Being a woman in today's society comes with struggles. We are constantly put into categories based on our appearance, and judged on how attractive we are.

From a young age, I have been immersed in media just like most of us in this generation. As I became older I started to notice how toxic the online environment really is. We look at social media every day scrolling through our phones seeing the latest celebrity news to what our friends are up too.

I started to realize the underlying messages.

The media represents the idea of this unachievable female beauty, size two model, and completely unrealistic representation of what a woman is supposed to look like. We scroll through these advertisements and posts of celebrities and Instagram models and think that is what our life is supposed to look like.

We judge ourselves and the outcome is low self-esteem because it is impossible to be something we are not. I was born a bigger girl and I will always be a bigger girl and I am okay with that. But growing up and seeing no one in media that the public considered sexy or successful that resembled my weight always made me feel differently.

Once reaching high school I started to notice other girls my age were posting more revealing pictures of themselves. Every day I would log online and scroll through Twitter seeing more girls my age posting pictures in Calvin Klein thongs and bras or lingerie.

Now don't get me wrong, I think it's great these women have this confidence, I believe that women should be able to wear whatever they want and be comfortable in their own skin. But I also believe that these posts are an unnecessary result from what we see every day.

When watching all these models and celebrities like the Kardashians, we as women see them posting sexually suggestive photos and being glorified for those photos. So it comes to no surprise that later on in life I started noticing girls my age do the same thing.

This is only bothersome to me because I believe that if we did not grow up seeing all these messages we wouldn't be relaying the same message to now the younger generation. I shouldn't feel as a woman that posting a picture of me in a bikini and getting the attention that way is fulfilling or reassuring in any way.

I sit here disappointed as I see kids on television that are younger than five in beauty pageants getting their legs waxed and wearing a thong bikini on stage. I wonder if we as young women didn't get the message that what we display on the outside determines our success. Then would we be looking for this same glorification online?

I think it's time to stop thinking of ourselves as beauty on the outside but the beauty we hold on the inside. I'm all for empowerment but I believe we do not have to empower ourselves by showing off our latest lingerie on the internet but empowering ourselves and others by showing the best quality we have within and that's our personality.