I think I look great.
I don’t want to change myself.
I am smolderingly attractive. Yes. Smolderingly.

If you don’t want to murder me yet but feel hateful all the
same, settle down. I don’t actually feel those things at this exact moment in
time, but I am trying to make a point. My point is that we don’t have a
culture, particularly amongst women, where saying these things is socially
acceptable – whether we feel them or not.

Men can feel these things. They can say shit like “Check out
these guns” or write songs where the refrain is “Girl look at this body, I work
out” or whatever. They can be admired for their peacock-iness, and it will get
them further in business, love and life.

Women are expected to have conversations that center around
all the things they want to improve. Their cellulite. Their chunky thighs. The
number on the scale. Women bond over
these conversations. And god forbid, if a woman were to admit to her lady
friends that she was feeling particularly sexy and attractive one day, forget
it – she is OUT of the henhouse. The other women would be threatened, locking
up their own lovers and broadcasting a 5-alarm feeling of insecurity.

I once watched a documentary (shocking, I know) where a transgendered
person who had been raised as a female wanted to begin living life as a male.
She consulted numerous doctors and specialists for help in making this
transition, and then she did something fascinating. She went to a drama coach
to learn the gestures, body language and mannerisms of a man.

“It’s easy to come across as a man through body language,”
said the acting coach. “Every time you walk into a room, walk in like you own
the place. Walk like everyone admires you, like everyone wants you. Every
single place you go, behave as though you are the king.”

Instantly, the woman appeared to be male. That was all it
took.

I recently wrote an article for a business publication about
females in the workplace in 2012. After interviewing female business leaders
from all over New England, I began to understand that while female
characteristics are quietly valued in business settings, they will never help
women to break the glass ceiling and become CEOs and Presidents of Corporations.
Ultimately, what women need to succeed is to adopt more of a male mindset. A
mindset where they are entitled and deserving of every privilege, where they
demand what they want and what they know they need.

And though I am not talking about business here today, I am the CEO of
my own life and need to behave as such. Like I am the king. And if I have to
fake it until it becomes natural, so be it.

I have spent my entire life feeling like I needed to lose
weight to improve myself, and yet each time I stumble across a picture from my
past, whether it be from when I was a teenager to some of the more recent
photos, I wonder why the hell I have wasted so much valuable time wishing to be
something I am not. I am fine just the way I am. I am healthy, strong. Happy.

And even more importantly, I am at a point where I am ready
to get the cluck out of the henhouse, because I don’t want to hang out with the
hens that are still wishing for what isn’t.

I will be over in the other henhouse – the one where the funky chickens are
playing poker and drinking martinis and shaking their beautiful tail feathers,
getting ready for a glorious day around the farm the next day with the roosters
and the chicks.

The roosters know what’s up. And they are having tons more fun.