The indoctrination of women into misogyny from our earliest years is stopping me in my tracks right now.
Somehow, I'm seeing it with new eyes.
With the current state of affairs in the United States, the treatment of women and children is beyond anything I can comprehend. What feels even more startling is recognizing how many of the beliefs I carried weren't actually mine. They were learned.
For so many years, as an enlightened woman, I lived inside a false perspective without even realizing it. I absorbed messages about how I was supposed to look, behave, speak, and move through the world. So many of those messages centered around one thing: making men feel comfortable, being desirable, being chosen, being enough.
Let me be clear.
I'm deeply grateful for the extraordinary man and partnership that is blossoming in my own life. This isn't about rejecting men.
It's about rejecting the belief that a woman's value is measured by how well she serves someone else's comfort, expectations, or desires.
More than anything, I want my daughter and yours to live in a world where misogyny and violence toward women and children are no longer accepted as normal or inevitable. I want her and them to know, from the very beginning, that their worth is inherent, not earned through appearance, approval, or accommodation.
Discernment creates distinctions.
The more clearly we see what we've been conditioned to believe, the more consciously we can choose what we will carry forward... and what ends with us.
Shajen Joy Aziz, M.Ed., M.A.
Author • Publisher • Transformational Educator
Founder & CEO | Publishing Joy™
Your Voice. Your Story. Your Legacy.
https://www.publishing-joy.com
