Calling all moms, it's time to teach our daughters corporations don’t get to decide their identity as women

Calling all moms, it's time to teach our daughters that corporations don’t get to decide their identity as women. Why aren’t feminists speaking out?

We used to instill in girls that their opportunities are endless, but now men are quite literally taking them away, while the so-called feminists are MIA. It’s almost as if we’re reverting to a time when a woman’s identity is defined by the opposite sex. Has anybody thought to ask what message we’re sending our daughters?   Gloria Steinem, who is widely known as the mother of feminism once said, "I assumed that I would have to marry the man I wanted to become." Now we’re just telling our toddlers they can become a man. We’re abolishing our children’s innocence right along with their femininity.    Lauren DeBellis Appell, a former lobbyist and communications aide on Capitol Hill, is a writer based in Fairfax, Virginia. Follow her on Twitter@LDAppell.

It hasn't even been 60 years since Betty Friedan published "The Feminine Mystique," which launched the modern feminist movement. Fast-forward to today, men are infiltrating female sports teams, hijacking women’s beauty brands and redefining what it means to be a woman. Corporate America is sexualizing children in high profile ad campaigns and attempting to sell toddler girls on the notion that they can be boys.