Exiting Patriarchy
I write this text as a part of my research about how I can exit the Patriarchy as a man myself. To write this text I have to become a different person than I was before. Through this process I take a step closer to exit the Patriarchy and hope to inspire a few of you to do the same.
What Patriarchy is and why exit it?
Patriarchy is generally understood as the leadership and superiority of men over women.
Where I want to go is what is possible beyond, that which is called Archearchy in the Possibility Management context.
But to get there I have to start where I am.
Where can I find the Patriarchy? How can I investigate it?
While historians or sociologists look outside into our culture to the different Gameworlds (social system with rules of engagement) we built which clearly undermine the dignity and power of women. My field of investigation lies in the patriarchal concepts, structures, positionalities and habits within myself. Where else would I find a clearer display of what the Patriarchy is, how it works and how I can exit it, than within my own box made of beliefs, assumptions and rules, my own thoughtware (that with what I think with) and my self images and worldviews.
Only here I have the authority to dismantle and ruthlessly stare into what I have caused as a man and can feel the pain about it. Feeling that pain is necessary, to truly change my thoughtware, my actions and my standing in the world, to be someone where the perpetuation of Patriarchy ends.
One more note before I proceed. Patriarchy is an underworld game. Meaning to truly look at it I must admit that there is a part within me that rejoices in being irresponsible, causing suffering and destruction. I need to look at my Gremlin, the ruler of my underworld that serves shadow principles like superiority, isolation and competition. The journey I will take you on will not be a pleasant one, be prepared to feel things. Be willing to feel things!
My Investigation begins
When I look and feel into myself and honestly allow the darkness of my underworld to be there, I don’t have to wait long to find the first voices, concepts and beliefs that tell me what man and women in Patriarchy are and are supposed to be and what I want from both as a man myself.
Men
I can easily tap into my ideas of how a man should be that I soaked up growing up in modern culture.
As a man, I need to be strong and powerful, to not feel fear or sadness except in rare circumstances. I can’t be too joyful either or I will not be taken seriously.
A lot of imperatives are hovering around me as I enter the world of what it means to be a man in Patriarchy. Luckily I have my voice blaster at hand and can clear out the way.
I need to be the strongest/the best or I fear I will not find a mate. For that I need to be superior to other men. If I am not stronger I need to be smarter, have to have more experience, or even more clarity or love. I can see how that is the birth of competition with me. I can not allow myself to show vulnerability of not knowing, not winning or I will lose my power and with that my position in the Hierarchy and my chance to find a mate.
I feel sadness welling up about the revelation of how much of my life I had dedicated to compete with other men. How much I tried to be more right, better and also how much I tried to be worse to be safe. I also feel the Gremlin part within myself that rejoices in power over others and in crushing the weak by words or actions.
In Patriarchy my reason to connect with other men is to see if I can exploit them or benefit from their power to increase my own.
As a man, I had to kill everything that is “weak” or feeling something within myself, to be able to survive and compete with other men. One could say the first victims of Patriarchy are the more with the feminin associated qualities within a man. To enter Patriarchy I had to kill and deny my feelings and with that a big part of myself. No wonder it was so hard for me and other men to connect with and live as their purpose in modern culture.
While writing this I feel a great numbness in my belly, which when I let it out screams a desperate scream of a small boy who doesn’t know where he belongs. I gave up on myself and my feelings to survive as a man in Patriarchy.
This feels like the eye of the needle I have to put myself through. Something where very early in my development I had to warp myself into a different shape to still be able to fit in. Here lies a deep emotional healing process I still need to go through.
I leave now the field of what it means for me to be a patriarchal man and look at the image of women I carry within.
Women
What is a woman in Patriarchy? First and foremost women are a resource of life in many aspects. She gives life literally in form of offsprings, something that can leave a patriarchal man behind feeling inadequate, not understanding his own minor role in that process. So man decided it’s mostly his and God’s doing (also a man) by which he gains control over womens body.
Also women are the source of life energy. For example my Gremlin feeds on the life energy and the sexual energy that women radiate. He does it by enmeshing my bubble of space with their bubble and als just by looking at them. With that I numb myself to the unnourished parts within me that would be my responsibility to take care of.
And women are the source of the patriarchal mans only intimacy with women, which is sex. For me it is displayed in the underlying tendency to try to fuck every woman I feel attracted to, be it physically or with my eyes energetically.
Additionally I feel the Gremlin within me hating women for their aliveness and their feelings reminding me of what I had to give up to enter patriarchy. At the same time my Gremlin feels superior because my numbness gives me power over the “weak” feeling gender.
At this point I feel a great hopelessness coming up about seeing all this mess. Unmixing it I feel rage against my inner structures that are so separating and disconnecting. Right after which I feel the sadness of the loss of intimacy between me and women I have caused so far.
I lived with women as a resource which made them an object for me as a man in patriarchy. That means I can exploit them, dominate them and don’t have to take them seriously, be it their wishes, opinions or boundaries.
What I notice now is that all these beliefs and structures live within me but I would never show them in that way or that honest. Only if I come together with other man it comes to light how we sexualize and objectify women. It has this flare of boys just playing and making fun and by that hiding the weight of what is actually said.
These things feel like a part of an underlying program that runs on a more unconscious level in my system. Somewhere deep within me lies the notion of being betrayed by the feminin. Maybe that’s what is displayed in the paradise story. Out of this betrayal that left me believing I must be unworthy of love, I came up with the revenge to destroy and dishonor the feminin dignity, by objectifying it and putting myself above it. Out of that Hierarchy was born. The belief in superiority of one gender over the other. Hierarchy is one of the delusions that come with Patriarchy, or does Patriarchy come with the delusion of Hierarchy?
The Exit
I am here to let the whole thing burn down.
If you stayed with me until here I thank you for walking with me through my underworld. I feel fear you will judge and hate me for the things I have written here, even though I could understand it.
This is my confession. I have all that shit within me. And I choose to burn it. Let this part of my patriarchal identity burn down until nothing but ashes is left so there may be space for something new to come.
It will not be enough to just say the words. There is the need for action, the need for healing to happen. With the decision the journey into the new begins.
The new to come
I feel fear of not knowing. I am a beginner in this terrain. I have no Idea yet what else is possible. I have walked with you through my darkness and leave you now with nothing to hold on to but questions.
What does it mean to be a man outside of Patriarchy?
How does respectful and healthy sexualtity look like?
How can I as a man fully nurture myself and show up fully nurtured in a relationship?
How do men and women meet in a space so archetypal love can happen?
For my first experiment with nurturing myself outside of Patriarchy I committed myself for 3 Month to not have any contact (not even eye contact) with women, except where it is necessary like work. The purpose is to feel my unnourished parts, take care of them myself and to enter the circle of man to find my home there.
Also I joined a Men’s Group that comes together in the context of exiting Patriarchy.
I will soon find answers to my questions and share them with you in a next article.
I wish you all the best on your journey!
Love
Kian
