33. Patriarchy: The Hidden Script That Holds Us Back with Dr. Anne Whitehouse

In this episode of Conditioning to Consciousness, we explore patriarchy not as a political talking point or a blame narrative, but as a hidden operating system or a script running beneath the surface of our lives that shapes how safe we feel to speak, lead, rest, succeed, and be seen. This conversation is an invitation to look more deeply at how systemic conditioning lives not just "out there" — but inside the nervous system, the subconscious, and the body. 

I’m joined by Dr. Anne Whitehouse, PhD, former Cambridge scientist, author, and subconscious empowerment expert, whose own journey through extreme burnout and chronic illness led her to uncover how deeply inherited power structures affect our health, confidence, and sense of safety. Together, we unpack how patriarchy operates beneath conscious belief — showing up as fear of visibility, chronic self-doubt, people-pleasing, overworking, and the persistent feeling of being “too much” or “not enough.” We explore how these patterns impact everyone — both women and men alike — by suppressing balance, intuition, emotional expression, and embodied power.

This episode bridges science and spirituality, weaving together nervous system regulation, subconscious programming, ancestral and collective patterns, and consciousness work. Rather than asking who to blame, we focus on what it looks like to see the script clearly, interrupt it with compassion, and begin building something new, something more whole — internally and collectively. If you’re interested in healing burnout, reclaiming your voice, understanding why speaking up can feel unsafe, or engaging in conscious change without bypassing the body, this conversation offers both clarity and grounding.

To connect with Dr. Anne Whitehouse, visit: 

www.drannewhitehouse.com or find her on Substack at: https://drannewhitehouse.substack.com/ 

If this episode spoke to you, it would mean the world if you took a moment to leave a review or share it with a friend who needs it. And make sure you hit follow so you never miss an episode of Conditioning to Consciousness.

You can connect with me on Instagram @jesscallahan_, join my Substack community at conditioningtoconsciousness.substack.com, or explore more of my work at jesscallahan.com.

My Back in the Body Nervous System Healing course is now available! Find it here.

Thanks for listening — I’m so grateful you’re here.

Transcript

An introduction from Dr. Anne Whitehouse

Jess Callahan 0:02

Hey guys, welcome back to the Conditioning to Consciousness podcast. So, okay, today I think I want to be a little bit honest with you guys before I um I dive into our intro. One of the things that I've struggled with the most in this work is I think the resistance that so many of us have to confronting what actually lives within us. And I think that's all part of it. I think that's all part of the programming. It's all by design. We hear words like patriarchy and white supremacy. And, you know, immediately our like walls go up and we like tense, we recoil a little bit and we're like, oh, that's not me. Or like, oh, I'm not going there. And I think that I really do think that it's by design, like words like patriarchy. Um, you'll hear me, you'll hear me talk about this later in this interview that there have been times in my writing where I actually call patriarchy the pea bad word because nobody wants to say it, nobody wants to hear it. But you know, the truth is that it is, it's just, it's an operating system we're all living on. It's not something that we need to like blame anyone for. It's not something that we need to carry anger or um, you know, hatred in our hearts for. It's really like it's just it's about naming the systems that are shaping what is keeping us disconnected from ourselves, what's keeping us disconnected from living in wholeness. And the fact is that patriarchy is a system built to keep women, you know, controllable, essentially. It's built to keep women as like subordinate and it's built to keep men in line, really. Like, and so it damages all of us, it has hurt all of us. And the sooner we start to, you know, pick out those like threads of patriarchy that are woven through our individual lives, the collective, our systems, our institutions, the sooner that we can all start to live in wholeness. And so today's guest is Dr. Anne Whitehouse. Anne is a PhD author, a former Cambridge scientist, and she's walked this really like remarkable path from academic research in like really prestigious settings to this deep personal transformation rooted in this healing journey that I think has come up across so many women who have who have really just like reached the point of burnout, reached their edge. And, you know, once they go inward and and start to figure out why, why are they, you know, feeling like this, why are they burning out? Um, you know, it it a lot of it comes down to living by a rule book that was never actually meant to like see us thrive. So, you know, Anne, Anne went through this deep healing journey, and now she really like all of her work is centered around helping others reclaim their own power. And she has, I started following Ann on Substack, and she has this really eloquent way of talking about patriarchy. And, you know, like I said a minute ago, it's it's not about blaming anyone. It's about collectively, you know, anyone who identifies as male or female, like naming, you know, naming it, spotting it, seeing it for what it is, and making the choice to do better so that we can all start to live in wholeness again and find this like balance within ourselves and and like across culture and space and and the institutions that we live within. So, like, you know, beacon of knowledge through all of this, like through, you know, the navigation of like tearing down all of the systems that were built to oppress people and and building something new as we look to, you know, as we all do the really hard work of elevating collective consciousness and living in this space of like higher frequency where there isn't as much like cruelty and oppression and and darkness. And so um, yeah. So with all that being said, I'm gonna turn it over to our conversation. So Anne, I have been looking forward to this conversation for I can't even tell you how long I've been following your work on Substack and I just I love like I love everything you write about. But um this for me, this conversation has been a really just like long time in the making. So thank you for being here today. My pleasure. I'd love to just start by turning it over to you if you just want to give give us like just an idea of who you are and how you got here. Let's start there.

How the subconscious mind carries the patriarchal program

Dr. Anne Whitehouse 5:01

Okay, so it's it's quite a long story and maybe it will resonate if you're listening. So I uh I started off as what you would call a high-powered academic. I was a scientist at Cambridge University, and I was all set to have a very conventional career. And I was there with the I guess the underlying agenda of I thought it was so important for me to succeed as a woman at the time I was in my mid-20s as a woman in that very male-dominated environment. So that's how I sort of went into that career. And I had all the qualifications and I could do the teaching and the research, no problem, but something happened to me in that environment. And basically, the the moment I walked through that that door into that engineering department as a university lecturer, it was as if the rogue had been completely pulled out from under me, and I didn't understand why. So my confidence just collapsed, my stress went off the scale, I found that I I couldn't speak up when I wanted to, and my anxiety got worse and worse, and this just turned into what I describe as a spectacular burnout. I ended up with ME, or we call it chronic fatigue syndrome nowadays. And in basically so in six years, I went from really you know high-powered academic top career track to being a burnt-out invalid and I'd lost my scientific career. And I didn't I didn't understand why I'd reacted so in such an extreme way, so kind of viscerally. Yes, it was stressful, yes, it was it was you know quite toxic and you know misogynistic, all that was there, but why had it made me physically ill? You know, why had it really destroyed everything? I I didn't understand why. So that took me into like a journey into the subconscious. So I went in as a really 3D conventional world kind of woman, right? But I was in that situation, I was only 30 at the time, and I was literally too weak to pick up a pen and write on a birthday card. I was lying on the sofa, I couldn't do anything, and I thought I'm not prepared for my life to be over. Yeah, I'm only 30, I'm not prepared for this to be it. And the conventional doctors had said, You've got Emmy, goodbye and good luck. That's literally what they told me. That's all I got. So at that point, I made a really it was a it was one of those moments of clarity that you sometimes get. And I just remember thinking to myself, I am not prepared for this to be it. I'm gonna find the solution. I don't care what I have to do, I don't care how far out of my comfort zone it is, I don't care, you know, you know, what what I have to um to face. I don't care. I'm going to get myself out of this. And that began to open up doors, energetic doors. And I I very soon went into the world of the subconscious mind. And it became very clear that my subconscious had had a completely different view on my career than conscious Anne had. So I soon realized that my subconscious believed what I was doing was completely forbidden. Because I had there I was top qualifications, PhD, postdoc research fellowship, lectureship. I was in this completely male-dominated environment with authority over men, because nearly all my students were men. And my subconscious was saying, you're breaking the rules, you're gonna be put to death for this. And it sounds really extreme. My conscious mind was saying, I'm gonna succeed here, I'm gonna prove myself as a woman that I can be me, I can be feminine. You know, I used to wear long danky earrings, silk skirts, running mechanical engineering labs. I it was proven that I could do that and be feminine, and that I was absolutely the equal of any man there. My subconscious was saying, you're gonna be executed for this. And I I even used to go into work and say to people, it feels as if I'm going to my execution, just going into work. It was that extreme. Um quite simply, my body had said one day, enough. You are not setting foot in that building ever again. And so it pulled the plug on my health to stop me. So I began to learn everything I could about testing what the subconscious mind believes, and learning how to change that programming. Initially working on myself, and then very quickly, I found that I had a this empowerment practice, and I was working with women from all kinds of professions: medics, lawyers, entrepreneurs, women in finance, um, creatives, uh, actresses, musicians, you name it, I've worked with them, and the pattern was exactly the same. Every time there was a really high-achieving, ambitious woman who was going against the status quo, it was flagging up all of these beliefs. I'm breaking the rules, I'm gonna be put to death for this. I'm in I'm in genuine danger of my life. And so what happens is as women, you know, we we don't we don't give up. We don't know that's what's going on to the surface. We just think, right, I've got to keep on pushing, I've got to keep going, I've got to prove that I can do this, I can't, etc. etc. So what that happens then is you get an enormous um stretch. Your conscious mind is here, subconscious is here, and you're pushing further and further and further into this danger environment, and your subconscious is freaking out and it's trying to save your life, doing everything it possibly can to pull you back. Because, and here's the the crux of the matter: what's programmed into that subconscious, and we all have it, is the rules of the past, it's the rules of patriarchy. It's not what we believe consciously, it's not what the facts of our life are. So you and I, we are in countries where we have a lot of freedom compared to some other women in the world. We are very, very lucky on the surface, under the surface, those old rules are still running. And it's who creates this enormous conflict. So all of that opened up this big picture to me. And I thought, oh my goodness. I see it. I see why we're being held back. See why you have that kind of knee-jurt reaction where you can't speak up in that meeting or you can't get the ball back if somebody interrupts you, or you you've got your business, you want to put it out online, but you feel as if you're going to be, you know, killed for it. It just feels so extreme. Because all the hidden programming is still completely misaligned with who we are as modern women. So that then became my new mission. And the scientists, long gone, right? So I left that career at the beginning of 2001. And so for the last 24 years, nearly 25 years, my mission has been to not only flag up this hidden operating system, and it is like an operating system in the computer, it's under the surface, you don't see what it's doing, but it's actually running the show, to free everybody from this hidden programming so that we can do what we want in our lives with the freedom to feel deep down safe when we're there, as opposed to fighting ourselves and having all of this sabotage come up and it's high stress and all the problems that it causes. So I know that was a bit long, but that is you know why I'm doing what I'm doing, why it's so important. And and I see it again and again and again women being undermined and pulled back and really sabotaged by this hidden programming. And on the surface level, people might be saying, Oh, we need to you know point the finger, name and shame here, or another director from the company. It's not gonna, it's not scratching the surface. Because what's really going on is patriarchy is still the operating system of our world. And my mission is to reprogram that and free everybody and men as well to be who we really are, not what this programming is trying to force us to be.

How the imprint forms

Jess Callahan 13:37

Wow. Okay, that's um there's so much good stuff in that. Like there, I my my head is just like, I have so many questions for you. So, okay, I want to start here. Um, I I relate to your story in a lot of ways because I know what it's like when your body, you know, your subconscious mind and and the world you're actually living in and striving for are really dissonant. And, you know, the reaction that that creates. I had a similar reaction where my body literally just said, like, that's it now. Like if you're not gonna listen to the subtle cues, we're gonna just like shut down. And and that moment of determination where you're like, this isn't it for me. Like, that's not enough. I'm solving this. Like, I relate to that so much too. And I think there's a lot of women that have that moment where it's like, no, like this, this isn't defining me. We get to this like breaking point, you know, whether it's through a burnout or um a diagnosis or something like that. Um, but I think, you know, it can, I think it can be hard to go inward. Um, but I think you named something that I think is really important to go into a little bit more deeply. So the idea that the operating system we're running on, um, and you're the first person that ever like described it that way to me, and it just like made so much sense that it's not like this thing that like is outside of us or anything. It's literally just like the program we're running on, um, but that that leads us, or or maybe it's it's the idea that as women especially, we have this deep-rooted feeling, subconscious feeling, that we will be executed or some variation of that for what it is that we um, you know, what it is that we're doing. And so I'm wondering, like, without going too deep, I guess, like into the science behind it, I the things that are like coming to mind, the causes of that, like why do we feel that? It's perpetual conditioning that we've been running off of for centuries, um, epigenetics, like the imprint of ancestral trauma passed down. Um, it could be through like the lens of the work I do, like um past life karmic patterns or different things that are coming up. Um, would you say, like, what would you say is like the thing that causes it?

The history of patriarchy

Patriarchy and group consciousness

The witch wound

Dr. Anne Whitehouse 15:53

It's all of it. It's all of it. And this is the problem. It's on so many levels. So I also work with past lives, I work with the group consciousness, I work with ancestral patterns, epigenetic in an energetic sense. So I came into this through my own experimentation, but through the through the the um the angle of I'm a healer as opposed to I'm a psychologist. But a lot of psychology has come into this, and I've and I've been experimenting and testing experimenting because as a when I was a conventional scientist, I was an experimentalist. So I would be trying things out, changing parameters, and it's exactly what I do now. So you're absolutely right. We have the past life heritage that we are holding on to. Now it doesn't matter whether you personally believe that you have had past lives or not. Uh, I never used to, and then I discovered, oh my goodness, yes, we do. But yeah, if if you if that's not your page, don't worry. I I often um explain it to people in terms of what's going on in the quantum field. So we are all part of the field. We are if you can think of us as like patterning in the field, and we're all connected in that that one oneness energy. So there are, even if you don't believe in that you've had a past life, there have been past lives. People have lived for millennia, and the patterning of their experience is going to be in the field. It's going to be there. And you can be um experiencing or plugged into or um taking on those patterns, whether that is in your own energy, or maybe you just you know went to an old building and just picked something up because you were sensitive, or you went to a certain piece of land. You know, it doesn't matter where you got it from, but this patterning of this experience, you can hold a lot of those in in your field. So you can look at it in both ways. It's like an experience which is not your current life, but you're holding on to it. And what you've got is, and and this is it's also um appropriate to bring this in, you think about the you know the history of of um the history of uh sort of modern the modern world, if you like. Patriarchy started about 3,000 years ago, give or take. So we've got 3,000 years of the same patterns, and that is pretty much all over the world. The we've got the subjugation of the sacred feminine being replaced by patriarchal religion, all the things that were um revered and honored in the feminine became turned, it was turned on its head, it becomes dismissed, outlawed, labeled as inferior, weak, um unclean, evil, from the devil, all of this stuff just to suppress the old way to allow the patriarchal way to come through. So that has been going 3,000 years. You can see how that's been ingrained the past lives, absolutely, in your ancestral line, in your epigenetics, totally. And then we have suddenly in the 20th century, it opens up. You know, we have the first world war, we have women getting the vote finally, then a lot of other freedoms come in, you know, for and people of um different races, people of different sexualities, all of that freedom comes in very obviously depending on which country, different times, but it's literally only two generations. So we've got 3,000 years, two generations, right? So you cannot possibly expect all of that old energy to just disappear like that. It's enormous. And the the change on the surface has been so quick and so profound that nothing has been able to catch up under the surface. So you and I, we are women on on the cusp. So we've we were born kind of in the into the old energies. I think I'm probably older than you, but you know, uh we're born in the old energies, and we hope that future women will not have to struggle to fight the energies that we have. But we have that, we're on that transition. It's our job, if you like, our purpose to help this transition through by our awareness and our actions and and all. All of this energy work that I do and a lot of other women are doing. This is this is why it's so challenging. So all of that is there. Think how big that is compared to just this like one, two generations of actual three-dimensional freedom. Then we've got the group consciousness. So the way I think about the group consciousness, and I love this analogy, think about an old-fashioned telephone exchange where you've got the ladies there, they're unplugging the thing, they're plugging it in to make make the calls. So we are all plugged into the group consciousness, and that is still patriarchal. And you can see that everywhere. You know, you've got the gender pay gap, we've got the confidence gap, we've got the double standard, we've got the other way women are, um women in the public eye are going to be uh put down much more than men. You know, they the the man can be say something and he is taken as oh, he's a real leader. Woman says exactly the same words and she's arrogant, right? She's pushy, you know, she's abrasive. This is the double standard because this is this is how we are. And all of that assumption, like what I had as a scientist, I would go into uh a meeting or something and on the phone, and I'd be taken as the receptionist or the admin girl, not Dr. White House, right? Because the assumption is that you're low down because you're female. So this is this is what what it's all running. So here we are, you've got the past lives, you've got your ancestry or the epigenetics, you've got the group consciousness, which contains the witch wound. Uh sorry can't see the knowing look on your face. So if you haven't heard of the witch wound, think about it this way. All over the world, women who did stand out against patriarchy, against authority, against organized patriarchal religion, in terms of what they said, what they believed, and oh, heaven forbid, if they happened to have powers, like if they were herbalists or midwives or healers, the number of women who were literally tortured and put to death for that, that is a wound in the group consciousness. And that says to us as soon as you step into being seen as a powerful woman, your subconscious says, I'm gonna be burnt at the stake for this. Because that that wound is so big.

Jess Callahan 22:26

I think that's an important wound to like name too, because it's like there's always like this before and after where like you know, you you spot the patriarchy that lives in our world and you start to make the connections, and then you can't unsee it, you know, like life is just never the same again. But like the the t-shirts and the sayings that say like they didn't burn witches, they burned women. It's just so true. It's just women who had women who weren't just like blindly obedient and you know, conforming to like these patriarchal constructs around them, right? Whether they're intuitive or speaking out, they were the witches. I I think that's like um, yeah, it's just it's important to name because I think it's something we bypass sometimes if we're not consciously thinking about it. Anyway, I'm sorry, I continue.

Patriarchal conditioning undermines, triggers trauma

Dr. Anne Whitehouse 23:15

Exactly. So we've got all of those this multi-layered um programming that's it's in our energy, it's in our subconscious minds, in our bodies, it's in our heritage. So we've got all of that, and it all says, these are the rules, this is what you must do to be safe, this is dangerous. Then, and this is key, then you don't know you've got that, but you then say, right, I want to have this career, I want to do this, I want to do that, and so you step into that place now, and then you begin to get the backlash from the world. So in in my book, I've got a chapter that I've actually called it the water torture. And it's you know, when when you something happens, for example, I answer the phone and someone says, Oh, can I speak to Dr. Whitehouse? And I say, Oh, speaking, and they're surprised because they thought I was just the secretary. That is a it's a little kick. So so in that in it happens once and it's mildly annoying. It happens 10,000 times, and it just you know, you're seething consciously. It's like little slice by slice by slice, it's undermining your belief in your right to be there. But that's going on on the surface. But what your subconscious is saying is every one of those little slights when you're dismissed, when you're put down, your subconscious says, Oh my god, everything in that programming is true. I shouldn't be here, I am in danger. So these are what are you know deeply annoying and wrong, but fairly superficial things that we have to cope with as professional women, they are actually triggering enormous hidden trauma within us because we are pioneers, because we are according to the subconscious world, we are stepping into very new territory one generation, two generations, it's nothing compared to the heritage that we are we are holding. That is why when we are then trying to succeed and fulfill our dreams against all of this, it's no wonder that we end up stressed and anxious and um feeling not good enough. Because the if the not good enough, which is, I don't know, I have you ever met a woman who didn't feel deep down that she wasn't good enough? Behind this this is why. This is how your subconscious is trying to keep you safe. Because if it were to say to you, You're gonna be put to death for this, and you heard it, you'd say, Of course I'm not. But if it says, Oh, I've got to stop, I've got to stop Anne in this career, you know, I've got to stop Jess in that career, because she's I believe it's really dangerous. The best way you can possibly do that is to make her feel not good enough. Because then she'll say, She'll doubt herself, she'll pull herself back, and we'll and we'll do the self-sabotage. So you're you're frustrated with yourself feeling not good enough. Your subconscious is saying the opposite. It's saying, Oh my goodness, she is too good. She's broken all the rules, she's passed all the boundaries, she's going to outshine all these men. Her life is in danger. I've got to tell her that she is a failure and absolutely no good. So she stops being so powerful and so brilliant.

Jess Callahan 26:39

Yeah.

Speaker 1 26:39

Wow, I think together.

How it shows up in the choices we make for ourselves

Jess Callahan 26:42

Yeah, it is. And I think it's like all of that makes so much sense. And I also think like the the ripple effect, the tentacles of it spread so wide, like the idea that you said, like, have you ever met a woman who doesn't like who wonders if she's like good enough, right? I think the flip side of that coin, but it's the same coin is like the the fear or the the feeling like, am I too much? You know, it's the same consequence. So it's exactly the same thing because we feel both at the same time. Yeah. So even if like something like you don't feel like you're not, you feel I'm good enough, but like that little voice inside your head is like, but do you ever worry, you know, that you're that you're too much in this situation? It's like it's the same thing. And and all of those things do chisel away at our self-trust. And we're already working so hard to like, you know, if we are, if we're having like families and businesses, and you know, it's already a lot to manage all the extra stuff that we manage, the emotional labor and just the to-do lists that we carry. And then on top of this, like we are constantly having to dig deep to rebuild the self-trust to overcome the, you know, what's being chiseled away. I think a question that I get is like like the idea that like, but okay, like, but you made that choice. Like, if I make a choice that like leads me in, let me give you a direct, like an as um an example. When I was early in my career, I was in public relations and I had um it was a career I really loved. It was doing work that was really like fulfilling and exciting. And um we lived in Washington, DC. And when I was, we were like, my husband and I wanted to start having kids, he traveled um four to five days a week for his job. And so for me, like I was just like, okay, so then we moved back to home for me. I'll, you know, get a job that's a little less demanding. Eventually I'll go into like something entrepreneurial because you know, I'm saying this in quotes, you can, you know, manage your own schedule and life is like easy and flexible. But like, um, so like I made the choice to put my career on the back burner because I knew that I would be the one, you know, with more of the like the childcare responsibilities. It was never a choice. Like I never sat down with my husband and said, like, let's talk about this. Like, how can we make both of these things work? Like, I was just like, you have a career, it's more important. I'll take the back seat. I did I made the choice for myself, but that's still like a patriarchal script running within me, right? Like it's not that somebody's doing it to me, we're doing it to ourselves too.

Dr. Anne Whitehouse 29:26

Right. So what we've got there, and and I think it's probably a good idea good thing at this point to to flag up a phrase which I I really don't like, and that's talking about internalized patriarchy. Okay. Because internalized implies that you have taken it in. But we haven't, we've been born into it, we've come into it.

Jess Callahan 29:52

That's a good reframe.

Dr. Anne Whitehouse 29:53

Yes, it's and it's it's a very different angle, but very different if you if you begin to think about it. So that uh patriarchal programming, that operating system would absolutely be saying to you, my career is not as important as my husband's, even if I mean obviously I don't know at all, but if even if you had the same salary, the same qualifications, the same potential, according to patriarchy, the woman's um position is to be to serve, really, serve domestically, serve, produce the babies, so support the husband so he can shine in the world and have all the status and all of that. That's the model. So even though we are um embracing up freedom to a certain point, at those key times, yes, the assumption is it it will be me or it should be me, and and you don't realize what's playing out under the surface. So it's it's an autopilot and it's also an autopilot for your husband because he was going to be programmed with exactly the same thing. So you this dynamic has happened in millions and millions of relationships. But yeah, it doesn't have to be that way. And when when you um the I guess the first thing that I've I would love listeners to to take on from our conversation is to have this awareness that the programming, or as I say, or the script, as you say, this is running underneath. It's like the autopilot, and when you understand that that is going on, that awareness is absolutely essential. Because once you see it, it's oh my goodness, I don't want that. That's not fair, that's not right. Once you see it, that is the first step to to literally shining a light into that programming to allow you your mind, your conscious mind, to begin to update that and and free you.

Jess Callahan 31:53

I should say that like he like in that choice, in that moment, it wasn't um, there was no like maliciousness on either side, or like, you know, because he's just as oblivious to it too. You know, like there's no, but it's not like neither of us had the wherewithal to sit and think, like, let's talk about this as two human beings who have lives to live and choices to make and have different needs, you know.

Dr. Anne Whitehouse 32:17

So when I'm um when I'm talking about patriarchy, the first thing I always have to say, I didn't say first thing I always have to say is patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is not men. We are all the way to think about, think about that. You're we're all playing some computer game on a PlayStation. That's our lives. The disc has gone in, and the world is defined by the disc, not by the players. So you're in the game, and you can only you've only got the powers you've been given. You can only go the places you've told you can can go. You the interaction is all set by the programming. So everybody, if you like, is is on autopilot, is a victim of this programming. You can't change the programming while you're playing the game, it's impossible. And that's what the world is doing. It's not until you see it that, oh my goodness, is this the game I've been playing my whole life? I hate this game. What you've got to do is you've got to change the disc. You've got to change the disc.

Patriarchal programming starts young

Jess Callahan 33:17

What are some ways like that you would say that like it starts when we're young, like from youngest ages? Like, what are some of the first ways that we're really shaped by this system?

Dr. Anne Whitehouse 33:28

Oh my goodness. I mean, it starts incredibly early. So remembering that we we don't come in as a blank canvas, we've got the patterns in our genetics already, we've got the past lives already. We are plugging into group consciousness as soon as we get to about the age of three, three and a half, and conscious thought begins to come in, we are already programmed. Then you have those key years when you are um very much in a sort of an alpha theta brain wave state, and you're just absorbing your base programming. And it's it's kind of up until the age of sort of six, seven at the most, you're you're like a sponge. And here's here's the big problem that we have you are absorbing what you observe around you, but you do not have an adult's understanding to interpret what you're seeing. So if you have the situation which which I I I did at that age, so I had my my father went off to work early, came back late, um, had had his dinner, watched television. My mum looked after me and my brother. She saw it off to school, she was a teacher, and she came home and she cooked dinner and she cleaned the house and she did all the laundry as well. So, what does your subconscious say? It doesn't say, Is it right that men and women are doing different things? It says, This is the world. The program goes in. It's I observe and this is how it is. And then you get, you know, you you um you go to school and you know, girls are alas rewarded for being likable. That's a big thing. And oh, doesn't she look pretty? Is that a pretty dress you're wearing? Whereas boys are it's far more encouraged to be individual. There's a there was um like the the books that I was taught to read at school, is it a kind of a joke? Um it was Peter and Jane having their their little little stories, and in the first it take taking from kind of zero reading stage to 12, I um level 12, um, whatever that means. Uh apparently every single suggestion of let's do something was made by Peter, and Jane only makes one suggestion in the whole reading scheme, and that was let's help mummy do the washing up. And so that is that was the programming. Okay, this was the 1970s. They have changed it since then. But imagine every little girl who read those that reading scheme, what does it say to her? I have to help mummy be domesticated, and my brother and my male friends, they can go off and do all these exciting things. I've got to be a good girl and keep my dress clean. And then, of course, you're gonna get all of the sexist put downs when you're older. You're going to be judged for how you look. You're going to be, as I was as a as a scientist, you're going to have uh insults and so-called banter, very negative stuff. For I had that as a lot of that as an undergraduate, for men who were my friends, but the sexist jokes I got for me being there as a scientist, awful. And every single one of these is going to layer upon layer upon layer in your in your energy, in your mind, in your your feelings. And it all says, this is what I'm expected to be like. I better fit in. And every time you go out of that, you get the backlash, you get the punishment, you get the the censoring from some something. So we're it's a you know, it's a catch-22 situation. That's what all women are dealing with.

How patriarchy harms men

Jess Callahan 37:11

Yeah, even like um the other week, I was getting like takeout with my kids. We were like walking down a block in a small city near us, and there were these two men sitting, and the one like kind of like yelled down the way to me, like smile, you know, like smile, sweetheart, or something. Like, you know, it's like an expectation. Yeah, like that I should be like performative, you know, like that I need to look pretty and it's my job to to like if it's making him uncomfortable that I'm not smiling, I need to smile to and I just like scowled at him and he got mad and he like yelled something very like obscene down the street at me. And um, my kids, like we had long conversations after that. They are um one's almost 11 and one's 12. And you know, I was like flustered at first, like that this that they would do that while I had my kids with me. And then I was just really grateful to have the opportunity to talk that through with my kids and be like, it is not my obligation to like be attractive for them or to like make them feel less comfortable or less uncomfortable if I'm not smiling. Like I don't need to perform anything for anyone else. And um, but it does, it's just like it just runs so deep in the interactions as women that we're just like programmed to expect. So, okay, so it we see how patriarchy follows us through our lives, the damage that it can cause. I want to go back to the idea that patriarchy is not about men, right? It's about interrupting the cycles, rewriting the systems. How do you how would you say um patriarchy impacts men?

Dr. Anne Whitehouse 38:59

Okay, brilliant. So um with women, patriarchy is limitation. We're put in a box and told this is how you must be and you must not stretch outside the box. With men, it is almost the other way around. So men are told you have to be like this, you have to stretch yourself into this real man in inverted commas. And so so um the the rules of patriarchy, looking at that like this actual programming, uh in in patriarchy, a man is only valued by like his status, his income, his physical or sexual prowess as an alpha male kind of thing, how far up he has climbed up the greasy pole of uh status, all of this stuff. And of course, um this kind of leads back to what I was saying earlier about the suppression of the sacred feminine. So I'm about to launch into another into another subject on power, but I'll bring it in a little bit. So we we have we we need to have balanced male and female energy, as in the the the yang, the yin, to make harmony, to make things um harmony, harmonious and healthy. Everything has to have that balance. Whereas what we've inherited, because of patriarchy and the suppression of the um sacred feminine, it's crushed the feminine component of everything, the yin component of everything. And I and I like to use sort of yin because the the actual gender words have so much misunderstanding and confusion around them that it just makes it impossible to talk about it without people misunderstanding what you're saying. So all of the feminine yin components of power and everything else has been completely crushed in everything. So for women, it just it crushed us because we are the ones in the female labeled bodies. But for men, it basically has said anything which is a feminine energy, a yin component, that is forbidden for you. So that means all of the softer qualities, that means you know, the intuition, that means being in touch with your your compassion and your and your heart, all the things that make you, you know what? An emotionally healthy, balanced human being, that is completely forbidden to men. So that is why men are conditioned not to go there. Men don't cry, all of that. That is why it can be so difficult for men to express how they feel, and that crushing of the feminine side of themselves, and I believe that is very much responsible for the you know the mental health crisis that men have. The fact that they, because the patriarchy says your value is measured outside of yourself. How how do you rank with other men? How much are you outshining other women around you? Because of that, then that makes their self-esteem very susceptible to you know, you walk into, you know, if the next person comes in the room, you measure it again. You know, you you've you you're there's no intrinsic this is my value as a man, as a human being. So all of that is exactly so all of that is completely crushed. So then you have the problem that men are programmed that way without knowing it. And you know, as I said, patriarchy is not men. I believe that the majority of men are decent, responsible, conscientious, caring human beings who want to do the best that they can and want to be enlightened, but they they they probably don't know how because they're so stuck in A, this is the programming and they don't know it, and B, the programming forbids them from talking about it, from doing the work, the therapy, the coaching, or the healing work that women do quite naturally. That uh anything that's labelled as oh, that's a feminine thing, can't do that because somehow I'm I'm it's um you know I'm I'm not manly if I'm doing that, I've lost my value. So it's that for them, that's a catch 22 as well. So so they're they're stuck in this having to force themselves into something that doesn't fit. So if you then take a man who is um particularly artistic or particularly emotional or creative, or maybe um a man who is homosexual, those are gonna go absolutely against that male patriarchal programming. So that is going to say to him subtly without him realizing it, you're not good enough. You're not ticking the right boxes. So that's gonna have a profound effect on that man's well-being. So freeing them from that is gonna allow them to embrace all the the yin qualities, call them yin qualities, so much easier for if you call them feminine qualities. The difference of the angle just by changing the word, if they bring that in, then suddenly they can have this balanced energy, this balanced power. And the goes, oh, thank goodness for that. And that then opens up the freedom for them to be who they are as individuals, just like us being released from those limitations that allows us to be who we want to be, who that who's right for our personality and character. So it's only at that point where we can all discover who we are, right? Because at the moment we're all in these in these cages. We're all fighting against it, compensating for it, not knowing it's there, but knowing that we're being held back and struggling and and all the rest of it. It's it's by uh understanding that we're both held back, both caged by this old programming, but yeah, that we can then work on opening that rather than trying to push things around on the surface or just blaming other people.

Jess Callahan 45:01

Yeah. Yeah, my gosh. I feel like there's the ribble effect is of that is just like really powerful. And I think it yeah, it starts in the acknowledgement that all of us have our own unique balance of um, you know, whether it's masculine and feminine or however you name it, each of us has a unique balance that is uniquely ours, but we we're not really free to express ourselves in that way. It's like, and and I mean, there's like there's so many rabbit holes we could go down with that, but I think like one one thing that's like common, um like one thing that I think like people talk about, it's like a top of mind for some right now, and how I think this relates is you named um the the mental health crisis happening right now, but I think like there's also a lot of conversation about like young people dating and how young, young men, at least in the US, like women don't want to date the the young men that are available. And so they're just opting not to date at all. And there's this whole like subculture arising of like these angry young men who are blaming the women. But I think like a lot of that to me, I don't know if you agree or disagree with this, but speaks to the idea that women are healing sooner. Like women have started this healing process and healing like that patriarchy that runs within them. They're starting to wake up to like the emotional processing, understanding what their needs are, wanting someone to support them as like a whole human being. And I think um I think that men are just at this point later to the game, which is just like causing this huge like discrepancy between emotional intelligence and exactly that that is very, very true, very, very true.

Dr. Anne Whitehouse 46:51

So this again, uh I've got to get back to the sacred feminine in terms of the way um the the energies work, so the the feminine sets the vibration, the frequency, uh so the feminine energy is to be, it's a state of being, right? And then the masculine energy responds to that. So women take the lead by our frequency, and because we are um far more uh open and able to, as you say, do the work, whatever that looks like, and we aren't afraid to go deep, and we aren't ashamed of our shadow. We are okay with sharing this stuff and and processing it totally. We are we are ahead of the game there. And and here's the the the um kind of the nail in the coffin, if you like, that not only do men find it more difficult to do that because of the programming of patriarchy, what it says to for them, stopping them from doing it, we then have the like the double whammy, that the in the programming, the the value of a man is really defined by how much he is um above women. It's that look, you know, I'm I'm the head of the household, I uh I'm the bed, uh, all of that, even if it's from um uh a loving standpoint, it's still above the woman. You know, my the role is to provide, protect, etc. Or it could be very negative. It could be I'm um um I oppress you and I control you and I beat you up. It's you know, there's a good side and a bad side of it. But because his value is measured by this difference between him and women, subconsciously, as soon as women come up and say, Well, actually, you know what? I'm independent, I'm empowered, I'm earning my own money, I happen to be the CEO of this company that's the turnover of XYZ, right? Because of that, subconsciously, his value's gone down. Because he hasn't got the programming to say you your value is as a human being. And it doesn't matter whether you are providing for your uh your wife who is a stay-at-home mother, or whether your wife is the you know the CEO of Chanel, it doesn't matter because you are who you are, and that's your value is as a person, your you know, your mind, your heart, your soul, etc. They don't have that. That their heritage is that they lack that key programming that gives them value for being just a human being, and all the magnificent that is. So if they're because their their value is defined by um being above women, when women come up, their value goes down, and the enlightened man will evolve. But if if a man isn't in that place to be able to do that, all he feels is the rug being pulled out from himself, from right from under you know his his identity as a man. So when he has that happen, he is not in his power. So what he all he can do is lash out to try and make himself feel powerful, make himself feel safe again, reestablish the status quo that said, I'm above women, I'm better because I'm male. Maybe he's not consciously on that page, but his subconscious will be because that's the heritage. So you don't you know don't blame men for having that programming. They're not to blame any more than we are. It's how what they do with it, you know. So it's a lot so the the the um the phenomenon that you you cite. Yes, we have that in the UK as well. And it's it's been flagged up more and more in in recent years, and it's it's this backlash because women have come so far, and because men's programming is saying very negative things to them about who they are and how their value is is measured, that's what's causing this problem.

Jess Callahan 50:48

Um wow, yeah. The I think the ripple effect just stretches far and wide, but it is it's heartening to just hear like more people are, you know, naming the systems and less afraid of. Um I I've called it in some of my writing the peabad word because the word patriarchy is so like triggering for so many people.

Dr. Anne Whitehouse 51:12

It's like absolutely, I couldn't understand this because everything that I write is about we are creating a new world in partnership with enlightened men. We need to draw a line over the past and start again and reprogram. Nobody alive is responsible for what we have inherited. And I put this out, and the next thing I get, I get all this political stuff coming at me. I think, no, just read it. That's not what I'm talking about.

Jess Callahan 51:36

Right.

Dr. Anne Whitehouse 51:37

Yeah, it's not politics. And and they make all these assumptions, but it's not that at all. It's not that at all. Right. Patriarchy, simply this imbalance in the deep programming of the male versus the female, the young versus the yin, and the legacy that that has created for us all. You know, if we were to say, uh, yeah, if women were to say, I would we need to get um revenge or justice for all the oppression and violence and control that's been done to women over the whole world for the whole of recent history, right? We would be here from now till the end of the universe. We have to be enlightened. We have to say, okay, that was ghastly, but now we have the awareness to do something better. And we don't do it without men, we do it with men because we need them, they need us. We have to have this balance of polarities in our world. This is the way that it works. We need to be enlightened and open our minds to say, okay, let's let's build something new. And this is what we need to do. Let's just let go of all that all that heritage as the only way.

Jess Callahan 52:44

Yeah, man, that's so true. I don't think I showed you I have my um this is a t-shirt, and it says pizza is better than patriarchy. And a friend of mine gave it to me like over a decade ago. And I just like I don't wear it often, but I had to wear it for our conversation today. So yeah. So, okay, how can listeners find you? Um, where where are the best places to find you? How can they like engage with you and your work?

Dr. Anne Whitehouse 53:08

Oh, lovely. So my website is drannewhitehouse.com. And you can find me on Substack. So my I am dr anne whitehouse on there. My my publication is called Uncaged. So uh how we can literally uh alchemize the heritage to not only free ourselves, but to create something wonderful, and that's in our in our own lives and also you know in wider society in the world.

Jess Callahan 53:39

I love that. So okay, I will include all of the show notes in the um, like in the episode notes. I'll include all your links and everything else that you want to share. Um, I I'm just so grateful for this conversation and just like, you know, just how you're able to talk about a word that is so loaded and so triggering for so many people, but to just make it so real and um just like relatable for so many people, you know. The more people, like we said, the more people that just start to like see the operating system that they're living on and start to just say, like, nope, this is not for me anymore. I think like that's the path that we take that gets us to building the new, as you talk about.

Dr. Anne Whitehouse 54:24

That's exactly it. Think about it like a snowball. So you start off with a tiny little bit of snow, that's the new consciousness, and it's really delicate and it could fall apart at any second. But the more snow adds into that snowball, the bigger it comes. And it gets to a point where that will become like the tipping point, and consciousness will shift to the new paradigm. I hope it's in my lifetime. But every every person who's has that awareness and you know puts puts their efforts into this new, you know, genuinely healthy, balanced power for everyone, they are contributing to this shift in consciousness. And you know, it's there's nothing more important, nothing more important for the future of the world, future generations.

Jess Callahan 55:11

And even if it doesn't happen in our lifetimes, maybe we'll come back in future lives and we'll be able to just bask in the glow of the work that we, you know, so just like relentlessly put into the world. I don't know, who knows? But thank you, thank you, thank you. And I'm just I'm really looking forward to connecting again.