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Sexism in a Liberal Society
Sexism, Social Issues 667 Comments on Sexism in a Liberal Society

Sexism in a Liberal Society

By Carolien Braakenburg · On September 4, 2014

Growing up Liberal and Sexually Free

I grew up in Holland, a country well-praised for its liberalism, freedom of speech and lifestyle. I grew up thinking that in our liberal society/culture there were few of the major problems that are so prominent in the rest of the world. I did not think there were any racial problems, homophobia or sexism in my direct community. Where I lived, people were openly gay in schools and I personally did not even notice if your skin colour was different. I thought it was great that we allowed ‘soft’ drug use and believed our country was a role model for a ‘live and let live’ attitude.

I grew into a teenager thinking I was very liberal, that there wasn’t a problem with sexism and I did not even know the word misogyny. I thought I was sexually free and did not have an issue with nakedness. I would go to saunas and believed it was normal to be nude around other people in this setting and the only discomfort I felt was because I had issues with my body. Of course there was the odd pervert around, but I only thought of it as annoying.

Sexism and Misogyny… Not such a Big Deal?

But was this real?

In recent years I have been reading a lot about sexism and misogyny.

My first response to it was that doesn’t happen where I live…

When I started to see that sexism and misogyny actually was happening much more than I thought, my second response was, “Geez people, why make such a big deal about the little things? It’s cool to have a bit of fun, it is not meant in a bad way.” etc. etc.

I thought the ‘feminist reactions’ were exaggerated and unnecessary.

But I was so wrong!

Only slowly did it dawn on me how wrong I was, after I was stopped by a simple question. I was asked to look at my own experiences as a woman and to see how many times I personally had come across sexism.

I was shocked at what I found. Just looking at my teenage years, I came to a full-page list of assaults ranging from remarks about my breasts or bum to downright groping and grabbing – most of them in the latter category. And this list was just the type of incidents, not how many times they occurred.

I had even twice narrowly escaped very serious assault attempts; once by a group of boys and once by a man chasing me in the streets at night.

I began to see instantly that things like misogyny and sexism
were a big deal…

The Shocking Normalisation of Sexism and Sexual Behaviour

After realising this, I felt to ask around my female friends and every single one of them had had similar experiences.

This shook me to my core: in my ‘liberal’ society there was not a single woman who had not experienced some form of sexism or inappropriate sexual behaviour, from the so-called ‘mildest’ of misogynistic comments to instances of outright physical and sexual abuse.

The truth of what was and is really going on was starting to form in front of my eyes and I realised that I had grown up believing that sexism was normal.

The reason I thought we did not have deeply embedded problems in our society was because I was looking at the extremes and had learned to dismiss the less extreme incidents.

I had been taught by society that this was normal behaviour from men, and we as women should take it as a compliment and not be fussy about it; that this was the game between men and women and I was expected to play it and like it.

In fact I had learned to ‘numb out’ how I truly felt about this, and adjusted to being a way that I thought I needed to be – to be socially accepted.

I now realise how deeply ingrained these totally harming sexual dynamics between men and women are, in even the most ‘liberal’ societies in this world. Through magazines, videos, songs, books, movies and all media we are being bombarded with images and stories ingraining and supporting the ideals and beliefs we hold as women and men – that tell us that sexism is ‘natural’ and acceptable behaviour.

The simple truth is that even though in most modern/liberal societies men are more and more willing to say women are equal, underneath that there is still a consciousness of sexism and a deep momentum driving a belief system based on the roles that men and women ‘should’ play.

There is so much more to look at than is generally thought about.

Yes, it is great progress that we now have many men in our society who are thinking it is natural for them to take a more active role within the household, taking care of the kids or cooking a meal. But this is not the end of sexism. The same man who is washing the dishes at home could be in a bar with his friends, mouthing off about the ‘big tits’ on ‘that’ women on the other side of the room.

Addressing Sexism in a Liberal Society and the Natural Way to be

In the past couple of years I have come to feel the impact of living with the beliefs and ideals that actually supported sexism.

I had completely shut down my sensitivity, tenderness and delicateness as a woman while thinking I was ‘free’ in my body. I had bought into the ideals and beliefs of a so called liberal society so much that I thought addressing sexism was considered extreme or overly feminist.

I see it very clearly now:

Sexism is a very big problem in our society today. It has exploded into a very worrying ‘normalised’ behaviour that is seriously affecting everyone, especially our youth.

Both boys and girls, men and women have gotten caught in this increasingly sexualised game and the extremes are growing more and more obvious, leading to very unnatural behaviour, if you consider how delicate and sensitive we really are. But in a world where sensitivity is not accepted, we have become so hardened in our ‘liberal society’ that it takes really awful things for us to see and feel the extremes which keep spiraling downwards.

We can only truly address these problems if we are willing to see the depth of sexism, and that really there is no level of sexism that could be seen as ‘harmless fun’.

  • As women we need to look at what we have allowed or bought into.
  •  As men we need to look at our behaviours and the beliefs we have taken on about what it means to be a man.

In our so-called liberal societies, or any society in fact, it is time to address sexism and misogyny and what we have deemed as ‘normal’ and realise this is not normal at all. And nor is it natural, as the natural way for men and women to be is immensely tender, sensitive, open and delicate.

As I have seen, there are many men and women who, inspired by the work of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, choose not to normalise so-called ‘liberal’ sexual behaviours, who are living proof of our naturally tender and loving ways… of how different we can be, as men and women, without the impost of the various roles we play and the ingrained male/female behaviours we take on.

By Carolien Braakenburg, Self-employed, 42, Belgium

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Carolien Braakenburg

Belgium based Dutchie that has travelled the world and loves communication. Learning every day about love, life and people and finding pretty much everything interesting, wishing i could study it all. I literally stop to smell the roses, love the changing skies, the small things of beauty in everyday and can watch playing dogs without end.

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667 Comments

  • Mary says: April 24, 2020 at 2:28 pm

    We are encouraged from a very young age to shut down our sensitivity, tenderness and delicateness we are all born with and replace these natural feelings with ideals and beliefs which are fed to us from the day we are born. There is a consciousness that does not want to be exposed and so works very hard from behind the scenes to keep us all ignorant of what is really going on and anyone who dares to expose the lies we are living are persecuted in much the same way as the inquisitions of old.

    Reply
  • Alexis Stewart says: November 14, 2019 at 2:46 pm

    There’s no such thing as ‘freedom of speech’, we all get given the words that come out of our mouths by whatever consciousness we have aligned to. The very idea that ‘freedom of speech’ is even possible comes from the pranic consciousness because the fiery consciousness knows that all of our movements (and speech is a movement) get given to us dependant on the quality of the movements that have gone before.

    Reply
  • Mary Adler says: February 14, 2019 at 4:08 pm

    When yesterday’s extremes are today’s normal everyone is less. We can offer a change to make yesterday’s emotional love become today’s true love for all.

    Reply
  • Greg Barnes says: January 28, 2019 at 7:31 pm

    Teaching our young that everyone is offered at-least decency and respect would turn the way we treat each other, into a much deeper and meaning-full relationship, so True Love would develop.

    Reply
  • Melinda Knights says: January 8, 2019 at 7:12 am

    Sexism is really a study in how we allow standards to drop, accept them as normal, and make abuse a part of everyday life. In the student body of Universal Medicine men and women relate to each other from the qualities of their true essence, with tenderness, delicateness, preciousness, and sacredness. There is an understanding that we are much greater than human flesh, that we are multidimensional divine beings that come from the body of God, and have a place within the universe.

    Reply
  • Danna Elmalah says: November 9, 2018 at 6:56 am

    What a beautiful question: ‘..of how different we can be, as men and women, without the impost of the various roles we play and the ingrained male/female behaviours we take on.’
    That is a true question we must ask. When we lay down our pencils of how we need to be and what we need to do, we are left with a paper of space, filled by our choice to either be love (our true selves) or not.

    Reply
  • Lorraine says: October 31, 2018 at 3:59 pm

    We do all have a responsibility to call out abuse in any area, for if we do not we are actually contributing to this energy.

    Reply
  • Amparo Lorente Cháfer says: October 27, 2018 at 2:15 am

    Being aware of how sexism is ingrained in every detail of our society is what allows us to understand its effects and stop them in our life.

    Reply
    • Carolien Braakenburg says: October 28, 2018 at 1:35 am

      this is well said Amaparo for it is engrained in every culture across this planet. It is not about the extremes, they are just the biggest branches on the tree, we need to go straight down to the roots and see how aced we all are with this quality of energy.

      Reply
  • Lorraine Wellman says: October 23, 2018 at 4:33 pm

    Our lack of love and appreciation for self can play into sexism more than most care to admit.

    Reply
  • Helen Elliott says: September 20, 2018 at 7:19 pm

    Being liberal is often championed as being good but looking at this definition ‘open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values’ the thing that stands out for me is that nowhere is feeling what is true mentioned. A lot of potential abuse becomes allowable if people live in fear of being accused of being stuck in the past etc and unless we are willing to take a stand and say that this behaviour is not acceptable we are complicit in it happening.

    Reply
  • Ingrid Ward says: August 12, 2018 at 8:51 am

    I absolutely agree Carolien that “there is no level of sexism that could be seen as ‘harmless fun” and it’s quite shocking that we have arrived at a point in our evolution where we have even considered this. I feel the same about the term ‘casual racism’ I read for the first time recently which once again shocked me. As far as I am concerned any form of racism is unacceptable as is any form of sexism. These accepted ‘normals’ are totally damaging our society and we need to take a long honest look at the lesser way of living we now seem to be accepting without very little questioning.

    Reply
  • Joshua Campbell says: June 1, 2018 at 1:03 am

    There is no true equality if the body is being abused in the process. Therefore sexism is more like an arrangement than true equalness.

    Reply
  • MW says: April 26, 2018 at 6:09 am

    Recently I have become more aware of how I have allowed a level of abuse from men and how in doing so this has been an abuse on them and also it turns to an internal abuse on myself which perpetuates this more. I have stopped seeking men’s approval and holding back so that they feel more comfortable, I am more at ease to walk away from a relationship that is not deeply honouring without being hooked back in by need. It has come from knowing my quality and accepting nothing less.

    Reply
    • Carolien says: April 27, 2018 at 4:02 am

      Great insight to realise that allowing abuse goes both ways MW, there are no winners in these situations and both genders are left less then their true expression.

      Reply
    • Mary says: April 24, 2020 at 2:38 pm

      It is very interesting to watch myself around men and to dissect the little nuances of energy that are swirling around. In the past I have allowed through my own lack of self worth to be abused by men I have now claimed myself back but I am very aware as I have said that there is a potential to defer to their knowing and understanding rather than to hold true to what I know to be my truth.

      Reply
  • Jennifer Smith says: April 15, 2018 at 7:06 am

    We so crave intimate and tender relationships with one another, that we have replaced that with being sexual. Intimacy and tenderness can be in the glance of our eyes and has nothing to do with sexual behaviours.

    Reply
    • Carolien says: April 16, 2018 at 1:27 pm

      well said Jennifer, having sex is a very pale comparison to being intimate that only offers temporary relief where building true intimacy is deeply fulfilling and can be have in any moment with any person.

      Reply
    • Alexis Stewart says: November 14, 2019 at 1:48 pm

      I agree absolutely with you Jennifer and likewise there can be not an ounce of intimacy is full sexual intercourse, in fact many of us have had sex so as to avoid having to be intimate with a partner. It can be easier to have intercourse than to look into another’s eyes and to have them look into ours.

      Reply
  • John O Connell says: March 25, 2018 at 7:27 pm

    ” Liberal Society ”
    I found it funny reading this for in truth one needs to be liberated from society as it is. For a society without love in expression is not liberal society.

    Reply
  • Joseph Barker says: March 18, 2018 at 12:10 pm

    Sexism is so laced in our society – we think we are tackling it when we see the extreme bits. Just because we have ‘equal opportunity employers’ does not negate the simple fact that we misrepresent and settle for less when it comes to what men and women really are. Its kind of inevitable we have lots of issues when we forget our true essence. Thank you Carolien.

    Reply
    • Carolien says: April 16, 2018 at 1:30 pm

      So very true Joseph, sexism runs much deeper and wider then we are ready to admit at this point in time. Although it is great that the excesses are surfacing more and more the underlying stream is still flowing strong.

      Reply
    • Mary says: April 24, 2020 at 2:51 pm

      I read an article recently that said that there are more women than men on the front line as it were in the healthcare industry treating and caring for patients during this Covid-19 outbreak than men and they were also the lowest paid. And yet they are currently and in my opinion important people as they are the carers of the sick. This is yet another example of women having extremely important roles in society but being paid a pittance because what they do is not valued in our society.

      Reply
  • Carolien says: March 16, 2018 at 6:21 am

    I would agree Joshua, there are many ways we identify with our gender and often they are nothing like what we are in essence, the absolutely tenderness, love, sensitivity, we all share it equally.

    Reply
  • Joshua Campbell says: March 14, 2018 at 6:03 pm

    I feel one of the roots of sexism is identifying ourselves with genders instead of seeing and feeling the fact that underneath every single one of us is the same unalterable Essence of Love we all are and come from.

    Reply
    • Helen Elliott says: September 20, 2018 at 7:22 pm

      Well said Joshua and it is only when we embrace that we all come from the same divine essence that we will truly address the abuses of sexism that have become so rife in all societies, liberal or not.

      Reply
  • Gabriele Conrad says: March 12, 2018 at 6:18 am

    Thinking that we are free and liberated because we don’t shy away from nakedness while secretly carrying around hang-ups about our body shape plays right into the hands of misogyny and sexism. It condones abusive behaviour and makes the woman complicit in the act, along the lines of, “I’ll do anything as long as I am not judged as prudish or frigid”.

    Reply
    • Carolien says: March 13, 2018 at 7:22 am

      Well said Gabriele, we have bought into sexism much more than we care to admit. How often do we as women deep down feel we want to tick the boxes of sexism? How much do we cover up our lack of self worth by trying to get acceptance or even just a glance of approval by the way we look and behave?

      Reply
  • Danna Elmalah says: March 6, 2018 at 5:36 pm

    What a powerful blog – exactly as it is. We are not free from sexism and this sexism is actual abuse. And so, we must pay more attention to why we have allowed such abuse in our lives and why we have normalised sexism to be normal in our world. Where are we truly escaping from standing up for?

    Reply
  • Leigh Strack says: February 26, 2018 at 9:30 pm

    The deeply imbedded lack of appreciation for who we are lies sneakily and scathingly below the sexism we have in society. To address this at its core is to again live on earth our true essence.

    Reply
  • Carolien says: February 26, 2018 at 3:57 pm

    The teenagers of today are suffering the over sexualisation and overexposure to porn in their interactions. We cannot say this is the fault of the internet as the internet is a reflection of what we are living and our behaviours in society. Our youth is reflecting back just how lost we are and still we do not want to see it.

    Reply
    • Leigh Strack says: March 2, 2018 at 9:03 pm

      A comment that needs to be considered with the depth of understanding our true responsibility. This is not to take on the pressures of others, but to live a life of truth and honesty, a life that seeks to halt any behaviors that do not bring the settlednes of being our selves as our way in our world. Our youth need these solid, clear, caring, supportive behaviors to be lived so they have a role model on which to model their lives.

      Reply
  • Meg says: February 26, 2018 at 4:05 am

    How sex, sexual behaviours, objectification and sexism have spread throughout all levels of society is a great indicator of how low we have dropped our standards. I’m not sure why decency is now called “old fashioned decency”, perhaps it’s time to bring back decency, integrity and respect and reinstall it into society in a big way.

    Reply
    • Carolien says: February 26, 2018 at 3:55 pm

      I agree Meg and it shows that contrary to what we may think we have not progressed and evolved over time but instead have lost even basic and natural ways of decency and integrity.

      Reply
    • Alexis Stewart says: November 14, 2019 at 2:49 pm

      Most people aren’t ready yet to reinstate decency and respect, we need to stoop much lower than we currently have before we independently choose to change our ways. We’re still kidding ourselves that we’re having a good time and as long as we’re able to do that then we won’t feel the inclination to change.

      Reply
  • Carolien says: February 21, 2018 at 3:35 pm

    Well said Elizabeth, there is no worse or better when it comes to abuse as it all contributes the same quality of energy. This is not to belittle the gross atrocities that are taking place around the world but to bring to light the graveness of what we have deemed as acceptable or minor.

    Reply
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