Okay, Pinkies. Let’s girltalk. As an OB/GYN, I’m privy to the inner thoughts (and secret parts) of a lot of women. So many of you feel so alone in struggling to figure out who you are, why you’re here, and why it is that you were unlucky enough to be born female. I’m here to tell you that you’re not alone. You’re unique. You’re special, but common experiences unite you with a feminine collective that is much bigger than just you. I know. I have felt exactly the same way. I, too, have felt vulnerable, straddled in the stirrups. I have been pregnant; I have questioned my career choices; I have lost my beloved father. I have been abused, divorced, lost, and lonely. I am a doctor, an artist, a writer, and a teacher, but I am also a mother, a practitioner of yoga, a cook, a chauffeur, a garbage-collector, and a gardener. I am a gynecology patient, an obstetrics patient, a student of sexuality, a seeker of peace- a woman. Like many of you, I once thought I had to put myself in a box and choose who to be. But I now accept that, while I am all of these things, no single identity defines me. I, like you, am flawed and fragile and often in need of healing. In spite of all that, I’m still embracing my femaleness, loving my body for all its many facets, and doing my best to be true to who I really am. I guess I’m just Owning Pink. Some days are better than others, but every day, I am me.

What do I mean by Owning Pink? Owning Pink is a perpetual state of being in which you embrace your femaleness, open yourself to creative expression, optimize your health and well-being, and grow through communion with other women, never forgetting that we girls, after all, do want to have fun. It’s reclaiming your femininity and empowering your inner Pink Goddess. It’s the desire and willingness to embrace your girlytude. It’s knowing and understanding and appreciating your body and how it works. It’s feeling comfortable in your own skin. It’s living authentically and transparently, without masks. It’s tapping into your creativity and exploring it with your sisters in Pink. It’s about female bonding and looking out for your girlfriends. It’s about being a woman and owning it, rather than rejecting, cursing, or hiding it.

It all started years ago, at my birthday party, where my friend Carmen was seven months pregnant with a little girl. Carmen’s husband Stephan patted his wife’s belly and said, “My girl is not going to wear pink. Yellow, green, blue- she’s going to be a feminist. She can be anything she wants to be. She can be president.”
So there I was, decked head to toe in bright fuschia, pink fur sandals and everything. What did I do? I put my hands on my hips and gave Stephan a dose of Pink whoop-ass. As in, “What am I? Chopped liver? You just tell your daughter that she has to OWN pink.” And the rest is history.

Owning Pink began as an art series. I made the paintings as pink and girly as I could manage- we’re talking bows and high heels and little pink dresses and 1950’s pin-ups. Over the top Pinkness. I hung the paintings in my OB/GYN office and patients took them home to decorate the nurseries of the little girls they were expecting. After that, Owning Pink took on a life of its own, and I realized that you women are desperate to own pink! For too long, women have been suppressing all things feminine and they’re starved for an excuse to be outright girly. Even men started Owning Pink. At one of my art shows, men arrived wearing bras over their button-downs, pink tuxedos, and fluffy fuschia boas wrapped around their necks, in support of Pink Pride. And the women went wild with Pink Passion. For one show, every female artist represented by the gallery was asked to interpret the term “Owning Pink.” What resulted was a breathtaking flow of creative energy and Girl Power. It was fun, flirty, and fabulous. And the women there were like caged animals finally set free. They were floating on a cloud of estrogen, so hyped up on feminine energy that you could see the Pink glow radiating for miles (well, almost).

It made me realize we all need this, like blood, like oxygen. Many of us have been raised in big square boxes, and we’re seeking permission to escape the confines of that box. Some of us have trudged through college, acquired degrees and careers, and juggled marriage and family with jobs, only to find that something is missing, that somehow we’ve lost our essence, that pearl of authenticity that makes us whole. What I’m suggesting is that we need to reclaim that essence, nurture it, and express it. It’s part of what makes us uniquely female.

So many women I know have achieved everything they thought they wanted back when they were twenty. They have their graduate degrees and the careers they may have sacrificed for the sake of raising a family. They have lovely homes and nice husbands, and they do lunch with their mothers on Wednesdays. So why do they feel so empty?

I think we as women have lost something in the process of transitioning into the twenty-first century. We’ve come a long way as women. We’re ages away from tribal times when women gathered berries and cooked meat from the hunt. Not only can we vote, but we can be doctors and lawyers and CEO’s. Heck, we can almost be president (sorry, Hillary…) But at what cost? I mean, come on. I’m a fan, and I hate to say it, but Hillary is definitely not Owning Pink. That woman doesn’t have a pink bone in her body. I daresay a little Pinkness might have served her well. Women have been queens and prime ministers of other countries for ages. We women have something special we can contribute to society, and I say, rather than deny it, let’s own it. Let’s revel in what makes us unique, and let’s find ways to nurture it, not just in ourselves, but in others.

As women, we are different than men. We have needs. There’s a special core within each of us that needs to be fed, creatively, expressively, and emotionally. We all have it within us. Just look back to your childhood. As children, we all expressed our creativity without reservation. We were all artists, writers, musicians, and dancers, as well as sand castle builders, game inventers, tea party event planners, and Easy Bake Oven chefs. What happens that makes us lose that? How does it end up that our most creative expression becomes what we’ll wear each day?

I guess I was lucky to realize, very early on, that I needed to feed this part of me. Although I was pre-med in college, I majored in creative writing and took dance classes, and my creative outlets kept me sane enough to survive organic chemistry. But in medical school, with nothing but straight science filling my days, I felt a desperate void and signed up for my first art class. Now, I am a doctor, an artist, and a writer. No one activity defines me, and collectively, because of that, I am more whole. I am more female. I am more round. I am striving- and it is a continuous, never fully-achieved process- to own pink.

So Pinkies, here’s my battle cry. Let’s all vow to find a way to express our deepest Pinkness, in whatever way feels authentic to you. Maybe you’re a gourmet chef and the way you decorate your table and present dinner to your family is how you express yourself. Perhaps you’re a closet fashion designer, and you buy a sewing machine and start creating garments for you and your kids. Maybe it’s time to take an art class or learn how to play the guitar. Maybe it’s just a matter of writing in your journal for 10 minutes every morning. Maybe you’ve always wanted to be a soccer player or a songwriter or a samba dancer. Maybe your deepest passion is to run a cheese shop or to style hair. Whatever it is that allows you to express your highest values in the world, to be the true you. To really, truly Own Pink. Imagine what you would do if you took fear out of the equation. Give yourself permission to think big and dream. Then gather your girlfriends around you, garner strength from your Pinkest self, and let yourself shine. You’ll be surprised what can happen, when you finally surrender, let go of the handle, and open yourself up to who you really are. Forget about what you’re going to be when you grow up. You don’t have to be anything but you.

I am a doctor, an artist, a writer, a teacher, a mother, a dishwasher, a seamstress, a candlemaker, a wife, a flower arranger, a dancer, a daughter, a patient, an art collector, a reader, and a student. But most of all, I am me. You can do the same. You too can be Owning Pink.