I have always loved to write. Essays, stories, journal entries, news reports, research papers-- basically any opportunity for me to express my opinion (or even just to state facts in my own words) is one that I jump at. When I speak, I have trouble really getting my points across; it’s hard for me to even tell a short story without mentioning hundreds of unnecessary details. I’m always saying things like “Oh right, I forgot to tell you… (insert information that I should have given a while ago if I wanted to avoid the confused faces of the unfortunate party listening to me tell this story).” But, when I write, I have the ability to go back and edit my stories, to make sure that everything I want to say has been said, and I that’s why I love it. Until recently, though, the only platform on which I could share my written work was the desk of my English teacher, and as much as I’d love to write another essay on the most common themes of Puritan literature, I always knew that there were more important, more interesting things to be discussed. When a friend reached out to me about joining Odyssey’s new team in Fort Lauderdale, I immediately accepted the invitation. Sure, I had seen content creators use the platform as a means of relaying arguably trivial information, but I fully intended to write an article each week that would actually mean something-- to me and to others. Being the dreamer that I am, I pictured a future in which the number next to that little Facebook symbol would be so large the last digits would be replaced by a “k” or even an “m”. I imagined receiving comments from people who had been touched by what I wrote, and may have even been changed forever (hopefully for the better). I may be a little overeager, but I’m not stupid; I wasn’t expecting my first article to go viral, but sometimes expectations are broken… (just kidding, it only got like 20 shares and most were from my mom’s friends, but that would have been pretty cool, right?). Anyways, I went to work each week for the past month, picking topics and writing articles that meant more to me than the ten most annoying things I face because I live in Florida. I would get an email each Monday morning declaring that the week’s article had “gone live” on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., and I would check each following morning to see how many more shares I had gotten throughout the previous day. My first article barely made it to 20, my next got a whopping 29, then came lucky number three.

In the 24 hours after publishing my third article, it reached about 30 shares, nothing crazy. I had prepared myself for a few comments of disagreement, and sure enough, they popped up. However, when I went to check what I thought would be the article’s final number of shares seeing as its short-lived “popularity” was already dying down, 30 shares had become 90. Those 90 shares soon became 100, 100 soon became 300, and 300 soon became 800. Though I gained a portion of the popularity I had dreamt of, the feedback I got wasn’t exactly something to be proud of.

I’ve spent the last week scrolling through hundreds of comments labeling me as “naïve,” “privileged,” “ignorant,” “ridiculous,” “disgusting,” and more. At first, I defended my work. I (politely) refuted the statements of a few critics, while openly supporting some good points that others made. I wasn’t so obstinate that I was going to dismiss any and all feedback that did not completely support my position. I was completely open to anything anyone had to say to me, but after the first two dozen negative comments, things really start to hit home. I wouldn’t say that I am someone who is excessively concerned with my image; if someone thinks I am ugly, too tall, too fat, too skinny, too annoying, too whatever, I don’t really care. However, I do care immensely about character and the type of person people perceive me to be. So as you can imagine, reading such horrible comments directed towards me, even if I was never intended to see them, really hurt. I continuously reread what I had written in that article again and again, trying harder and harder to see where the message I had desired to express had been so misunderstood. At one point, I even considered taking the article down. I had pictured the idea of what my article was so clearly in my mind, and had come to realize that it had not been taken nearly how I had wished it to.

If I had the chance to go back a week and write an article on a different, less sensitive topic, I wouldn’t. Would I write the exact same article? Absolutely not. But I am not writing this to tell you all that so much negativity concentrated into the course of a week has completely altered my viewpoint on life. I do not regret the points I tried to make; I only regret the ways in which I made them.

If I could rewrite that article, the first thing I would change is the title. Every teacher that’s given us a writing assignment has told us to pick a catchy, attention-grabbing title. For this article, I wanted to choose something that would raise some eyebrows, and force scrolling fingers to turn into tapping ones. I am not OK with sexism, but fitting the entirety of my main idea into a title seemed a daunting task, so I took the short cut, and I never will again. Instead of simply grabbing readers’ attention, I established the premise that I was OK with a problem that has lead to the assault, abuse, murder, degradation, humiliation, and oppression of women around the world, and there is no coming back from that.

My next biggest regret is using the word sexism in the first place. I explained my ideas as if sexism merely consisted of people saying things like, “You can’t do it, you’re a girl” and “You throw like a girl.” I now see that from the perspective of outside readers it appears as though I believe I have experienced the worst sexism has to offer in just 16 years as a privileged (as many of you put it-- but do not think for a second that I do not appreciate the life that God has made for me) white kid. I neglected to mention all other aspects of sexism, not because I was unaware of their presence in society, but merely because I had narrowed my thoughts down so specifically to my point, I felt no need to discuss anything else; I now realize I was wrong. I just want this to be clear: I may never truly understand the true severity of sexism until I have experienced it firsthand, but I am not oblivious to its existence.

I am not going to dedicate a paragraph to telling you just how much I appreciate the things that women before me have done to pave the way for my success, because I would be lying to you. I took it for granted-- there, I said it. It’s what you all were thinking, and it is true. I don’t think of the women who worked to gain access to equal education for young girls each day as I drive to school. I don’t think of the first women to prove to the world that we are capable of strength and athleticism as I walk out onto the lacrosse field for practice. I don’t think of the female pioneers of the scientific world as I walk into the lab each day. I don’t. Since I was young, I have taken all of these things for granted, because I have never lived in a world where those things were far from my reach. Do I think that all of these strong, courageous women in history were in it for the praise, recognition, and legacy they would eventually receive? No. But do I think they deserve it? Absolutely. I have admitted to taking their actions for granted, but not knowingly. Had you ever asked me if I appreciate what previous generations have done for me, of course I would have said yes. But until now, I don’t think I’ve every really taken time to sit down and think about it, and I will now do my best to help others do the same.

I am sorry. I truly am. I am sorry for treating such a heavy topic with such little clarity, and I am sorry if I have offended anyone, male or female. The only point I wanted to make, though it sounds ridiculous, is really just to use your haters as your motivators. Girls, if someone thinks you can’t do something, show them that you can, period. Even if you think you’ve hit a roadblock too big to overcome, go look at the comments and shares from that article, and remember that all 800+(and a whole lot more) of those women and men have your back. So please, if you read this, share it. I know that the chances of this reaching all readers from my previous article are slim, but I couldn't go on writing an unrelated article with so much being said about my last one. If you read this, and are unconvinced of my integrity, I apologize. I have done all that I can to prove to you the type of person that I am, and if this article, intended to eradicate negativity, ends up creating more of it, I will take it down.

The only other thing I would like to say to the mouths behind all of those hateful words is to please be wary of your words-- in person, on the phone, on the web, anywhere. Though you may think you are talking to misogynistic, naïve, white privileged scum (which I hope you no longer believe), everyone has feelings; it doesn’t take a lot for online constructive criticism to turn into full-fledged cyber bullying. The more I read my article, the more I understood where each mind had raced while reading it, and I am happy to have done that. However, there are many ways to explain something to someone without calling them “disgusting,” and I think using one of those other ways will get you a lot farther in life, and make you (and me) feel a whole lot better.