Girl Meets Season 4

3. Girl Meets Feminist Matthews

It was the end of September and Riley was feeling happier than ever, everyone was settling into the new school year, Maya was actually studying on occasion and now Riley was looking forward to an extra-long weekend because of the September holidays. Her first family outing was that weekend and she wanted it to be perfect, they were going to go to Amish country and stop by Gettysburg, because her father loved her paper and wanted to go.

"Hey Peaches," Riley said as she skipped over to her best friend. "What are you doing this weekend?"

"Riles we still have three more days of school before then," Maya said sighing. "Plus I don't want to think about this weekend at all."

"Why what's wrong?"

"Shawn got something in his head about having a family weekend, he wants to go camping upstate, and I get that he wants us to get closer but why camping? Who gave him this idea anyway?"

"Yeah..." Riley looked down at her hands. "That might have been my fault."

"How Riles?"

"Well after the fire I got to talking with my dad and suggested that once a month we have a family only thing, and well my dad must have talked to Uncle Shawn about it... so yeah."

"And now I have to go camping, Riles we've talked about this, any major changes you need to consult me," Maya said pulling Riley close. "But thank you, I guess it's a good thing that we do more family things since he's now my father."

"Good for you," Riley smiled hugging her best friend. "You deserve to be a family."

The two of them walked off to their next classes, Riley had AP Chemistry, while Maya had Spanish. The school had assigned their classes but they still had history and art together which made Riley happy. Riley still took Spanish but during a different period because of her AP classes. She shared more classes with Farkle and Smackle than with Maya, even Lucas had three classes with her, one of which was gym, but she loved how her friends were always nearby.

As she walked into Chemistry, Riley noticed that the girls in the room were all huddled in the corner talking. Curiosity got the better of her and she walked over to see what was happening.

"Hi Sarah," Riley said as she stood next to her classmate and lab partner. "What's going on?"

"The senior boys have released their list of the hottest girls in school," Sarah said looking at the list on her phone. "They rank everyone based on looks, outfits, and overall hotness."

"Why would something like that exist? Are they even allowed to do that?"

Sarah looked over at her like she grew a third head, "Riley they did this last year, apparently it's tradition for the senior to do this."

"But, they shouldn't, why should they dictate who's better looking?" Riley couldn't believe it why were looks so important to everyone. "Everyone is beautiful in their own way."

"Why should you complain," one of the other girls said. "You and Maya both are in the top twenty."

"I don't care, women haven't fought for equal rights for a bunch of boys to degrade us into these stupid categories, for crying out loud we had to fight for the right to vote and even then it was only given to a few before all women had the chance to vote, we're fighting for equality in the workplace but we're still paid less than a man."

"Well Riley, this is high school, it happens this way," Sarah said as their teacher walked into the room and asked them all to sit down.

Riley sat in class working through what she had heard, she didn't like the idea about the girls being ranked, it felt like the yearbooks all over again. She didn't like the idea of people trying to play with her emotions and personality again, the insecurities from that year still haunt her and she was still trying to come to grips with growing into her own. When class was over she headed to her locker and felt like the whole school was looking at her. She didn't like any of this, until one of the seniors walked by her and called her hottie Matthews, while the others whistled.