Change oneself, or change the world

Dame Eleanor Hull: “Sometimes being a feminist is an on-going internal struggle with childhood conditioning.”

This is how it was for me. And sometimes you don’t realize what you need to work on in yourself, because everybody keeps telling you the opposite. People have some very cliched ideas about those who end up victimized or dis-empowered in situations. I can tell you for sure that had I followed the strategies implanted in my psyche by my childhood conditioning AND YET REMAINED IN MY CULTURE OF ORIGIN, I would not have walked into a minefield — at least not one I had no chance of recognizing.

My problems were related to the incongruity of my childhood conditioning with the culture I had migrated into.

And people kept telling me, “You just need to stand up to bullies.” Certainly I was already doing this in an extremely forceful way, but I had no conception of the invisible transactions I was making within my environment, which were based more on feudalistic principles (as a superior power, you watch my back — and I’ll bring in the goods), than capitalist, individualistic notions of how to survive and make one’s way.

Anyway, I’ve solved my problems largely. My relationship with Mike is devoid of sexism. I’m sure most people would not be able to imagine how fine it is since most people seem unable to imagine a non-sexist relationship.

Also I have found work — but not enough — with feudalistic dynamics.

I can change myself a bit but not entirely, as you can tell.