Who are these ‘experts’ who tell us what is the right way to be? What makes them so enlightened about issues affecting women? How do they know what is good for us?

I am particularly bothered by experts who are armed with medical or academic credentials, who profess to know us better than we know ourselves. Armed with data they collected themselves, or worse, data from the previous century, they insist women are fragile creatures, subject to special treatment and double standards, only they deem to be correct.

But media is a toxic habit. Allowing its ideas to seep into our minds is exactly what leaves women so torn between their own moral compass, and the one experts have agreed upon. We know we are not broken, but experts insist that women approaching a certain age are miserable without men, marriage, or babies. That doesn’t harm us, it liberates us.

We know we are doing well, in fact we are thriving. We have our own paychecks, our own passports, we create our own adventures, and we live on our own terms. Yet, if you listen to the doom and gloom cast upon us by media, you would quickly believe in the biological clock, let it drive you crazy, believe that men grant us happiness when they grant us commitment, and that there is something wrong with us when we prefer the company of a vibrator to that of a man. Nonsense. But how much of that bullshit is drilled into our heads on a daily basis? And how many of our friends are truly suffering when the gloomy statistics are dumped upon them by social media, bloggers, medical experts, and well meaning friends?

It is amazing how much easier life gets when you discard your TV, and cancel your subscriptions to magazines. Impenetrable to the toxicity of mass hysteria, you are now free to determine what serves you.

Create your own rules of dating to suit your personal level of comfort or curiosity. The more audacious you are, the more comfortable you will be exploring, having fun, and evaluating men by your own personal criteria. Want to have a child, but are not sure about whether you want to wait for a man? There are plenty of women doing it on their own, and they gave themselves permission to enjoy motherhood on their own terms. Want to quit your desk job, to train as a pole dancer? Only criticism can stop you.

It is time we all take stock of how much of our lives are affected by others. If those people get their information from TV and “experts”, and their opinions don’t suit you, you must set boundaries for interaction.

The good news is that once you have detoxed your mind of ideas about femininity, inequality, marriage, sexuality, women’s health and the glass ceiling, you will very quickly realize that there are no rules at all. All that matters is how you want to live, explore and love. You will see that love is everywhere, those things you believe are unattainable, are right under your nose.

Does it matter that we are now more educated and more highly credentialed than men? No, this is why we got our MBAs in the first place. We didn’t push our way into universities so we can catch a better man, we did it so we could have options that free us from home, tradition, and being ruled by them. The bigger paychecks and equity in the homes we bought ourselves, do not make us miserable, they give us options every day.

I am grateful for my options. I am more free to chart the course of every relationship on my own terms. I see that men are more interested in committing to women who own assets, and no they are not using us, they are making a wise choice.

If you listen to media evaluate the general malaise of women today, you might believe that we are frustrated, lonely, inadequate, over-educated, dissatisfied, unfulfilled, childless, spinsters. But if you shut off the TV, open your own eyes and look around, you see that we are growing, learning, traveling, experiencing everything, daring to be bold, refusing to settle, shunning tradition, and that displeases a lot of people. It displeases politicians, it displeases women who are economically and socially dependent, it displeases pop-psychologists because we are refusing to swallow their prescriptions, and it displeases a lot of old men.

S