Breaking the Spell of Patriarchy

There was a time when we trusted the rhythm of our own breath.When the body was not a battlefield, but a temple.When intuition was not something to be corrected, but something to be honored. When the divine was not distant, punishing, or owned by anyone,but alive in skin, soil, blood, and breath. And then something shifted. Quietly. Slowly. Almost politely.

Not with fire and chains at first, but with stories.With images.With prayers that taught us to bow instead of remember.With fairy tales where girls waited to be saved and boys conquered.With gods that ruled from above instead of rising from within. With a thousand tiny messages that said: your body is shameful. Your knowing is flawed. Your power must be supervised.

This — ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between — is how spells are cast in the modern world. Not in forests. Not by witches. But by repetition. By normalization. By making distortion feel like truth.

This is how patriarchy was born. And make no mistake: patriarchy is more than a societal structure. It is a reality-shaping enchantment. An extraction spell so ancient and so refined that we learned to call it normal life. And yet, you may hear the whisper in coffee shops, classrooms, and comment threads:“Isn’t this just… how humans are? Isn’t patriarchy natural?”

Let’s be clear. Nature is wild, cyclical, messy, and full of collaboration. It is forests that grow from decay. Rivers that share water. Bees that build together. What patriarchy calls “natural” is something else entirely: a system of control, extraction, and hierarchy dressed up as inevitability. Even science has sometimes been enlisted to tell us this is inevitable. Charles Darwin noted differences between men and women, but his observations were shaped by a Victorian world — and later thinkers twisted them to justify hierarchy and male dominance. Reality, as ever, is far more complex. In this context, I warmly recommend Bitch: What Does It Mean to Be Female? by Lucie Cooke.

Humans, like all creatures, can organize in many ways. Anthropologists have documented societies where power was shared, leadership rotated, and cooperation, intuition, and relational intelligence were valued. Among the !Kung of southern Africa, the Iroquois of North America, and the Minangkabau of Indonesia, women held central roles in decision-making, ritual, and economic life (Garrigus, 2018; Rosaldo, 1974; Sanders, 2001).” These are not anomalies—they show that patriarchy is cultural, not biological.

And after unlearning centuries of whispers, here is an especially sad truth pill I had to swallow: Even evolutionary psychology has been misused to justify male dominance. But evidence suggests human behavior is plastic and shaped by social structures: cooperation and care are as evolutionary adaptive as aggression and hierarchy (Hrdy, 2009; Boyd & Richerson, 2005). Patriarchy is not written in DNA. It is written in stories. It is coded in institutions. It is rehearsed across generations until it feels like instinct.

Neuroscience also supports this: systems that normalize submission, shame, and hypervigilance alter neural pathways, teaching the brain to mistrust intuition and internal authority (van der Kolk, 2014). In other words, patriarchy is literally reinforced in our nervous systems, making it feel “natural” even though it is constructed.

So no: patriarchy is not natural. It is a spell, cast long before we were born, but maintained by our forgetting. A carefully constructed illusion that claims inevitability while feeding on what is most alive in us.

The Spell of Extraction: How Patriarchy Feeds on Life Force

Patriarchy doesn’t just shape laws, workplaces, or schoolbooks. It feeds. Quietly, systematically, invisibly. On our bodies, our time, our care, our emotional labor, our intuition, our very connection to the divine. Like any parasite, it cannot survive if its host remembers who they are.

Bodies as resources

From birth, bodies are framed as property and performance. Women’s reproductive capacity is often policed not only by law but by culture, media, and centuries of social conditioning. Men are taught entitlement; women are taught responsibility for male reactivity. Medicalization of childbirth, restrictive reproductive policies, and coercive practices create a system where bodies are controlled, monitored, and punished (Conrad & Schneider, 1992; WHO, 2021). Neuroscience shows that chronic stress, shame, and coercion reshape neural pathways, teaching the nervous system to distrust sensation and intuition (van der Kolk, 2014). Why? Because a body trapped in vigilance cannot reclaim its own power—or its sacred connection.

Invisible labor: emotional, relational, and care work

The world economy could not function without women’s unpaid labor. Globally, billions of hours of care work—childcare, eldercare, household labor, emotional regulation—are extracted for free, often undervalued or erased entirely (Hochschild, 2012; Federici, 2004; UN Women, 2020). Emotional labor—the quiet work of managing moods, tensions, and relationships—is considered a “soft skill,” but it stabilizes everything around it. Patriarchy survives by making care invisible and obligation sacred: you must give, even when exhausted; you must manage, even when harmed.

The nervous system as the battlefield

Patriarchy is psychological alchemy. It destabilizes perception, normalizes submission, and weaponizes shame. Gaslighting, social scripts, and constant evaluation teach us to mistrust our instincts, to defer to authority, to shrink from our own knowing (Herman, 1992; Stark, 2007). The nervous system becomes a host, trained to leak energy, to doubt sensation, to defer sovereignty. What is most alive in us—intuition, presence, desire—is siphoned while the host is taught that this depletion is normal, deserved, even virtuous.

Spiritual disconnection: erasing the feminine divine

For millennia, goddesses, priestesses, and sacred feminine archetypes were removed, demonized, or reduced to symbols of temptation and sin (Stone, 1976; Eisler, 1987). Direct access to the sacred, once embodied in our bodies and cycles, became mediated, hierarchical, and punitive. Shame became the gatekeeper. A nervous system locked in fear cannot perceive the divine within. Extraction is spiritual, too: the more you doubt your body, your intuition, your pleasure, the more your life force can be drained.

The Entitlement Loop: How Control Runs Through Desire and Relationships

But patriarchy doesn’t just take from our bodies and labor. It infiltrates our most intimate spaces, teaching us who is entitled to what—and who must carry the weight of managing desire. From the earliest days, boys are socialized to believe they are owed access, while girls are taught to regulate male reactions, to soften, to soothe, to accommodate. This isn’t romance. It’s a training program in control.

And yes, patriarchy often dresses itself as a gift to men—but its promise is poisoned. Boys and men are trapped in roles of dominance and suppression, taught to disown emotion, intuition, vulnerability, and basically everything that has been labeled as “feminine.” That is how misogyny is learned from a young age: to dismiss or even hate everything 'feminine'. Hyper-competitiveness, pressure to perform, and the need to assert control extract energy from them too. The system steals their relational intelligence, creativity, and capacity for presence—turning supposed “privilege” into another form of captivity. Patriarchy is a cage for all of us, even when it masquerades as power.

Sociological research shows that entitlement is learned: boys are praised for assertiveness and dominance, girls are praised for compliance and caretaking (Connell, 2009; Risman, 2018). Sexual norms reinforce this: consent is framed as negotiation, compromise, or emotional labor, rather than a clear boundary. Harassment, coercion, and microaggressions become normalized, while women are blamed if boundaries are crossed (Frieze & Browne, 1989; Fine & McClelland, 2006). Patriarchy thrives by teaching that managing male desire is women’s responsibility—turning intimacy into extraction.

And the nervous system pays the price. Chronic hypervigilance, shame, and the need to monitor another’s emotional state rewires the brain, making it harder to trust sensation, intuition, or pleasure (van der Kolk, 2014). Emotional energy that could fuel creativity, spiritual connection, or rebellion is siphoned off to maintain someone else’s sense of entitlement.

Meanwhile, the cultural story is seamless: romance novels, media, advertising, and even some “spiritual” narratives frame this power imbalance as normal, desirable, or inevitable. Women’s bodies are both eroticized and regulated, desire is commodified, and relational intelligence is invisibly taxed. The spell is complete: our own longing becomes a vector for extraction.

The result is profound: patriarchy feeds not only on what we produce, but on who we are—our time, our energy, our sensuality, our joy. And until we name it, feel it, and reclaim it, the cycle continues, quietly, under the guise of normal life.

Reclamation & Empowerment: How to Break the Spell

But here comes the twist of the story, my loves: we are waking up from the spell. Not with thunder or spectacle, not with incense and chanting in the streets (though the streets might thank us later), but with the quiet, insurgent magic of noticing. Of remembering. Of breathing into ourselves again.

The spell only holds as long as we forget. And consciousness—real, embodied, unapologetic consciousness—is the oldest form of rebellion. Waking up means realizing your energy is sacred. Your attention is currency. Your body is not a battlefield, a resource, or a problem to be managed. Your emotions are not weaknesses. Your intuition is not “irrational.” It is a finely tuned compass, a lineage of knowing that has survived centuries of being silenced, ignored, and shamed.

Reclamation starts when you stop outsourcing your authority. When you stop asking:“Am I allowed to feel this?”“Am I too much?”“Am I making it uncomfortable?” And start asking:“Does this align with my truth?”“Does this nourish my nervous system?”“Does this expand my life force—or drain it?”

That’s spell-breaking on a mental and magickal level!

Breaking the Spell: Unlearning Patriarchy in Everyday Life

But how do we actually bring change into our society? While awareness is the first, and a very important spark. Re-patterning is weaving the magic! Once you notice the spell, you can start to disentangle your energy from it—moment by moment, choice by choice. Here are some ideas to start with:

1. Notice your words.

Language carries the enchantment. When we say, “I’m too emotional,” “I shouldn’t bother them,” “Don’t be a pussy,” “That’s so gay,” or “That’s just how men are,” we are repeating the spell. Remember? Patriarchy teaches us, over and over: anything labeled “feminine” is weak, silly, bad, or shameful. Anything outside its rigid definitions of masculinity is dangerous.

And by the way, much of what shows up as homophobia or disdain for gender nonconformity is just misogyny in disguise: the same devaluation of the feminine that trains men to dominate, disowns traits labeled as “soft” or “vulnerable,” and punishes anyone who refuses to fit the rigid binary.

So, break the spell and start noticing your inner narrative. We all have it, by the way, we all need to unlearn - yes even us feminists who might have been aware a little longer. Listen to the words you say aloud, the phrases you mutter under your breath, the judgments you carry about yourself or others. Ask yourself: Is this my truth—or a story I was taught to believe? Language isn’t neutral. It shapes perception, rewires the nervous system, and either strengthens the spell or helps break it. Choosing words with awareness is one of the first acts of rebellion.

2. Track your thought patterns.

Patriarchy doesn’t just live outside us—it whispers inside. Every time you self-police, shrink, or apologize unnecessarily, the spell is feeding. Pause. Observe. Reframe. I am allowed to take up space. My body is not a problem. My intuition is intelligence.

3. Re-pattern your behavior.

Boundaries are spells of sovereignty. Saying “no” to extraction, overwork, emotional labor that isn’t yours, or unwanted attention is revolutionary. Small acts—asking for your needs to be honored, declining micro-aggressions, walking away from energy drains—are rewiring your nervous system.

4. Witness your energy.

Notice where you give power unconsciously. How much of your attention, time, and emotion is being siphoned to maintain someone else’s entitlement? Can you reclaim it? Start small: pause before over-explaining, over-soothing, over-accommodating. Your energy is sacred; spend it with intention.

5. Reconnect to your body and intuition.

Your body is your temple, your compass, your archive of truth. Practices like breathwork, somatic meditation, journaling, movement, or ritual help you notice tension, constriction, and expansion. Your intuition speaks in sensation before words; honor it." for both, women and men, it is important to re-introduce and relearn our bodies, without judgement.

6. Reconnecting in Intimate and Sexual Partnership

And this is especially true in intimacy. Patriarchy has trained us all—women, men, and everyone in between—to forget how to inhabit our bodies fully. Women are shamed, objectified, and taught to manage others’ desire before their own. Men are taught to perform, to be “manly,” to equate worth with dominance or conquest. Both patterns drain energy, fragment attention, and turn pleasure into performance.

Media, including pornography, can act as an amplifier of these patterns. Many mainstream portrayals reinforce scripts of dominance, objectification, and performance, and research has linked exposure to greater acceptance of rigid gender roles and sexual aggression (Hald, Malamuth, & Yuen, 2010; Wright, Tokunaga, & Kraus, 2016). This is not about shaming consumption—it’s about noticing the patterns we are absorbing, understanding how they shape our expectations and behavior, and making conscious choices about the media we allow into our lives.

Relearning your body in partnership means noticing these patterns without judgment. Feeling what feels good. Speaking your truth. Listening to your intuition. Letting sensation guide you rather than scripts, expectations, or unconscious conditioning. When both—or all—partners reclaim presence and sovereignty in their own bodies, intimacy becomes a space of shared life force rather than extraction.

7. Question systems, not just individuals.

Unlearning isn’t just personal—it’s relational and societal. Patriarchy doesn’t live only in our bodies and thoughts; it circulates in workplaces, schools, families, media, and politics. The first step is awareness: noticing patterns, micro-messages, and assumptions without judgment.

• Observe without self-blame. Notice when women’s ideas are dismissed, when men are praised for aggression or overperformance, when language enforces hierarchy or entitlement. The spell is subtle—it thrives in repetition, not isolated acts of cruelty.

• Reflect internally. Ask yourself: Am I unconsciously repeating this pattern? Do I amplify or challenge it in my actions and words? Journaling, breathwork, and somatic check-ins can help you separate your own energy from inherited conditioning.

• Act consciously when safe. Speaking up doesn’t always mean confrontation. Small gestures—validating someone’s contribution, asking for equitable participation, gently correcting language, setting boundaries, modeling alternative behavior—begin to break the repetition.

• Choose your engagement. Social media, news, and entertainment shape perception. Notice what reinforces extraction, shame, or narrow scripts. Where possible, seek or create spaces that honor collaboration, care, and diversity of voice.

8. Celebrate your rebellion.

Every small act of reclaiming your life force is magic. Every “yes” that aligns with your truth, every “no” that protects your energy, is a thread unraveling centuries of control. You are remembering. You are sovereign. You are alchemizing the ordinary into ritual.

And so it unfolds

And remember: rebellion isn’t a moment—it’s a practice. Every breath you take in awareness, every boundary you honor, every story you tell that isn’t borrowed from the spell, feeds the world. Your awakening ripples outward: into relationships, into workplaces, into communities, into the very air we share.

You are not just reclaiming yourself—you are breaking the spell of patriarchy, one conscious choice at a time. You are unlearning centuries of forgetting, and in that unlearning, planting seeds for generations to come.

Carry your sovereignty like fire in your chest. Speak with the authority of your own knowing. Move with the rhythm of your own life force. Let your presence—untamed, unapologetic, luminous—be the quiet but unstoppable dismantling of a spell that was never meant to last.

Because when we remember who we truly are, when we inhabit our bodies, minds, and hearts fully, the spell loses its power. Magic is no longer something we seek—it is the life we are living. And in living it, we break the spell of patriarchy for ourselves, for each other, and for the generations yet to come.