Undoing the subconscious programming of what it means to be a woman is an act of feminist rebellion: Chapter 1 The Why and the How of it

From the moment we take our first breath, we start to get programmed. Imagine your brain is like a computer, your conscious mind is the system that you see, the applications, the folders full of information and memories. But underneath all of it is a series of programmes, all running in the background, automating how well things run, how smoothly, what fires and when. Some of our programming is great and helpful, but some of it slows us down. 

For those of us who identify as women, we get programmes from an early age which tell us the rules of being a woman. These rules affect our confidence, how we use our voices, the language we choose, the way we walk around in the world, what we expect, what we accept and the choices we’re offered that aren’t really choices.

I’ve explored many of the aspects that inform and enforce this programming to give you a clear picture of the ways they intersect and replay the same messages in different ways. I want to give women a better understanding of the social constructs we need to question, to understand better some of the foundations for how and why we hold certain beliefs about womanhood.

From childhood to adolescence, through the language we hear, the media we consume, romantic partnerships and the simple expectations that are set for women, we’ve been exposed to society’s programming for a lifetime. This programming tells us from the beginning of our time here that we need to be quiet, that we’re expected to be less confident, to be more submissive, to be the caregivers, to find a man and reproduce and live happily ever after.

Just because we’re women.

Note that when I talk here about “women” I mean all of us who identify as such. When I talk about “gender” I mean what society has constructed male and female gender to mean. This fight is already being fought by those who identify as non-binary, transgender and other members of the LGBTQ+ community and they have been fighting this fight for longer and harder.

We find ourselves in this box marked “woman” from birth and the act of burning the box to cinders is a way for us to start liberating ourselves. While we can’t necessarily immediately change how society stereotypes women, we can liberate ourselves from carrying this stereotype with us.

That liberation is our rebellion.

WHY DOES IT HAPPEN?

We’re wired to be social creatures, tribal by nature. To understand this more, I turned to The Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience that Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain (2019) by Gina Rippon. “Our brain is geared to extract the necessary rules of social engagement from our world[1]”. Our scripts (aka programming) help us to remain within the social circle, interpreting the stereotypes we see around us. “Stereotypes can also be incorporated into your own sense of self - what is expected of Someone Like You? If I’m male or female, how should I behave, what shall I play with, what will I be when I grow up, who will want to work with me?”[2] Our brains are hardwired to make what we consider to be the “right” decisions to remain part of the tribe. “Our social brain is something of a rule scavenger, seeking out the laws of our social systems and the “essential” and “desirable” characteristics we should have to fit in with our identified in-groups”[3].

What this means for us is that we naturally want to assign rules to the world we’re in, so that we can understand our place in it. The rules (or stereotypes) we see and learn about then tell us what is expected of us, how to behave and what behaviour might risk us being expelled from the tribe.

The stereotypes are built and maintained by almost all aspects of society around us. It’s really important that we understand what society is telling us about the box it wants us to fit into. There is also a benefit to people who are in the box marked “male” of keeping us in our box but that’s a different story for a different day.

[1] Gina Rippon, The Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience that Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain (2019), p. 201.

[2] Gina Rippon, The Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience that Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain (2019), p. 202.

[3] Gina Rippon, The Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience that Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain (2019), p. 201.