Meeting My Internalised Misogyny (A Dream That Wouldn't Let Go)

Being poked & prodded by my own internalised misogyny. Original artwork © Mea Jordaan 2026

It came to me as a dream.

Comments from my mother about my body.

A pink cake, at a kitchen table surrounded by women. I knew it was for me. I said, "that's my cake! I want some too!"

Someone replies, "then have some, it's for you." As I have a slice, the women disperse.

The wall I was still bound by

Outside I find myself in a medieval village. I'm searching for someone but I don't know who.

I find a stone wall, wider at the bottom than the top, and decide to climb it. As I walk across it two people, a man and a woman, ask me if I'm ready. I reply yes and follow them towards a stadium. At one point I am paralysed by fear. I have to crouch down and shimmy across, but I get there eventually. As I'm doing this my guides are confused about my behaviour. The woman says to me, "I thought you were ready."

When I think of this now, it feels so obvious. I always refer to unconscious beliefs as walls, and here it was. I was on top of it, still bound by it. I can see it clearly, yet still it traps me. It fills me with fear, yet I push through and go along with it.

The wedding

Eventually we reach the stadium, and somehow I know the gathering is for me. It's a wedding — I am marrying some familiar yet unnamed man. It feels like I've known him my whole life. At the same time, I can hear people whispering about me as if I weren't there. I feel unsettled and betrayed.

There is more fear and panic as I am surrounded by a deafening crowd. I try to escape out the side, but I find myself hanging off a cliff face. The man rescues me, and carries me back.

The waterfall, and the boys on the rock

After that, I exit the arena with some boys. I feel like I belong with them. We enter a beautiful and tranquil jungle. We're walking along a rock face with a waterfall and have to climb down the last section. I look down into a pool below. The water is beautiful and clear, yet there are whirlpools with some kind of yellow gunk swirling in them.

We jump into the pool and swim across. We climb out onto a hot, porous rock in the middle of the water. As we sit there, the boys begin to poke and prod at me, commenting on my body.

At that point my cat woke me up, but I think the dream did its job.

What the dream was showing me

Some dreams carry significant weight, and this was one of them. It was so vivid, so consuming, and left such a distinct impression on me. I wrote down the details as soon as I woke up, not knowing what it all means but knowing that it's important. I haven't recounted them all here, there was a lot more to it.

I didn't get it at the time I wrote it all down. I came back to it days later, and it felt a lot clearer to me then.

It struck me that perhaps this dream was showing me that it was not just the world enacting misogyny on me, but that I was participating in it myself. Those boys on the rock are not separate from me — they're aspects of myself. Innocent products of their environment and conditioning.

It strikes me as I write this that every time I judge my body, I participate in this system that hurts me. It makes me tremendously sad to consider how many of us fall into this trap of believing that our bodies are only as good as their capacity to be attractive for the paedophilic male gaze that's idealised as the standard of worthiness.

Each time I devalue my worth to my appearance, I give credence to that system.

Each time I perform femininity instead of allowing myself to be who I am, I am participating in my own oppression.

Each time I compare myself to another woman, I am separating myself from female connection.

Honouring the sacred space within

So what do I do with this information now that I have it? I can't pretend that I haven't seen the truth, but I also know that I haven't fully grasped the depth to which this conditioning goes. I had this dream over two years ago and I'm still learning from it.

I frequently think of that sacred waterfall in the jungle. It feels like coming home. It's not the first time that I've dreamt of it. It is wild and untamed, and it is absolutely beautiful.

How do I honour this sacred space within myself? It feels like a missing piece to a puzzle.

I don't have the answer, but I use it as a guiding principle. I can start by asking, what is this adding to my internal landscape? My relationship with my intuition plays a major role here. Maybe that's actually the answer.

I honour the sacred within me by being conscious of it. When I choose that instead of the wall that's containing me, I am living up to my own highest standard. And I really don't mean this in a grandiose way. I mean it in a practical, everyday, grounded in how I go through my day kind of way.

Tension, awareness and intention

A lot of my stress comes from hidden expectations I've created for situations. Why is it so hard to relax? I notice that when I actually notice how tense I am, I can relax myself. But it takes effort. And moments later I am tense again, unconsciously. Do I just keep noticing, until the habit is eventually flipped? Is the problem actually the 3 cups of coffee I've had? Do I just like feeling tense because it feels like I'm doing something?

I can tell that I am probably overthinking something quite simple, which is that it actually does all come down to awareness and intention.

My tension comes back because I am not fully aware, and consequently acting without intention. It's almost like my body is putting on the brakes when my mind is moving too fast.

Union is the key.

At the same time, I am very careful not to believe that there is something wrong with me that needs fixing. Managing tension is my responsibility, but it's not my fault that I experience it. There is a fine distinction here.

How this ties into a bigger system

The capitalist structure of society is designed in a way where safety isn't guaranteed unless you are at the very top of the pyramid. That is a very real and persistent concern for the majority of humans.

Our ability to survive through our own effort has been dismantled into a series of systems that require capital to participate in. This would be ok if we all had equal access to capital, but I think we can all agree that hard work does not guarantee you anything in the system.

How does this tie in with my internalised misogyny? It ties my worth to my ability to "succeed" in a system designed to both exploit and disempower me.

These things are not separate. It is extremely powerful for me to take back this power by reworking it (the persistent tension) into something of my own intention. It's the personal shift that needs to happen in order for a greater change to take place.

The point is that I'm doing my best to remain conscious of what's going on and choosing how I respond to it, instead of unconsciously reacting.

The curiosity that liberates

It feels like there is so much interwoven here. It really is deep, identity-level thought-patterns that I am trying to untangle. It seems as if there is always another layer to uncover.

And I am so here for that. It's the kind of curiosity that liberates me. There aren't just problems to be found out there, and that's precisely the point. I don't have to treat every part of life like a problem to solve. I can just be a witness, and choose when to participate.

Anyway. I think I got what I needed from writing this. I hope it can offer you some insight that's helpful in your life.