My body is a warzone. Outside forces are fighting for its control: patriarchy and the establishment want it to bestick-thin, blond and busty, but my brain wants it to be anything as long as it's healthy. Frankly, I'm freakin' sick of all this warring; I want peace and this fallout shelter is no place to live.

Every day, from the moment I wake up until the moment I fall asleep, I am sent these tiny plastic molds from one side of the war and expected to squeeze myself in. You should see the mold. It's pretty ridiculous looking. It's so small and cold and cramped and I wonder if any living, breathing, real person would ever fit into so absurd a place. Not only is it small and cold, it's tense and surreal and homogenized and colorless, lifeless and so. damn. boring.

One day, just for kicks, I attempted to fit myself into one of the molds. If it wasn't so sad it would have been comical: so much of me spilling out over the sides, all my best parts, all my femininity, just pouring over the sides onto the floor. I realized that their ideal was impossible and anyway, wasn't I my own ideal? Why can't I be feminine on my own terms? Why can't feminine be brazen, loud, successful, aggressive and sexy in an old pair of combat boots?

This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2010.