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"  How is Gabourey Sidibe so confident? It&amp;amp;#146;s a question the 30-year-old actress gets asked a lot. The undercurrent, of course, is an affront: How dare you be so confident? &amp;amp;#147;I always wonder if that&amp;#039;s the first thing [reporters] ask Rihanna when they meet her,&amp;amp;#148; Sidibe said last night in a speech at the Gloria Awards for the Ms. Foundation for Women. The foundation appointed its new president, Teresa Younger, and celebrated founder Gloria Steinem&amp;amp;#146;s 80th birthday. Sidibe spoke, along with Chelsea Handler, Amy Schumer, and Kathy Najimy. among others. The road to confidence was a running theme, as speakers detailed the challenges they faced and how self-reliance and a stubborn conviction of their own worth drove their careers. Sidibe told the mostly female audience of when she was a kid, she wasn&amp;#039;t supported at home or in school. In fifth grade, for example, she baked cookies for a school party, eager to show off her skills to her classmates, and was rejected. &amp;amp;#147;I was so proud of those cookies and all the effort I put into making them,&amp;amp;#148; Sidibe said. &amp;amp;#147;I started to think that maybe I wouldn&amp;#039;t just be the first woman black president &amp;amp;#151; maybe I would also be a celebrity chef! I mean, why limit myself?&amp;amp;#148; When she brought the cookies to school, the class collectively refused to eat them. Sidibe sat at her desk, alone, eating the cookies herself. &amp;amp;#147;I wasn&amp;#039;t surprised,&amp;amp;#148; Sidibe said. &amp;amp;#147;I just forgot for a moment that my entire class hated me. I had zero friends from the fourth grade to the sixth grade. Who the hell was I baking cookies for?&amp;amp;#148; As it turns out, though, Sidibe wasn&amp;amp;#146;t just bullied at school because of her body and her skin color. She didn&amp;amp;#146;t have any friends, she said, &amp;amp;#147;Because I was an asshole.&amp;amp;#148; &amp;amp;#147;I was a bossy, bossy asshole. See, remember when I said that I thought I was more clever than everyone else? Well, I did! And I told them that &amp;amp;#151; every single day! Those kids couldn&amp;#039;t get a word in edgewise, without me cutting them off to remind them that I was smarter, funnier, and all around wittier than them.&amp;amp;#148; At home, where Sidibe&amp;amp;#146;s parents loved her but berated her for her weight, things weren&amp;amp;#146;t much better. But her aunt, Dorothy Pittman Hughes, was a good friend of Gloria Steinem&amp;amp;#146;s. An iconic photo of Pittman Hughes and Steinem, where both women wear turtlenecks and raise their fists in the air, decorated the hallway of Sidibe&amp;amp;#146;s childhood home. And that was a source of strength of Sidibe. &amp;amp;#147;Every day, I had to get up and go to school where everyone made fun of me, and I had to go home to where everyone made fun of me,&amp;amp;#148; Sidibe said. &amp;amp;#147;Every day was hard to get going, no matter which direction I went. And on my way out of the house, I found strength. In the morning on the way out to the world, I passed by a portrait of my aunt and Gloria together. Side by side they stood, one with long beautiful hair and one with the most beautiful, round, Afro hair I had ever seen, both with their fists held high in the air. Powerful. Confident. And every day as I would leave the house ... I would give that photo a fist right back. And I&amp;#039;d march off into battle. I didn&amp;#039;t know that I was being inspired then. On my way home, I&amp;#039;d walk back up those stairs, I&amp;#039;d give that photo the fist again, and continue my march back in for more battle. [She pulls a tissue from her cleavage and dabs her eyes] That&amp;#039;s what boobs are for! I didn&amp;#039;t know I was being inspired then, but I was. If they could feel like that, maybe I could! I just wanted to look that cool. But it made me feel that strong.&amp;amp;#148; Comedian Amy Schumer had an opposite childhood &amp;amp;#151; she was popular in high school, where she was pretty and witty &amp;amp;#151; but her self-esteem stalled in college, where she didn&amp;amp;#146;t fit the Playboy beauty ideal. After an unpleasant 8 a.m. booty call (Schumer, to the particular amusement of middle-aged women in the crowd, characterized her paramour&amp;amp;#146;s alcohol-deflated penis as &amp;amp;#147;basically a third ball&amp;amp;#148; and described his efforts at cunnilingus as akin to an elderly man eating his final pudding), she decided she never wanted to feel that way again, and Schumer made a choice to treat herself with more kindness. Yet she said the culture of picking apart celebrities continued to set her back, and she expressed gratitude to leaders like Steinem for paving the way for women in every industry. Najimy and Handler echoed that sentiment. Handler, the first female comedian to have her own late-night show, thanked Steinem for being the kind of elegant woman capable of opening doors for the less elegant. And Najimy gave the audience a peek into Steinem&amp;amp;#146;s real birthday celebration, projecting a photo of Najimy and Steinem riding elephants in Botswana. Today, Najimy, Handler, Schumer, and Sidibe are famous actresses and comedians, and Sidibe is an unofficial spokeswoman for body positivity. But they all said it&amp;amp;#146;s still not easy. &amp;amp;#147;It&amp;#039;s hard to get dressed up for award shows and red carpets when I know I will be made fun of because of my weight,&amp;amp;#148; Sidibe said in her speech. &amp;amp;#147;There&amp;#039;s always a big chance if I wear purple, I will be compared to Barney. If I wear white, a frozen turkey. And if I wear red, that picture of Kool-Aid that says, &amp;#039;Oh, yeah!&amp;#039; Twitter will blow up with nasty comments about how the recent earthquake was caused by me running to a hot dog cart or something. And &amp;#039;Diet or Die&amp;#039;? [She gives the finger to that] This is what I deal with every time I put on a dress.&amp;amp;#148; So how does she get past it? In fifth grade, she partied all by herself, eating those cookies, laughing at jokes, and being the first one up and dancing, even if her classmates didn&amp;amp;#146;t want her in the room. Today, she ridicules the reporters who ask her how she&amp;amp;#146;s so self-assured. &amp;quot;&amp;#039;How are you so confident?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Sidibe mocked. &amp;amp;#147;I&amp;#039;m an asshole! OK? It&amp;#039;s my good time, and my good life, despite what you think of me. I live my life, because I dare. I dare to show up when everyone else might hide their faces and hide their bodies in shame. I show up because I&amp;#039;m an asshole, and I want to have a good time.&amp;amp;#148; Sidibe even manages to find the upside to the cruelty she endured. &amp;amp;#147;If I hadn&amp;#039;t been told I was garbage, I wouldn&amp;#039;t have learned how to show people I&amp;#039;m talented,&amp;amp;#148; she said. &amp;amp;#147;And if everyone had always laughed at my jokes, I wouldn&amp;#039;t have figured out how to be so funny. If they hadn&amp;#039;t told me I was ugly, I never would have searched for my beauty. And if they hadn&amp;#039;t tried to break me down, I wouldn&amp;#039;t know that I&amp;#039;m unbreakable. So when you ask me how I&amp;#039;m so confident, I know what you&amp;#039;re really asking me: how could someone like me be confident? Go ask Rihanna, asshole!&amp;amp;#148; RELATED:  And This Is How You Shut Down Your Twitter Critics Follow Jill on Twitter. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/news/a6667/gabby-sidibe-feminist/>