Recently, I pulled out some pictures of myself from elementary school. I’m almost 40. While I remember only pieces of this painful and lonely time in my life, I remember perfectly how I felt.

I can’t remember a moment I was free of disparaging thoughts about myself. I was so fat. My thighs were big. My hair was out of control with frizz. I just wasn’t pretty like other girls.

Except...the pictures say otherwise. I’m quite a little twig like a lot of girls are at those ages, and while I had skinner friends beside me in photos, I was still “skinny”. My thighs were shapely as they are today — but twigs like my arms. I thought my arms had always been fat? Huh? Don’t get me started on my hair... it’s shiny, a sun-kissed brunette mane of long wavy curls.

I was so damn beautiful but I was so damn brainwashed.

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There are no true beauty standards. That cliché about the “eye of the beholder” could not be more true. The qualities in a man I’ve loved have not been the same qualities society said were worth love.

Beauty, by nature, is beyond comparison. One thing isn’t more beautiful than another; rather, things have a beauty to them. Sure, grass is objectively less stunning then a rose. But there’s nothing more beautiful than lying on soft grass on a nice day and looking up at the sky.

Sometimes the very things you’ve never loved about yourself are the things others find lovable about you - including the parts of yourself you thought were “ugly”. I never much liked the way my natural finger nails looked, but a boyfriend once paused in the middle of the kitchen to point out to me that he loved my hands. I’ve learned I can’t be in charge of how others see me, including what they’ve chosen to see as my beauty.

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We live in the patriarchy, and we cannot ever forget it. I spent years awash in libfem BS from magazines, television and movies, music, books, my social circle, my family, and — later — social media. I’ve spent my whole life wishing to change literally everything about myself because I bought what they sold me - the idea that I wasn’t already so damn beautiful.

This made me feel desperate.

I hid parts of myself in shame.

I hurt myself in numerous ways hoping it would fix the problem when the problem was never about me to begin with.

And all the while, those ideas distracted me enough to keep me from discovering how beneficial it is for men if I don’t like myself.

They profit financially from the ideas. They build success upon the very ideas. They use the ideas to manipulate us into desperation.

They stay in power.

Is that what you want to let them do? Look what happens when they’re in charge.