candidates saying they could "grab her by the p****... you can do anything when you have money," rapists that judges care about more than the victims, an astonishingly high rate of sexual assault on college campuses, and people telling us we need to cover up, shut up, and put up with it -- or else.

Moreover, there are plenty of girls who fall into the trap of jealousy and hard feelings towards other girls. We have been taught such negative things about women that we let it affect our own thought processes about our own gender. How strange is that? I can scroll no more than one post down my social media timeline before I see someone complaining about how another girl acts or carries herself.

Ladies. We have got to stop tearing each other down. We have to stop seeing confidence as a negative, something that is too attention-seeking or worse, too "slutty." Wear what you want, and with pride. I may not agree with it, but who am I or anyone else, for that matter, to tell you how or what to act, think, or wear? Yes, there are appropriate things for certain settings. But, if you feel like you can rock high heels and a skirt everyday to class, why not? If a girl wants to go all out every single time she goes to a party, let her. If she's happy with her body, and healthy, seriously -- what's the problem here? I hear girls getting so frustrated when they see other girls who take the time out of their day every morning to get ready (hair, makeup, outfit), and I think: why? Why are we so miserable with ourselves that we feel the need to be mad at a girl because she's dressed better than us, or has nicer hair than us, or has cuter eyeliner than us? What a waste of time to be mad about something.

We should be passionate. We should be creative, and intelligent. We should leave our mark in our careers, families, and futures.

Why should we ever be anything but confident?