Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / Why Society Hates Women, How it Hurts Everyone, and What To Do About It

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Why Society Hates Women, How it Hurts Everyone, and What To Do About It · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Singing the truth of my wood.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Trusting the phases of the moon.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to this week's episode on the Healing Her Story podcast.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Riva Jean-Paul.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a trauma-informed somatic practitioner, coach for women, and eventually to be licensed counselor and art therapist.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also your host for this podcast, and I'm very much looking forward to having this conversation with you today.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Before we begin the conversation, I just want to name that this challenging may be a challenging one.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: And at any point, if the conversation is too much for you, I invite you to pause the episode and to take a few moments to ground and reconnect with yourself and maybe reconnect with your body.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: While we won't be going into any stories specifically today, I will be brushing over some topics that are very closely tied to today's discussion.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: So just know that there may be some sensitive topics that we will brush over in our conversation today.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I do also want to acknowledge the current state that we are all sitting in globally, more so culturally, where I'm from here in the United States.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: And perhaps if you're not from the United States, this may still feel relevant to you.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: The day that this is being recorded is January 20th.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's Martin Luther King Day.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also inauguration day.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Inauguration Day here in the United States means that there is a leader now coming into power who is perhaps not desired by myself, certainly.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And for you, perhaps as well, as you've been drawn to this podcast and this conversation.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: And with that, there is a certain frequency and a certain quality.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: And these qualities do not exactly align with the man who has come into power.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And this can be a really scary, really unsettling, really concerning time for many, especially for those who are marginalized, women and immigrants, persons of black or brown color, or people from different ethnicities, races.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just want to acknowledge what we're all sitting in right now.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it feels like a really potent time to have this exact conversation that I've felt inspired to have with you today.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Today is the first solo episode, and it might take me some time to find my rhythm and find my way with these solo episodes.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I've got some notes and I've been sitting with this topic for a while.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um I'm very delighted to be here to have this conversation with you today and honored to be the one to um to initiate this conversation.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: By the time you are listening to the podcast, January 20th will have been um passed and or are maybe depending on when this release is one to two to maybe even three weeks past January 20th.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, as we come into this new era here in the United States and perhaps even in other parts of the world, my intention is to really have this podcast be a place where you can softly land, where you can catch your breath, where you can have some validation and some acknowledgement for the things that you're feeling and the things that you're going through and growing through as you continue to embark on your journey of healing, of self-discovery, of reclaiming that feminine wisdom and power within you.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, all of this is going on in the world.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I hope that while all of that is going on, you can come here to gather whatever medicine it is that you need to gather whatever strength it is that you need to continue fighting this fight.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was not an easy fight, which is exactly why I'm here to be an embodiment and a guide for this new way of living and being in the world that is slowly but surely bubbling up in so many of us because it's become so clear that the systems we have in place aren't working, or rather, they are working the exact way that they were designed to.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And they were essentially designed to oppress, to oppress marginalized groups of people, to oppress people who do not fit into the box of cis white male.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, in that sense, they're doing exactly what they're supposed to do, right?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're working, I air quote working.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get into it.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to just acknowledge that today.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, if you feel like you're in a space where you're ready and you're um feeling resourced to have this conversation and continue listening to the episode, I encourage you to continue listening.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're feeling like, you know what, this is a really heavy discussion for me today, and my heart does not quite have the resources that it needs to have this conversation.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: I encourage you to listen to that and to maybe pause and to come back to this episode when you are feeling like you're in a better space to have this conversation.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: I want to start off by acknowledging and naming that society has been oppressing women for centuries.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: For centuries.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you look back in the history, and I've started to look back on the history, I've there's always so much more history to look at, right?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why I say I've started.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: But this is not um something that's new.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: This has been going on for um a very, very, very long time.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And there are, you know, there might be some women and some feminists who who celebrate how how far we've come.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I put how far we've come in air quotes, and who might feel like we've we've made a lot of strides as far as how we treat women in society and the rights and the opportunities that women have access to.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, there have been strides made.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: There has been progress made.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And when you really dive deeper and you look into some of the numbers and just some of the situations that women find themselves in in this modern day and age, there's this different story that to me is so much louder.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that we still do not value women as a society.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: To give you a little context, though, just to again acknowledge that yes, we have made some strides.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to share some statistics with you today, many of which come from psychology of women and gender.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is a book that I read in my psychology of women class last fall.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: And statistics, I feel like they can just, it can just be helpful.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Our brains love to know, and sometimes numbers can really help us to put things into um context and understanding.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna share a few numbers with you today to again just acknowledge like, yes, we have made strides.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: In 1970, only 14% of US women graduated from college, and only 30% of UMS women worked outside of the home.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Fast forward 40 years or so to 2021, 46% of women and only 36% of men between the ages of 25 and 34 held a bachelor's degree.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And 59.5% of students enrolled in college in the US were women.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: So as you can see, over the course of 40 years, we can see this really big shift in the amount of women that are pursuing higher education.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And now there are typically more women enrolled in college than there are men.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: To echo that shift and that change that has been happening, men are now spending more time at home with their children.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: We see a lot more um men being involved in care.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: We also have more women in Congress and in positions of power.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And if we aren't careful, this comes from directly, this comes directly from psychology of women and gender.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: If we aren't careful, this half-change world might cause us to unquestionably accept some of the gains without examining whom these gains benefit and whether they actually provide equity.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Meaning, these changes that we've made, that our society has made, who will they actually benefit?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Are they actually benefiting women?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like you're benefiting from any of the changes that have been made?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we have to question whether these changes actually provide equity, equality, equal opportunity to women and to other marginalized groups.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Listen to this.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: These women are disproportionately women of color and or low income, and 86% have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: 86%.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Eating disorders have been consistently increasing over the last 20 years.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: In 2021, it was revealed that Facebook had long known but kept quiet the fact that Instagram was harming teen girls' mental health and body image.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the US is literally the only industrialized nation that does not offer paid parental leave.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: As I'm naming these numbers, I have some emotion arising in my heart, tears welling up behind my eyes.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it becomes so clear that sure we've made progress.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we still have a long way to go.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so many more other things we could name in this conversation.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: My intention here was just to really give you a context of the world that we are sitting in.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you probably have your own context, your own lived experience of what it's like to be a woman in this day and age.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: What's really interesting about these issues in today's world is that they've become less obvious than they used to be.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And these issues tend to wear different masks, masks disguised as empowerment and sometimes as health.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: But the devaluing of women and the qualities associated with the feminine are no more valued today than they were centuries ago.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oppression extends beyond women, and it also includes the qualities society associates with femininity, such as vulnerability, being emotional, collaboration, nurturing.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: These traits have historically been labeled as weak or irrational, and this continues to further marginalize those who embody them.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: To give you some interesting history of how deep these programs go in our history, I'd like to share the way that our society has viewed mental health in connection with women.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Historically, being a woman and femininity itself has been linked with madness, what we now call mental illness or psychological disorder.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Women have been and often continue to be labeled as mad if they don't conform to the traditional standards of femininity.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And ironically, some women are labeled as this when they act in ways that are too feminine, too feminine, and too in alignment with those stereotypical aspects of femininity, such as passivity and dependence.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Women have often been labeled as mad or sick or ill when the ways in which they are responding make perfect sense in an impressive, oppressive environment.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: So women back in the 19th, 18th, 19th centuries, if women were not happy being at home, making meals and taking care of children and doing the things that they need to do, if they were the quote unquote that society believed that they needed to do, or rather prescribed them to do, if women had some sort of issue with that, if women were attracted to other women, if women wanted to be more vocal or more expressive, they received this label as mad or crazy or ill or was something wrong with them.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: And if they met these stereotypical ways of femininity too much, then they were also associated as mad.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the medical treatments for women who would receive these diagnoses back in the 19th century is classically known as hysteria.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Not appropriate treatments.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, there were so many things that we did not know back then that we are learning now, that we have learned now, that we have learned from them.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And wow, you have to really wonder like, how did we get to this being a treatment?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Before the development of modern science and medicine, there were so many misunderstandings, misunderstandings about how the body works and what causes illness.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And some forms of madness or hysteria were specifically tied to femininity, and they were believed to be a side effect of women's reproductive processes.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, as I named, the first mental health uh problem associated with women was hysteria, and it was actually described by ancient Egyptians who get this, believed that it originated from a wandering uterus throughout the body.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: The ancient Greeks, so this is going way earlier than the 19th century now.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: The ancient Greeks saw hysteria as a quote unquote a sad uterus, air quotes around that, sad.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they believed that the uterus was sad because it wanted to be linked with a man, and some of the symptoms were said to include tremors and anxiety, and some of the treatments included drinking wine, engaging in orgies, and having vigorous sex with a male partner.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: Ancient Greeks, y'all.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: In the Middle Ages and in the 17th century, now we're in the 17th century, the symptoms of the watering, wandering uterus, excuse me, wandering uterus, we're going up now.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're going up to the 17th century, approaching the 19th and the 20th century.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now they're saying that this wandering eunus, okay, it's not the wandering utrus, uterus, um, now was said to be demonic in the 17th century.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And during the same period, mental illness became linked with the ideals of morality and was associated with certain types of people, including nonconforming women.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: LGPTQ plus people, poor women, older women, and women who experienced psychological symptoms became labeled now as witches, especially those who didn't fit into the norms of the gender binary.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: As science and medicine advanced in the nineteenth century, approaches to mental illness became increasingly focused on medical treatment.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: And oh goodness, so many women were involuntary, involuntarily placed in sane asylums where treatments might include beatings or prolonged periods in restraints or being submerged in water.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: These women were often deemed hysterical because they acted in non-feminine ways and they rejected their roles as mothers andor wives andor were sexually attracted to other women.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Some who were involuntarily hospitalized for these quote-unquote crimes, such as speaking their minds, being romantically involved with another woman, dressing extravagantly or disagreeing with religious views, and of course, women of color were disproportionately represented in these asylums.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just let that land and just notice what might be arising within you as you hear about the things that women have been going through for literally centuries.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: The labels that have been placed upon them, the misunderstanding, and the lack of care.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it it makes so much sense, right?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: That as like a woman in this modern day and age, that we are anxious, that we are depressed, that we are disconnected from our bodies, that we are afraid to speak our truth and say what's on our minds.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: It makes so much sense when this is what the women before you have gone through.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: We know for certain that we carry at least up to three generations of our ancestors in our DNA, in our body.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: And there's research that's showing that we can hold and carry up to eight generations, up to eight generations.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: This is not that long ago, right?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: The 19th century, not that long ago.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: The 1970s, not that long ago.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it makes a lot of sense that you might feel anxious, that you might feel depressed, that you might be scared to be who you are because women were literally beat and sometimes murdered and treated in the most ridiculous ways because of it.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Now we can't have this conversation without talking about Sigmund Freud, who has made uh great um discoveries to the um world of psychology and healing and brain development.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And around here, you know, he had some really questionable theories and ideas that I feel were really a detriment to the way that we see women in this modern day and age, and the way that that we take care or don't take care of women in this modern day and age.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: His description of hysteria was so influential.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Early in his career, he found that when women discussed their symptoms, often under hypnosis, that they would recall incidents of sexual trauma.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: So initially, he he attributed attributed their sexual abuse as contributing to the symptoms.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, okay, they're experiencing these symptoms because they were sexually abused more often by a family member.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: But this is where things turned.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: He abandoned his theory, mostly due to public outcry.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so he took a different course and he began to relate women's hysterical symptoms to unconscious sexual fantasies or their own guilt about childhood masturbation.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: He actually has a theory called penis envy.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, this is probably the one that like just infuriates me the most.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Only a man would come up with a theory called penis theory.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: And essentially it says that women experience a jealousy or rather an envy, and not a not a good envy, but a negative form of envy towards men because men have penises and women don't.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of the symptoms that women experience, whether it be anxiety or depression or um risky behavior, etc., stems from this envy of men because they don't have penises.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: By far one of the most ridiculous series.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard not to laugh because I'm just like, okay, really?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Only a man, only a white man, like only a white man, literally.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: But this was this changed a lot because modern psychologists really consider this um a shift in thinking to be an incredible mistake, to be a grave mistake, a mistake that we are still feeling the consequences now as women, because this marked a point of clinicians ignoring women's experiences of abuse.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine how different things would be now had Freud gone forward with his original, in my opinion, right sense that women are having these experiences of anxiety and depression, quote unquote hysteria and madness because of sexual abuse.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, but that's not really suiting too well with people.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: So let's just shove that off to the side and come up with this new theory.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I hear this from a lot of women.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: One day we will do um an episode on this more specifically, but the things that I hear therapists and doctors say to people, it just blows my mind how dismissed women are and how invalidated there are, and how their experiences are just not considered real or true.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: And this is it.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is where, right there, that theory, that's where things started to to change, specifically in in the medical industry.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I also believe in a roundabout way, it's also what's disconnected women from their bodies and from the truth and from their truth and from the wisdom of their bodies.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because imagine, imagine going to a medical professional who you have been told is going to help you.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you allow yourself to be vulnerable and you open up about something so painful and so tender and so hurtful from an early stage in your life.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: And inside, you probably have this sense of like you know that like that situation probably has a lot to do with why you're struggling.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: And yet you have someone say, Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, that can't be it.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a doctor and I'm a male and I'm a white male, so let me actually tell you um why this is happening.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Heartbreaking.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Just heartbreaking.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so why wouldn't you have some confusion after something like that?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: Why wouldn't you, you know, if you hadn't had this sense of power instilled within you from a young age, you would just, oh, shit, okay, I guess he's right and I'm wrong.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess that what I think isn't right.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: I guess that what my body tells me isn't right.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: I guess my experience doesn't really matter.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that trinkles down and it trinkles down and it trinkles down and it trinkles down, and it seems so small, but it is so big.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what so many women are are literally still going through.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Still going through.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Just taking a pause here and just sitting in how uncomfortable and painful all of that is.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, we've come a long way.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of when things started to change, I believe.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Where, or maybe not where things started to change, but where there could have been a turn, and the turn was not taken, and we went further down the road that we're on now, and it's gotten to us where we are now in this day and age.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: And as we have devalued women, as we have devalued women's bodies, if we have devalued their truth and their wisdom, we have inadvertently um overvalued the patriarchy and the masculine linear ways of doing and performing and forcing and pushing.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: And our patriarchal society that we live in has become so normalized that some of us just don't even see that there is another way.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: There is another way, there is another way.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: The patriarchy values power, control, autonomy, independence, toughness, and vulnerability, strength, aggressiveness, and being non-emotional.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: And these qualities may have been proven to be effective in battle against other men way back when, sure.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: And life has evolved since then, and yet many men, I believe, are still very much in those same battles with other men and women and humans, still still fighting for this power that we were fighting for centuries ago.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, this really hurts everyone.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: It hurts everyone.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, men also hurt from this too.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Humans of all sorts hurt from this too.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just women who suffer from the devaluing of women and feminine feminine qualities.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: Literally, the entire world hurts because of it.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I believe.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: I truly believe that.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you look at like where we are in this day and in this age, a lot of it, I believe, has to do with the things that we are talking about right here and right now.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like what a different world we would be.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, let's just take women out of it for a conversation, let's out of it for a minute.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just focus on, you know, the qualities associated with femininity, traditionally, um, care, intuition, being in tune with your body, compassion, understanding, shared power, collaboration, working together.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: What would our world look like if those were the things that we valued?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: What a different world.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: What a different world.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Might people be better taken care of?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Might there be more people with food and clean water who don't have it?
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Might women have more opportunities for support without having to do all of the care themselves?
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: Might our world have more resources and maybe climate change wouldn't be as bad as it was if we valued these things.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: In many ways, I believe coming back to these feminine ways, like this is really what our world needs.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is what we need individually as people, and it's what we need as um collective.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: No one benefits when we when we don't value these things.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's, you know, a popular thing, popular saying, you know, like boys, boys don't cry or you know, toughen up.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we teach boys to act stoic and to suppress their emotions like sadness or fear.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: And school-age boys who cry or who act in ways that have been identified as feminine in front of their peers often are ridiculed and made fun of, and then continue into adulthood with this expectation that men need to be powerful and dominate and work and in their families and need to be tough.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And boys and men often experience shame when they do express their vulnerability and their emotions, and they're reluctant to share their feelings or to seek therapeutic support when dealing with mental health concerns because of the ways in which they have been conditioned as well.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And many men go on to their adulthood still kind of dealing with this struggle inside, and maybe not even really knowing what the struggle is about or where it comes from.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's this internal and balance to just be who you are and to just be authentically you.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: Some might say it's just because women are more willing to go and get help.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe men are experiencing just as much anxiety and depression, if not maybe more, but they're just not going and getting help.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I hear too many stories of of men with with family and children, and you know, just one day they just decide it's over.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: They just decide it's over because they were conditioned as young boys that they couldn't talk about their feelings or reach out and get help because it's not okay to be feminine.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's just kind of wild.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: Wild.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's not even just women who hurt from this.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we we all hurt from this.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Our planet hurts from this, men hurt from this, non-binary humans.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: We all hurt from this.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: No one benefits from this except for a very small group of rich white men who are in power.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: No one else does.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you can believe it, there are places in the world where men don't rule.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: I found this so interesting, and it's like now become something I've added to my bucket list to travel to one of these places in the world and just to like experience the power and the beauty and the opportunity that a more balanced matriarchal society has to offer.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Some anthropologists would say that matriarchal, matriarchal societies um never existed.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd be so curious to know who those um anthropologists are.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps white men, maybe.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, maybe not, but that's my sense.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because there has been history that shows that matriarchal societies do exist and that they existed more um at some point.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: These matriarchal um societies often work better when men are at war, um, some might say, and that they can't exist on a large scale, and that it ends as soon as people start keeping cattle because men want to control the resources.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: So there's this link between patriarchy and property and land.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: However, there have been matriarchal societies that have thrived in India in a southern state called Kerala, Kerala, K-E-R-A-L-A.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: But the society um declined with colonization around the 19th century.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um in the way that people lived.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: As we've named here today, women have historically been associated with madness when they deviate from the feminine norms and when they also conform too much to the stereotypical idea of femininity.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: And when that happens, they get labeled as sick.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: So when these travelers would go to these matriarchal societies and they would see power being shared and women's sexuality being celebrated, wealth being passed down through women, and decision making being in the hands of some women.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: These travelers would come back and talk about these worlds and just talk about how not okay um they were.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: However, there have been known to be 160 matriarchal communities in the world and nature's nations such as India and Africa and Indonesia and the Americas.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: Matriarchal um here is defined as mothered center society.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Based on maternal values of equity, consensus finding, gift giving, and peace building by negotiations.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: The result is a more gender-equal society in which each gender has its own sphere of power and action.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: And in these societies, women are the keepers of land and the distributors of food.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: So these worlds do exist where women are valued and where everyone benefits from the valuing of women and the valuing of these more feminine qualities.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying out with the masculine.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's about bringing everything into balance because right now, the way many of us are living, we place so much value on the masculine and we give so little value to the feminine.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's just completely out of balance.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what causes the a lot of the suffering, I believe, in the world that we're seeing now.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we could just not even like put the feminine up higher, but if we could just like bring the masculine down and just give the feminine an opportunity to rise, and if we could just meet in this beautiful space of balance, that is what I'm inviting in.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of work that needs to be done because the masculine is so up here and the feminine is so down here.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: So to me, it's really about like raising this feminine frequency in all of us and in all over the planet, whether you're a woman or a man or a non-binary human, it's about raising this frequency in all of us in order to bring more balance to our world.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do we do this?
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: If this is something you're like, okay, I'm I'm really hearing you, Reba.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm hearing everything that we have gone through, and I'm feeling inspired and motivated to do something about this.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: And this doesn't mean you need to go out and like become an activist or like I don't know, you don't have to take it so far, right?
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: These can be little things that you do in your own inner world and your own community and your own family.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: And just know that if you choose to do this work, when you choose to do this, do this work, it's important to remember that like you may not live to see the benefits of this work.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: You just might not.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: You might not, but maybe your daughters will, right?
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe your great granddaughters will.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: We may not change it all here in this lifetime.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: But there are little things that you can do again in your own world and in your family and in your home and in your your communities that just hold space for this feminine frequency to rise within you, within your world, within your community, in your family, in order to bring more balance to our world.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: So here are some very practical, practical and tangible things that I want to leave you with today.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you're feeling really moved and inspired by this conversation of how you can do this work of raising the feminine and overcoming some of these, um some of the conditioning in the history that has just been passed down to us literally through centuries.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing is coming back to the body.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: Coming back to your body.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: And this is so much easier said than done.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: Something that I didn't talk about today, which we can maybe talk about another day, is this with the valuing of the masculine, there's also a valuing of the mind.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: And with the devaluing of the feminine, there is also a devaluing of the body.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so many of us are just so disconnected from our body, it's just always living in our mind, thinking and analyzing and planning and strategizing and doing and all of that.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: We live so much here.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: If you you're watching the video, you can see, but if you're not listening, I'm like pointing to my heart and going up to the shoulders and up above the head.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like we spend so much time in this upper section of our body, and so little time in this lower section of our bodies.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: And just like the feminine has so much to offer when we can really connect with these qualities, our body also has so much to offer when we can connect with it, so much wisdom and pleasure and joy.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I do also want to acknowledge how difficult it can be to connect with the body, especially if the body hasn't been a safe place to be, as many of the things that we have already named in this discussion today.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I acknowledge and that this one is easier said than done.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why support can be such an instrumental piece of this particular aspect of this work.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: Some ways that you can connect with your body, aside from reaching out and getting support from, say, a somatic practitioner or therapist, is to if you're still cycling, and even if you're not currently bleeding, you could always use uh the moon as your reference.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: But menstrual cycle awareness and just cyclical awareness in general is such a beautiful way to connect with the body because our energies, our energy levels are always changing based on what's going on inside of ourselves biologically.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: It can be a really beautiful way to really slow down and check in with our bodies and notice how we're feeling, notice how our energy levels are, and to notice how they change over time.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I will share so much more about this in episodes to come.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: But that is just one really practical way that you can start to do this work is to just begin the journey of coming home to your body.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: And again, if that's something you need support with, I encourage you to reach out and get that support because this is not an easy thing just coming back to our bodies.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: And there might be a lot of healing that needs to happen before you can really come back to your body and feel like it's a place you can inhabit and live in.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: Another thing that you can do to start doing this work is to really begin to value care.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that can start with just caring for yourself.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't value care or um self-care, or maybe you value caring for others more than you care for yourself.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: So just noticing your relationship to care, specifically in regards to yourself.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: And if self-care is not something you value, then this can be a really beautiful way to again begin doing this work, is to begin valuing care and seeing care as something that is important.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do value care and you feel like you already take great care of yourself, wonderful.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, there's always more ways in which we could care for ourselves, and also want to acknowledge the ways that you might already be caring for yourself.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are someone who is like, you know what, I really do value self-care and I do take good care of myself, then the next step would be to start encouraging the value of care in other places.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, in perhaps maybe your workplace or maybe even in a friend group, really um pushing for the value of care.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: So at work, for example, especially if you're in a leadership role, making the health and well-being of the people around you a priority.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: Encouraging people to take breaks if they need to take a break, making it okay to take a sick day or even a mental health day if you need to take a health, uh, a sick day or a mental health day, making all of those things okay because in some work environments they really aren't seen as okay or really aren't seen as something that is important, especially if you're in like a big corporate setting.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: In your family or even in your friends' group, you could also take on this role of valuing care within those groups as well.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so maybe that looks like choosing an activity that is more supportive of care for the group of people that you might be with.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe instead of everyone watching another movie, maybe we prioritize getting some time outside and taking care of ourselves in that way.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because we don't value care, and care is connected with the feminine.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we want to value the feminine, we in turn also need to value care.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that's another thing that you can um that you can do.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: Really encouraging caring for yourself and caring for others, if that's something that you're able to do in a way that isn't necessarily compromising of your care, right?
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe caring for yourself first and then caring for others and caring for others from the overflow of your cup that has already been filled.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: Another thing that you can do is to play a supporting role if you're in a place of privilege, as we all have varying degrees of privilege, whether that's gender or um sexual orientation or perhaps the color of your skin, then recognizing the privilege that you may have and seeing how you might be able might be able to use your privilege to give power or to uplift another voice.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so maybe if you are in a work environment and you're in a meeting, and you notice that someone who is perhaps maybe more marginalized than you isn't being valued in the conversation, could you somehow use some of the power that you have to help lift this voice up?
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: And using that voice to um shift attention away from yourself and shifting it towards someone who maybe isn't hurt quite as much.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe if you're a woman, this is less um of something for you to do, but maybe something that um the that the males at your work environment could do, or the males in um your community could do.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that's something else to explore and ponder over as well.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: Another thing, um, the last one that I'll share for today is to challenge the oppressive systems that that live within you first.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: Channeling, excuse me, challenging the oppressive systems that live within you.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because all of this stuff is it's in our environment and it has been steeped into our bodies and into our psyches and into our brains and into our our conditioning and into our patterning.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so starting to first notice how those oppressive systems live within you, and then beginning to bump bump up, bump up against them a little bit.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'll give an example.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, for me, I am very movement-oriented.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: I love to work out um and dance, and you know, I lift weights and I do less running these days and more walking, but there's a part of me that loves the idea of running.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I I love to move my body.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: I practice yoga.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_01: I love to swim.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: I love to move.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I noticed in my own healing journey, this has always been something I've had to dance with and and check in with um constantly because I'm challenging those oppressive systems that live within me.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: But when I'm really pushing myself to maybe work out on a day when I'm not really feeling in my body like I want to work out.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe it's not this, oh, I'm just not motivated, but maybe like I'm I'm genuinely tired.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, right now, when I'm recording this episode, I'm currently on my bleed, and there's generally less energy during that time.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so in these moments of not feeling like I want to do something that requires a little bit more energy.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm pushing myself to do that, I I question myself, okay, why?
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I pushing myself to do this workout today?
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: Is it because I'm afraid of what might happen if I don't do this workout today?
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because it means that I'm not moving in the direction of falling into the societal expectations of what my body should look like?
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's a valid question.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to check in with one check in with myself about that constantly, right?
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I doing this workout today?
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is this for me or is this because this is what society has conditioned me to believe that I need to be doing, to be skinny, to to be thin, right?
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: To fit into the societal expectations of what I quote unquote should look like.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because if that's why I'm working out, I might want to pick a different activity.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the only reason I'm working out today.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: So just a small example of how you too can begin to challenge these oppressive systems within yourself.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: And again, we're gonna have so many more conversations um as time goes by about all of these things.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but these are just some really simple ways that you can begin um to really do this work if this is something that you're you're feeling passionate about and you're you're feeling like um is something that is important to you.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: This is how you can begin.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I will um leave you with those simple, um, practical, practical and um effective things that you can begin to play with um leaving here today.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you found some comfort, some reassurance, some semblance of hope and and understanding in our conversation today.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's been such a joy and um um a delight um to to yeah, have this conversation.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: I hesitate because it's a complex conversation that comes with a lot of other emotions as well, right?
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: The discomfort and the pain and the sadness and the grief of these topics that we've already named today, and also just this deep connection to something so much bigger than myself and an understanding of the importance of these conversations and just what a what a joy and a privilege it is to like have the opportunity to to sit here today with you today in the comfort of my own home with this microphone and this laptop and just what a gift, what an opportunity I have to be able to um to spark this conversation.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for being on the receiving side of it, because if there wasn't anyone to listen to, then um the conversation might fall short.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that's part of what makes a conversation a conversation is is the two people having that conversation or rather the giving and the taking of that conversation.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if you feel inspired, um you're very welcome to leave a comment if you're watching this video on YouTube or if you're listening to this on Spotify.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_01: You can't quite leave comments on Apple Podcasts quite yet, but would love to know what this sparked for you.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're also very welcome to reach out to me via email, and I will leave my email in the show notes.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'll also leave some other resources to get started with this work.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_01: If it's something you're feeling called to do that might also be able to might be able to support you in that work.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um being my Insight Timer channel.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_01: If you are unfamiliar with Insight Timer, it's a free meditation app.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: It is the number one meditation app, and it's something that I use myself and has been such an instrumental um piece in in my healing journey over the last year or two, specifically with my daily meditation.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're not using Insight Timer, I would invite you to download the app.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's completely free and explore around and see how it might be able to support you, if at all.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do like the idea of having access to free guided meditations on an app at the um just in the palm of your hands, then I would invite you to check out my channel where I offer lots of somatic practices and meditations, all with the intention of helping you to connect with your body and to awaken that feminine and greater intelligence that lives within you.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_01: You can find a link for that in the show notes.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: You'll also find a link to my trauma recovery mini course.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is a really short, simple course.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think each module is no more than 15 minutes.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_01: It shares some really simple and effective strategies and shifts that you can incorporate into your healing journey.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you can find the link for that in the show notes as well.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're curious about my work and how I might be able to support you further on your journey, uh, you'll also find a link to my website, windsofchangesack.com, where you can learn a lot about a lot more about my work and the services that I offer to women just like you on this exact journey that you are on.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: So again, thank you for being here today.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_01: I so look forward to connecting with you in our next episode.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, take care of yourself and if you're able to take care of others.