‘Despite equal opportunity laws, women still have a long way to go before true equality is attained. Why? Because we don’t yet have a power foundation in society. What does this mean? Well, women’s rights and entitlement have moved forwards light years in the last three generations, and not before time – an enormous shift after millennia of disempowerment.
‘The problem is that the subconscious conditioning within us all (both men and women), the energetic benchmarks and hidden energetic structures upon which our society is based, are still from the old patriarchal past. Quite simply, these deep levels of our world just haven’t had time to catch up with where we are.
‘This means that while we are striving to create that world of true equality, with equal representation and no gender pay gap, we are all being dragged back and undermined by the legacy of the past. It’s like trying to run new software on a computer with an obsolete operating system. It just doesn’t work.
‘Women’s disempowered history constantly undermines us because our subconscious minds are not programmed yet for the 21st century – something which my two decades of research has shown. This creates enormous stress within us which is responsible for the well-documented confidence gap between women and men.
‘The more women push forwards, the more this subtle subconscious programming undermines them. It is also responsible for all those ‘knee-jerk’ responses which cause women to be overlooked or disregarded, while credibility and respect is automatically conferred upon the man – the unconscious bias. While this undercurrent of the past continues to stay hidden, nothing will change.
‘The way forwards is to shine the light of awareness on what is happening; to recognise that the subconscious world is still deeply entrenched in the past and that this continues to pull the rug out from under women in many ways.
‘By understanding that we are indeed being undermined by our past, by flagging up situations where women are being held back and sabotaged, and bringing that historical legacy into the light, we can hasten the societal and subconscious operating system update that our world needs so desperately.
‘We are on the cusp of true female empowerment at this time. Those of us who are living now have a responsibility to bring this deeper awareness and understanding to the forefront of people’s minds. We are the pioneers who are part of this process. International Women’s Day is an important contribution to this goal. It spurs us on to address discrimination, bias and attitude wherever and whenever it prevents women from experiencing unconditional equality.’
Who is Dr Anne Whitehouse
Dr Anne Whitehouse is an author, a scientist turned life alchemist, and confidence expert. Above all, she is a passionate empowerer of women, dedicated to helping them achieve their full potential by releasing the conditioning and traumas that block their success and damage their well-being.
Anne went to the University of Cambridge, where she graduated a scholar and multiple prize-winner with a first class honours degree in natural sciences. She won the 1990 Royal Charter Prize awarded by the Institute of Metals, as the top metallurgy graduate in the UK, then went on to obtain a PhD in Metal Matrix Composites and an EPSRC postdoctoral research fellowship. By 1996 she was a high-flying university lecturer in Mechanics of Materials at a leading university.
In this environment, she came up against the ‘boys’ club’, struggled with confidence and suffered stress, anxiety, and burnout, which ultimately caused her to leave her scientific career. Instead of giving up, she embarked on a quest to understand what had caused her extreme reaction in a career for which she was eminently qualified.
After 20 years of research, applying her scientific approach to the subconscious world, and working with many professional women who had gone through similar experiences, Anne developed a six key, ground-breaking code for aspirational women to unlock profound confidence by breaking free of old limitations set by the patriarchal systems encoded into our psyche.
This life-changing process is described in her impactful new book published by Rethink Press called Pull Back Your Power, which offers techniques to release women from the hidden subconscious restraints that continue to sabotage their well-being and block success, despite the freedoms of the 21st century.
Anne believes that women are being subtly undermined by the legacy of their disempowered past. The further they pull away from traditional roles, the more internal conflict is created.
This is the hidden factor responsible for stress, lack of confidence, burnout and imposter syndrome, and the reason why equal opportunities policies have failed to deliver the diversity results hoped for. When women are freed from this, they achieve more, without the personal cost so many experience at the moment.
