Unfortunately I am a teenage girl, with, unsurprisingly, opinions. I have political views, views of society and this article is a rant on these two things.

Are you still here? I’m impressed! Most people would read the word teenage and run a mile; even less would make it to girl, or even views! But why is this? Do you think that my views are invalid because I’m sixteen? I may have hormones racing through my body but that doesn’t mean I’m any less than the straight, white, middle-class men that run the country.

Teenagers these days have an extreme stigma surrounding them, one place where this is evident is age limits on unnecessary things. For example you have to be twenty-one to buy a can of spray paint – do the companies think that at twenty-one people spontaneously turn into a responsible, trustworthy member of society? I just want to buy spray paint to finish my art coursework, not ‘paint the town red’ in every sense of the phrase, even though everyone seems to assume that this is a lie.

Teenagers are treated as adults in every aspect of their lives. We are asked to make decisions that will impact our entire futures yet if they impact anyone else’s lives, even insignificantly? We’re pushed to the side. My views and goals are similar, if not the same as ‘responsible’ adults, but if I put forward my ideas they’re suddenly ‘stupid’ or ‘inappropriate’. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve had to rely on an adult to propose a change of idea on my behalf because my age automatically puts me at a disadvantage.

The worst part is that when it comes to my own future I’m asked to make decisions every few weeks that slowly narrow down my choices further and further until I’m destined for a dead-end job for the next forty yeas. Not so immature now? If I’m trusted with my own future why aren’t I allowed to influence small aspects of others’ lives, I can make myself unhappy but not others happy? That hardly seems fair to me.

I think it’s time this stigma changed. It’s 2015 and the fact that people are still ageist and don’t even notice is appalling. Ideally the voting age could be lowered, so governments actually paid attention to younger people, and not just the voters. However if this article makes one person think slightly differently about how they treat young people then I will consider it a success!

Teenagers deserve to be heard as much as anyone else, and we are told this from every angle until it comes down to the crunch (and don’t blame it on inexperience some people live more in ten years than others do in forty). I hope that more people can open their minds and realize that teenagers are human too.