I figured this out at some point in my teens, I think. I began to ask myself why I was so fixated on whether or not boys liked me. How was that benefitting me? How was that increasing my happiness?

Because women are often taught that we need to be of benefit to men, with no discussion of how we can make ourselves happy, or benefit each other. Once you jettison the idea that men’s attention is something important for you to fight for, you start to let go of the ida of other women as competition for that attention, and began to focus on both theirs, and your, care and success.