Sure patriarchal thinking limits men in emotional expression and inflates their self-image and ego in equal measures. Not a good thing because a big ego is a brittle, weak ego and requires diminishing others (women and men) to feel good.

But it sure as heck doesn’t try to keep them from doing whatever they darn well please.

Including abusing women. Sexually, mentally, emotionally.

And that it’s okay to then turn around and blame women for having been so abused.

started her Substack three years ago with a powerful story about her experience with all that.

It reinforced something for me and made it more explicit:

That every time someone tells you you’re wrong, that your perception isn’t accurate, they are most highly incentivized to do so. Not because you’re wrong, but because acknowledging your perception would shatter their worldview (and probably their egos too).

She also mentions something that I keep harping on about as well: that women are often as unsupportive as men are.

It’s infuriating.

And so bloody understandable. Men aren’t the only ones conditioned from birth by patriarchal thinking. Women have absorbed the same messages about women and men as they have.

Absorbing those ropes women into ‘policing’ other women. Because they never questioned the messages. Initially they were too young to be able to do so. After a while (much shorter than you’d think) the messages have become so ingrained into their subconscious that questioning them doesn’t even occur to them anymore (not until menopause or another major life upheaval, that is).

Which makes it even more infuriating.

Go read Kelly Diels article.

See if you feel infuriated or uncomfortable by what she has to say.

Realize that your emotion says everything about you (and your conditioning) and little to nothing about Kelly Diels. Or any other woman for that matter.

Live long and prosper.