Do You Have Patriarchy Stress Disorder? (Short answer: YES, you do)

Forget the glass ceiling; the final frontier of women’s liberation lies in our own biology, says Russian-American psychologist Dr Valerie Rein. She believes that ancestral trauma – specifically, thousands of years of patriarchal oppression – has led to trauma adaptations passed down through generations that still imprison us. She calls it patriarchy stress disorder, and this is how it works.

- Robyn Maclarty

Chances are you’ve come across this Marianne Williamson quote: ‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frighten us.’ I used to vacillate between rolling my eyes and scratching my head when I heard it. It sounded profound and meaningful, but also made no sense to me. She didn’t explain why we’d be afraid of ‘being powerful beyond measure. That sounded pretty great to me. Why would anyone be afraid of it? So I dismissed it.

Until that is, I encountered the work of Dr Valerie Rein.

And then I understood.

I understood how it could be that we – women, specifically – could be terrified of our power. So terrified we hide it almost at any cost… without even realising we’re doing it. Welcome to a patriarchy stress disorder, or PSD.

Through her extensive work with women as a psychologist and life coach, Dr Rein has uncovered that most of us go through life with our subconscious signaling‘ unsafe!’ when we choose to pursue wealth, pleasure, power, relaxation, fulfillment and independence. But why would we do that?

Because of patriarchy, Dr Rein says – but not patriarchy as we know it today. While we can all agree there’s still room for improvement (such as addressing gender-based violence, institutionalized discrimination, objectification and the pay gap), women today have the same rights as men in that we can own property, hold down a job, and have our own bank accounts and money. And we can vote. We have gone through some radical liberations in a relatively short time.