how to kill the man inside your head

A feminist's guide to unlearning internalised misogyny.

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Do you have a man in your head? Gazing at the world through your eyes? Judging? Does he make you second-guess everything you do to simply exist? Does he tell you you aren’t enough? You need to cover up more? Do you occupy too much space?

Does he give you a list of things to do in order to please him? What angles he finds sexy? What number on the scale is acceptable to him? How to protect your femininity? Does he watch you pretend to care about things you don’t and ignore things you do?

Don’t worry. You aren’t alone.

I have a man inside my head too.

When I was 12, he watched me dry-shave my legs and leave wet tissue papers over the cuts.

When I was 15, he told me I wasn’t like other girls. That I was different. And I’d continue to be different if I distanced myself from them.

When I was 17, he watched me cry as I bled through my school uniform pants and told me I had to make sure nobody knew.

When I was 19, he watched me go to bed hungry and work out for hours. He told me it was okay. He liked me better lighter.

When I was 21, he told me I was disgusting and impure when a man forced himself on me.

He watched me speak. He precisely measured out the amount of sweetness I had to inject into my tone to be womanly. He watched me cross my legs as I sat down holding my skirt in place. He watched me cover up voluntarily. He told me my hair had to be long and pretty. That my tan wasn’t the sign of a happy child but that of a woman who has lost herself. He watched me defend him. He watched me tell other girls they were too girly and that’s why nobody takes them seriously.

All my life, through my eyes, he looked at other women and told me I had to be different from them. That they were my competition. That I had to be jealous of them. That being feminine is bad but also what I was supposed to do. I believed him. Everything I did, I made sure I had his approval. It was exhausting.

The man in my head was the personification of the misogyny I had internalised. He was the agent of patriarchy assigned to me. He was also a family heirloom.

His father was inside my mother’s head until she murdered him. His grandfather still resides inside my grandmother’s head. I ask her to kill him. She says he is not like other men. He keeps her in check. She loves him more than anything. My grandmother explains to me that without the man inside her head, she will lose her way, culture will crumble, and society will collapse.

The man inside my head made sure he kept me in my place. He made me believe that patriarchy didn’t hate all women. They just hate the ones who loved themselves. The women who thought. The women who questioned. The women who rebelled. The women who had killed the men inside their heads.

As I grew up, he started making less and less sense. I noticed that his words were contradictory. I noticed he was a liar. The women around me were nothing like what he had taught me. They weren’t attention-seeking. They weren’t bitches. They weren’t opportunists. They weren’t fake. They were sensitive. They were empathetic. They were resourceful. They were kind. They were beautiful. They were smart. They were me. I was them.

So, I decided to kill him. It wasn’t easy.

Every day I poisoned him a little bit. I fought with him. I confronted him. I asked him to leave me alone. I told him God is a woman. I told him he can’t control me. I told him I wanted to be like the women around me.

He told me he hated me. Then he told me he loved me and missed the old me — the misogynist me. I cried, screamed, and questioned my existence.

But the women around me helped me again.

They told me that the first step to killing the man inside my head was to accept his existence. “Yes, there is a man inside my head. Yes, I have internalised misogyny. But I will kill him,” I told myself.

They told me to be kind to myself. They told me to sit with my feelings. Did I feel personally attacked when a feminist made a perfectly valid argument against a double standard? Why was that? What made me think that she was coming for me?

They asked me to read feminist thinkers and make decisions for myself without consulting the man inside my head. Oh, how refreshing was that!

They asked me to believe in myself. That I was smart and resourceful. That I didn’t have to prove to the world that I am good at what I do. That I was entitled to take up space.

They told me to unlearn the language I was brought up with. For instance, they told me that women don’t give men sex. It wasn’t theirs to take. It was a mutual activity that both should derive pleasure from.

They told me that femininity wasn’t bad. They told me that it was okay to enjoy the things I liked. That I wasn’t better for not enjoying cooking. That I wasn’t better because I liked watching sports. That I could exist as both. That being feminine wasn’t being a woman. That being masculine wasn’t being a man. They encouraged me to explore my androgeny.

They told me all they wanted for me was to find myself, think for myself, and act for myself.

And do you know what I got in return?

I got myself. I got a community. I got my biggest cheerleaders. I got my harshest critics. I got people who would defend my name in rooms I haven’t been to. I got people who hold my hand as I go through this journey called life. I got to experience the purest form of love — platonic female friendships.

Female friendships <3

After all this while, the man inside my head isn’t dead. He is merely dormant.

On the days I have my guard down, he wakes up and tells me that the girl with leg hair is gross. That the single woman in her 50s must be sad. That the single mother doesn’t value herself. That the unapologetic woman is a slut. That the fat woman is unloveable. That I need to make myself lighter again. That my nose is too big. That my tummy is too jiggly. And I believe him. Just for a moment. Until I bludgeon him to comatose once again.