Let’s Talk About the Rules That Never Made Sense
This isn’t rebellion. It’s returning to what we already know is right.
Most of us were handed a world already scripted.
A world that told us what a “real man” is.
What a “good woman” is.
What success should look like.
What love is supposed to mean.
We didn’t choose these rules.
We inherited them.
From parents who were trapped inside them.
From schools that taught us how to obey.
From movies that dressed control as romance.
From systems that value profit over presence, and silence over emotional clarity.
But somewhere in all of us, common sense still lived.
The quiet voice that said:
This doesn’t feel right. This doesn’t make sense. This is hurting people.
What This Layer Is For
This is not a war between genders.
This is not a fight for who’s right.
This is a chance to pause, look around, and ask:
Who decided these were the rules?
And what would happen if we stopped following them?
Each page in this layer is a soft dismantling of what never worked.
Not just for women. Not just for men. But for all of us.
We’re not here to shame anyone.
We’re here to see clearly.
Because once you see a system for what it is—
you don’t need to fight it.
You just stop feeding it.
What You’ll Find in This Layer
- 🧠 The false idea that power = control
- 🧍♂️ The emotional harm behind “real man” and “good woman” roles
- 💰 The pressure to prove your worth through money
- 🏃♀️ The lie that burnout is success
- 🔒 The myth that love means possession
- 🌿 And finally—what we’re building instead
You’ll see gradient scales, common sense blocks, and emotional maps.
Not just to name what’s broken.
But to show the path back to what’s real.
You don’t have to destroy the old system.
You just have to stop living inside it.
And start building something that actually makes sense.
⌗ Comparative Framework Chart
Framework 5 – “Breaking the False Models of Our Society” × Classic Theories of Power, Social Conditioning & Internalised Harm
Paretas “False Model” | System Message (“rule”) | Social / Political Theory Anchor | Psychological Internalisation Lens | Nervous-System / Trauma Angle |
Rules That Never Made Sense | “The world is already scripted—obey the script.” | Durkheim’s social facts; Berger & Luckmann’s social construction of reality; Gramsci’s cultural hegemony | Mental-model lock-in: people use inherited schemas to interpret life | Chronic low-grade stress keeps vigilance high, reducing capacity to question norms |
Illusion of Power | “Dominate or be dominated.” | Weber’s domination types; Foucault’s micro-physics of power & discipline; Marxist “false consciousness” | External locus of control → learned helplessness when power is unattainable | Amygdala hyper-arousal under threat fuels control-seeking; ventral striatum rewards status wins |
Emotional Cost of Obedience | “Good people comply.” | Milgram’s obedience studies; Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatuses; Political-conditioning research | Conditioned conformity: classical & operant social conditioning of civic behaviour | Sympathetic activation whenever dissent = danger; eventual dorsal collapse (freeze) |
Gender Cage | “Real men provide / real women please.” | Patriarchal bargain (Kandiyoti); West & Zimmerman’s “doing gender”; Connell’s hegemonic masculinity | Internalised sexism → self-silencing, fawn response | Long-term cortisol elevation & immune cost of role strain (allostatic load) |
Cost of Being “Good” | “Value = emotional labour & silence.” | Hochschild’s emotional-labour theory; Feminist critiques of unpaid care work | Fawning & people-pleasing as trauma-bond strategy | Ventral vagal shutdown → numbness, dissociation to keep the peace |
Burnout of Modern Success | “Produce or you don’t matter.” | Weber’s Protestant-work-ethic; Merton’s strain theory; Neoliberal governmentality (Foucault) | Learned helplessness in the face of impossible success metrics 5 | HPA-axis exhaustion → burnout; hippocampal shrinkage after prolonged stress |
Love ≠ Ownership / Pact of Silence | “Possession equals love; silence equals loyalty.” | Goffman’s dramaturgy (face-work to hide abuse); Stark’s coercive-control; Collective “pact” upholds patriarchy | Trauma-bonding; attachment anxieties; by-stander apathy | Polyvagal collapse in victims; predatory calm (low empathy) in perpetrators |
How the Matches Land
- Social constructionists show that we inherit ready-made “mental models” that feel natural until spotlighted—exactly the “rules that never made sense” Paretas asks us to question .
- Marx and the Frankfurt School coined “false consciousness” to describe populations mistaking control for safety—mirroring the “illusion of power” section .
- Seligman & Maier’s learned-helplessness experiments explain why people under rigid hierarchies first over-comply, then emotionally shut down, reinforcing the obedience–burnout cycle Paretas maps 5.
- Political-conditioning scholarship shows schools, media and civic rituals reward scripted responses—directly echoing Paretas’ critique of schooling and silence .
This space is for the ones who don't gatekeep. Who learn out loud. Who value emotional safety over performance. We’re not here to be perfect— we’re here to grow, together.
The Emotional Gradient Blueprint (TEG-Blue™) © 2025 by Anna Paretas
Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
This is a living document. Please cite responsibly.
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