Patriarchy lives in your body.
It lives in the flush of embarrassment that rushes to your cheeks if a tampon falls out of your bag in a public place.
It lives in the disgust that swirled in your stomach that time you saw hair in a place you wish it wasn’t, or a spot on your forehead or lines of cellulite on your hips.
It lives in the anger you felt towards yourself that time you felt tears come to your eyes in work, because it was “unprofessional” and “not something you do here”.
The good news is that when patriarchy is something that lives in us, it’s something that can be transformed in us.
We can break the chain.
If you’re reading this blog then I’m guessing you’ve already started.
What is patriarchy?
Patriarchy is the system of relationships, beliefs, and values embedded in political, social, and economic systems that structure gender inequality between men and women.
Attributes seen as “feminine” or relating to women are undervalued, while attributes regarded as “masculine” or relating to men are privileged.
In other words, patriarchy is the deeply rooted part of our society which says that ‘maleness’ is a “good thing” and “better” than ‘femaleness’, and as a result gives more power and accolades to all things male.
At a simplistic level this can be “men are better than women” but often it’s a lot more complicated than that.
It shows itself in the way men are mocked for showing their emotions, and feel shame or confusion when they try to express themselves. It presents itself in women’s leadership programmes where we reinforce how strong and capable and resilient women are (which is true). But deep down many of us feel pressure to meet this exhausting, unrealistic standard all the time, and are afraid to show weakness or vulnerability in case it undermines our worth.
Male traits are often considered to be:
Assertive
Direct
Logical
Linear
Consistent
Strong
Independent
While female traits are often consider to be:
Nurturing
Gentle
Collaborative
Chaotic or fluid
Emotional
Loving
Beautiful
Fierce
Intuition
Of course as human beings we are multifaceted, complex and nuanced.
We all contain these aspects of humanity within us, regardless of our gender identity.
But within the system of patriarchy the male traits are favoured over the female traits. And women, as a physical representation of ‘femaleness’ are regarded as inferior and only able to gain sources of power in society if they diminish the ‘femaleness’ within themselves and embody more of a ‘male’ way of being.
This is why crying in the workplace is seen as unprofessional, because it brings the ‘female’ trait of emotion into a sphere that has been considered the reserve of men and ‘male’ traits like rationality and logical thinking.
The bottom line is that under patriarchy a ‘male way of being’ is considered the norm, and any other way of being is wrong, and expected to conform.
What does this have to do with the body?
We experience life through our bodies.
Our bodies are the conduit through which our internal world and our external environment meets.
It’s only natural, therefore, that our bodies become the meeting point between the systems of the world that we are born into, and the innate Self that we are born as.
Patriarchy is adopted by our bodies as part of our core belief system. This operating system influences our emotional responses to stimuli, how we interpret sensation and how we respond to our bodily impulses.
Patriarchy also creates behaviours and protocols in society which reinforces control and repression of the body - particularly of women and queer bodies.
Some examples:
Body image and diet culture run our lives
An entire industry has been built around convincing women that our bodies in their natural state are wrong and in need of fixing. Women are taught to spend vast amounts of time, energy and money working to correct our “imperfections” and learning to ignore our bodies’ guidance on nourishment. We are encouraged to make our bodies smaller, therefore taking up less space, and focus on a look of ‘flawlessness’, erasing any signs of uniqueness.
Menstruation is stigmatised
To varying degrees around the world, the natural process of menstruation is stigmatised and treated as something shameful, dirty and secretive. Women are often given little information about how hormonal cycles work, and are taught to see periods as something which is inconvenient and interruptive to daily life. We are also taught that pain is normal and something to be endured, rather than a sign from our bodies that something requires our attention and care.
Our emotions are branded “hysterical”
Women’s emotions are treated as hysterical, irrational and sometimes even dangerous. The natural anger that women experience in response to a system which strips them of power in every area of life is something that we are taught to control and repress.
The stereotype of the “angry feminist” is used as a weapon to silence women who express disdain for the system (and is used even more forcefully towards black women), while other forms of emotional expression are interpreted as evidence of women’s lack of ability to lead. For women who experience a monthly hormonal cycle, the fluctuation in our moods due to hormones is something that we are given little education or support around, and are taught to control and feel shame for experiencing.
Over-giving in work and at home
Under patriarchy a woman’s natural worth and value to society is considered to be lesser than a man’s. The feelings of unworthiness this creates are often so intolerable that we develop behaviours designed to “prove” our value at all costs, and these behaviours are then passed through the generations as ‘they way things are’.
This leads to women over-working in all areas of life, ignoring their own needs and bodily cues to rest, until they are no longer even able to recognise these cues. A vast amount of research shows that women still take on most of the house work in families where both partners are working full-time and that in workplaces women are the most likely to take on extra tasks
In each of these examples we can see evidence of both patriarchal conditioning and an inner rebellion happening in the body.
Shame, guilt, and fear drive us to desperately control our body’s natural processes and emotional expression. We expend vast amounts of energy fighting ourselves and working to fit into the expectations of society.
And yet underneath it all, our natural Self refuses to give up the fight.
Our bodies rebel against overwork by offering us growing evidence of how exhausted we really are. Our emotions refuse to give up, and however much we try to pretend that we are okay, deep down we know that things aren’t. A quiet voice within whispers, over and over "It isn't meant to be this way..."
Such deep inner conflict has a profound effect on us.
We lose trust for ourselves as we are taught to ignore our inner knowing.
Continually overriding our instincts can lead us to harm ourselves, by failing to meet our body’s needs or being unable to identify them in the first place.
Because we have learned to deny our core essence we don’t learn who we really are. This can lead to feeling unfulfilled in life when we realise that we have done everything we were “supposed” to do, but we feel unsatisfied and uninspired. Our true expression never gets to surface.
We leave ourselves vulnerable to being controlled or manipulated by others. Anger is an emotion which is designed to teach us where our natural boundaries lie and alert us when they have been overstepped. A person who has been taught to fear, mistrust and control their anger is unable to truly protect themselves, and assert their presence in the world.
In other words, patriarchy leaves us lost, unsure of ourselves and struggling to navigate our lives from an empowered place.
Patriarchy lives in our body: Embodiment as liberation
Embodiment is about experiencing who we are outside of mental narratives about what our sensations mean.
We often go through life judging and evaluating our sensations at every moment. When we feel a flash of happiness we brand it to be a “good thing”. When we feel a rush of anger we may judge it as “bad” and something to be stopped.
All of this judgement stops us from just experiencing ourselves and the moment as it really is.
When we learn how to come back into our bodies from a place of curiosity, acceptance and neutrality, we are able to get to know ourselves, and also approach our inner landscape with greater clarity.
Embodiment lets us experience the part of us that drives the patriarchal beliefs within us and fully receive the impact that it has on us. We are able to feel the pain of living as though we are inferior and ‘wrong’ and see the effect it has on our lives and the lives of those around us.
We’re also able to experience the part of ourselves that rebels against this belief system. Rather than pushing this rebellion down (which often takes the shape of anger to begin with), we allow it to speak and start experiencing what it’s like to be in touch with this core part of ourselves.
Over time, we begin to develop the skill of identifying when our actions are being driven by a system that was handed to us by society, and when it’s coming from our deepest truth.
We can then make a conscious choice about which part we allow to lead.
In essence, the ‘programme’ of patriarchy is stopped in its tracks and we regain our power by regaining our choices.
Do you see, now, how your own work of coming home to your body, and healing your relationship with yourself is such a gift to the world?
My vision is of a world where everyone is free to live in harmony with our true nature.
Building that world means confronting everything in our current reality that cuts us off from who we really are.
That’s why, for me, our personal development spaces are always political, and the smallest things in our lives are always a reflection of the biggest issues of our time. And that’s why I know that when we transform ourselves we transform the world around us too.
What if being the biggest, brightest, boldest version of yourself is the best thing you can do to change the world?
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