Like many Late Boomer and Gen X women, my childhood have-it-all feminist dream turned out to be a #MeToo dystopia. 

 

I had graduated from Brown University, was married, and had worked in Hollywood and for international corporations, but at the age of 48, anxiety, struggle, and envy defined me.

 

Where was the life I had imagined? 

 

My problem was my relationship with men. Starting with my conservative Mexican conservative father and continuing into work and love relationships, I contorted myself through a neverending obstacle course of testosterone’s whims.

 

I mastered toxic feminine habits (power flirting, narcissist’s assistant, mom-ager) which landed me jobs and a husband but hobbled my authentic self. 

 

I cast off my Catholic guilt, left my marriage, and created a life experiment using Ashley Madison, the notorious infidelity website.  I registered not for sex, but to generate an abundant supply of men willing to court me while I considered my resentment and distrust of men. 

​

Five hundred men wanted to date me and I had an affair with one, my version of Sex and the City’s “Mr. Big.”  Along the journey, I observed how patriarchal stories of love, infidelity, sex, and marriage kept men in power but fearful, and made women stuck and insecure. I tamed my toxic feminine habits and replaced them with empowered new behaviors.  My life fell apart but I discovered a new unf*ckupable confidence despite spiraling disasters and a twist I did not foresee.