THE TYRANNY OF THE MINORITY –
August 9, 2021 – “When I say ‘patriarchy,’ I’m not referring to individual men,” says Rein. “I mean a system of inequality and oppression where the power, economic, political and even moral power has belonged to men and excluded women for millennia.” One of the results of this inherited trauma is a fight-or-flight mechanism that’s stuck in hyperdrive and a nervous system that just can’t seem to calm down. Similar to the ways mental health struggles impact how we function, a traumatized brain responds to the world differently. “I refer to PSD as the invisible prison and I call those trauma adaptations prison guards,” Rein says. “They show up in the mind, body and actions.”
That system impacts women in very personal and broadly systemic ways. Many women feel unsafe just walking down the street because of the ever-present fear of harassment, or let men speak over them in meetings because they’ve internalized the belief that their own perspectives aren’t as important. On a societal level, women earn more than 57% of undergraduate degrees and 59% of all master’s degrees, as well as 48.5% of all law degrees and 47.5% of all medical degrees, according to the Center for American Progress. And yet, women make up 45% of law associates but only 22.7% of partners, 40% of all physicians and surgeons but only 16% of permanent medical schools and only 12.5% of chief financial officers in Fortune 500 companies. In government, women represent only 24% of members of Congress, 24% of the House and 23% of the Senate. For women of color, those numbers are even more dismal.
