Breaking Free From Internalized Patriarchy
We hear the word patriarchy and often think of men in power, the suppression of women, the fight for equality. And while all of that is true, it’s also incomplete.
Patriarchy isn’t just a system that oppresses women—it’s a system that prioritizes power over presence, dominance over collaboration, productivity over well-being, and logic over deep knowing. It conditions us all—regardless of gender—to distrust, suppress, and sever ourconnection to the feminine in all its forms: intuition, embodiment, nature, cyclical wisdom, and relational strength.
What is Internalized Patriarchy?
It’s the ways we’ve unknowingly absorbed these messages into our bodies, minds, and nervous systems. It’s the self-doubt, self-sacrifice, and self-silencing we’ve inherited, passed down through generations of survival in a world that only values the wounded masculine—force, control, endless striving—while demonizing the feminine.
It’s why so many of us feel like we have to:
Prove our worth through achievement, even when we’re exhausted
Ignore our body’s need for rest to avoid feeling guilty, useless, and lazy
Be the “good girl” or the “selfless woman” to be loved
Minimize our needs to keep the peace
Dismiss intuition in favor of external authority and validation
Fear taking up space, setting boundaries, or being too much
Sacrifice our authenticity to maintain connections and avoid abandonment
This system runs deep. It’s in our nervous systems. Our relationships. The way we shrink ourselves without realizing it. And women, in particular, have been conditioned into this for generations. The fawn response—the instinct to appease, people-please, and self-abandon for the sake of safety—is not just an individual trait. It’s an inherited survival strategy, passed down from ancestors who lived in a world where speaking up could mean exile, punishment, or persecution. That fear still lives in the body.
Internalized Patriarchy Affects Everyone.
Men, too, are shaped by a system that tells them power is found in control, emotions are weakness, and their worth is measured by productivity rather than presence. This isn’t about rejecting the masculine. It’s about healing the distortion of it. A world ruled by unbalanced patriarchy is a world out of rhythm. It glorifies extraction, disconnection, and burnout. It rewards pushing through instead of slowing down. It teaches us to chase external validation instead of trusting what we know in our bones. And the cost? Is our connection to ourselves, to each other, and to the earth itself.
The Path Back to Ourselves
Healing from internalized patriarchy isn’t just about empowerment—it’s about reclamation. Reclaiming the wisdom of the feminine. Reclaiming our bodies, our cycles, our voices. Reclaiming the ability to say no without fear, to trust our gut without proof, to take up space without apology. It’s about shifting from:
Obligation → Authenticity
Self-sacrifice → Self-trust
Fear of being too much → Owning our full expression
Seeking permission → Rooting into our own deep knowing
This is why somatic work, nervous system healing, andancestral reclamation are so crucial. We can’t just think our way out of this conditioning. We have to feel our way back home.This isn’t just personal—it’s collective. Every time a woman speaks her truth, sets a boundary, listens to her intuition, or chooses herself without guilt—she’s breaking a cycle. She’s rewriting a lineage of suppression. She’s reminding all of us what it means to be whole.
And that? That is power.
The kind that doesn’t dominate—but transforms.