I decentered men by centering women and myself

There is a lot of talk of decentering men in our lives, because if we want to deconstruct patriarchy and our internalisation of it as women, we have to decenter men. 

But I want to tell you how I started doing this almost intuitively many years ago before I even had the words to name it. I wasn’t listening to social media channels or YouTube videos about decentering men. I did, however, listen to women who talked about spirituality from a goddess and divine feminine lens. I was also drawn to women who shared content about self-help, psychology and spirituality. 

And before this, I studied sociology and politics at university and I immersed myself in intersectional feminism and thinkers like bell hooks and many others. 

So before the divine feminine came to me I was well versed in the intellectual part of feminism. We’re talking about 15 to 17 years back in time now. 

After I finished my studies, I started meditating, which was often a deep experience of centering into myself and finding that unconditional peace and bliss within myself and an expansion of my consciousness that I had never felt before.

At the same time I started dreaming about what I wanted to do in my life and what I wanted to share. I started my blog and I realised more and more that I was mostly interested in directing my content towards women. 

If I ever wanted any type of validation for what I shared online, it was women that I appreciated getting it from. 

I realised that I had almost no interest in men understanding what I was doing or saying because it wasn’t meant for them. 

In terms of how other people perceived me, I started caring more or almost only about how other women saw me, and what women had to offer me in terms of teachings and knowledge and what I might have to offer them. 

I also realised even more that I especially should learn from black, indigenous and non-white women. 

And this woman centered path that I have been on ever since then has felt natural, like coming home to my true self, and to where I’m supposed to be in this life. 

Of course, to center ourselves also means to at least partially decenter other women and other people in general. But I found that to center women and to learn from other women was a very healthy step in the right direction for me.

So what I’m trying to say is, I didn’t so much decenter men, I centered women, and I centered myself.

I started realising that my life and my future was going to be focused on women from then on, if it hadn’t been before. For me, the future really became female, because my life and my future became mostly about myself, about other women and our experiences. 

I also realised that I had to live my life for myself, if I was ever going to be able to be a positive influence for other women and girls.

My divine feminine awakening, what I now like to call my awakening into woman centered mysticism was one of the catalysts for all of this. 

I became fascinated by goddesses and mythology centered around the female mythological archetypes and creatures. I started learning more about Mary Magdalene and the women in Christian mysticism, and how that has been suppressed for many hundreds of years. 

I have also for many years been drawn to almost exclusively female centered creators, films and series with few exceptions. The films and streaming series that I watch have mostly women in the lead roles and are also created and written by women. 

This is not something that I had to think about consciously. It has come naturally to me. But now that I have learnt more about the movements of women centering themselves, and decentering men, I realise that this is what I have been doing. 

Sometimes I do feel the need to consciously think about it and make conscious choices to stay on that track. But when I think back on my life, I have actually always been a girls girl. 

It’s just that now, it’s more conscious, whereas when I was younger I still felt the need to get male validation and sometimes found it hard to fit in with other girls. 

I have more or less internalised some of the patriarchal ideas and ways of being, like most of us have. But I have become highly aware of the internal male gaze that many of us sometimes have towards ourselves and other women. 

But becoming aware of it is the first step to dissolving it. And that is something that I will keep doing, because once you see it, you can’t unseen it. 

My day job since a few years back is at a workplace dominated by women. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think I drew that experience to me, because I do believe fully in the law of attraction which simply is ‘That which is like unto itself is drawn.’ What we focus on expands. We create our own reality.

I have been thinking, living and dreaming up a woman centered life for many years and that journey continues. In fact, it has turned into dreams of a matriarchal world. 

And I know that I’m not the only one having those dreams. And when ideas are shared, they multiply and become even more powerful.