The Silent Incarceration: How the System Strips Women of Their Subjectivity and Keeps Them Captive

Saturday, April 12, 2025

Introduction:

In a world designed to suppress, the system works relentlessly to empty women of their subjectivity. From birth, women are groomed to exist in relation to external expectations—defined by others, subject to societal forces that dictate their worth, value, and place in the world. This creates a fragile and exploitable space within them, one that is ripe for manipulation, control, and trauma.

The Systemic Stripping of Subjectivity:

From the moment girls are born, the world begins the process of dispossession. They are taught to deny their truth, to suppress their inner voices, to trade authenticity for compliance. Through socialization, media, education, and cultural norms, women are encouraged to question themselves, their feelings, their bodies, their needs. Over time, this erasure of subjectivity leaves women disconnected from their own power, their own truth.

The Traumatic Confrontation:

Then comes the inevitable encounter with trauma—whether through abuse, systemic violence, or personal loss. And in these moments, women are left without the necessary tools to process. Their voices are not validated, their pain dismissed, and their emotions invalidated. In the absence of subjectivity, trauma becomes not just an emotional wound, but a psychological prison. Women are left to navigate this trauma without the clarity to understand it, much less the power to heal from it.

The Erring of Captivity:

Once the stripping of subjectivity has occurred, once the internal space of a woman has been depleted of its original voice, a new form of captivity begins to take hold. It is not an obvious, outward imprisonment—there are no chains to be seen, no bars to be touched. Instead, it is a psychological incarceration where the woman becomes both the prisoner and the captor.

After being disconnected from their own inner truth, women are left in a state of fragmentation, where their emotions and experiences are no longer validated by their own perception but instead are molded by external forces. The world tells them how to feel, how to react, and how to interpret their own suffering. In doing so, they are forced into a kind of psychic exile, wandering within themselves without the clarity to make sense of their reality.

What does this wandering look like?

It begins with the deep internal confusion that arises when a woman is no longer certain of her own emotions. Dissonance becomes the foundation of her experience. She feels the weight of her trauma, but she is never allowed to fully understand it. Instead, it’s reframed by the system as something to be fixed, as a brokenness that can only be healed by conforming to a prescribed notion of healing.

Her experience becomes externalized, no longer truly hers. She is told how to grieve, how to survive, how to react. In doing so, the woman is alienated from herself, and she is drifted further away from her own truth. The result is a continuous cycle of emotional disorientation. She is unable to process her trauma because she has not been given the tools to understand her own emotional and psychological landscape.

And yet, she is encouraged to move on. The system demands that women are productive, resilient, and forward-facing—without ever confronting the depths of what they have endured. This pressure to keep moving forward without acknowledging the internal chaos further reinforces the cycle of captivity. Women feel as though they must push through their pain, bury it deeper, or mask it with actions that serve the expectations of others, rather than confront the core of their own suffering.

In this state of psychic captivity, women may feel as if they are lost in a fog—reaching for something, but never fully grasping it. This mental and emotional disorientation creates a sense of hopelessness: not only do they not know how to heal, but they are also convinced that the key to their healing is outside of themselves, that only through others can they regain their sense of self.

This externalization of healing creates a disempowering loop where women continuously search for recognition or validation from external authorities, whether those be therapists, family, or societal structures. They may even find themselves in situations where they beg for approval or seek approval from their oppressors, in the false hope that their healing can come from outside forces. In this loop, they remain caught in the system’s trap, endlessly seeking something that can only be found within themselves.

Society not only strips women of their personal sovereignty but also offers a one-size-fits-all solution to their pain: the reconstruction of their identity through normative structures that promise to fill the void left by trauma. These structures include the pressure to return to the model of the stable couple, marriage, children, and the idea of fulfillment through external validation.

When women are traumatized and in need of healing, they are often pushed towards a narrative of “normality”—as if stability and heteronormative relationships are the answers to their suffering. Instead of being supported in finding their own voice and healing on their own terms, women are expected to follow the prescribed roles that the system suggests: meet the right person, get married, have children, and, in some way, fill the emptiness they feel with the responsibilities and structures society deems appropriate.

Women are often told that they must fit into these rigid structures of societal expectations. If they just meet the “right” person, they will be healed. Marriage and family become solutions offered to women as if the external reality will restore their inner equilibrium. This narrative dismisses the true healing journey — one that requires self-validation, self-reflection, and the courage to heal outside the roles imposed by society.

This pressure to fit into a normative life path creates a new layer of captivity. Women are led to believe that their worth is tied to family roles, and that their healing must be completed through external validation: the validation of a partner, children, and a socially acceptable life path. The belief that one’s worth is defined by relationships is perpetuated by a system that thrives on keeping women in roles that can be controlled and manipulated.

But here’s the crux of it: liberation cannot come from these external sources. As long as women remain in this cycle of looking outward, they are trapped in captivity. The system feeds them the idea that their truth, their power, their healing lies in the approval or recognition of others. The truth, however, is that healing comes from within. It is in reclaiming their inner sovereignty, in reclaiming their narrative, that true freedom begins.

The key to breaking out of this erring captivity is not just acknowledging the pain, but reclaiming one’s subjective truth. This requires a radical internal shift—one that says, “I no longer seek validation from the outside. I no longer allow my trauma to define me, nor do I allow the world to tell me how to heal.” This shift allows women to step out of the cycle of self-erasure, and into a new space where they can honor their experience without shame or guilt. They are free to heal on their own terms.

“Radical Reclamation”, il est essentiel qu’on développe un processus profond, une redéfinition personnelle, une guérison autonome qui va au-delà des solutions prescrites par la société ou les structures normatives. C’est là que l’on touche au cœur de la libération individuelle.

Je vais m’appuyer sur tout ce que nous avons exploré jusqu’ici pour donner encore plus de poids à cette idée de réappropriation radicale de soi-même. Cela doit être un acte de souveraineté, une manière de se libérer, non seulement des attentes extérieures, mais aussi des illusions qu’impose le monde autour.

Radical Reclamation:

The path to true healing lies in the radical reclamation of the self. This is not a simple process of self-improvement or therapy, but a complete reconfiguration of the way a woman relates to herself, her pain, and her power. The system we live in strives to keep women disconnected from their inner truth, feeding them the narrative that their worth and healing depend on external validation, structures, and roles. But in the radical reclamation, a woman learns to rediscover herself, not through external approval, but through an authentic reconnection with her core essence.

This reclamation is not a return to something that was lost, but rather a creation of something new — a new identity, forged from the fire of pain, but reconstructed from her own vision and truth. True healing begins here, when a woman refuses to let her pain define her, and instead transforms that pain into power. She does not seek validation from society’s narrow standards; she builds her own.

The first step in this reclamation is accepting the truth of her experience. This means embracing the trauma, acknowledging the wounds, and taking full ownership of the story she has lived. Unlike the systems that have sought to erase her subjectivity, the woman in the process of reclamation owns her narrative — no longer defined by the roles and identities others have imposed on her, but by the truth she knows to be hers. This truth is hers to shape, hers to claim, hers to use as the foundation of her healing.

Reclaiming the self means rejecting the external prescriptions — the idea that marriage, family, or partnership are the only answers to a woman’s worth or healing. It is in the rejection of these external solutions that the woman starts to build a new kind of sovereignty. The systems around her might insist that her worth is contingent upon relationships, that healing can only come through external sources, but in the radical reclamation, she recognizes that true healing comes from within. It is in creating space for her own story, in rejecting the imposed narratives, that she starts to heal herself.

A significant part of this process is reclaiming the body. For women, the body is often the first battlefield — objectified, controlled, manipulated, and exploited. To reclaim the self is to reclaim the body — not as an object, but as a vessel of power, agency, and autonomy. The body becomes the site of personal sovereignty, where a woman makes her own choices, defines her own needs, and connects with her own desires and sensations, free from the external expectations that have governed it for so long.

Reclaiming the self is also about forging new connections — not only with others, but with the deepest parts of oneself. It is a journey into the self, to reawaken parts of the woman that have been silenced or buried under the weight of societal expectations. In this reclamation, there is no room for self-judgment or shame. There is only the truth of one’s own existence, with all its imperfections, its contradictions, and its power. The radical reclamation is not about perfection, but about living authentically, free from the chains of external judgment.

This is the revolutionary act: to take back one’s life, one’s body, one’s mind, and one’s truth. It’s the final step in liberation, where the woman becomes her own guide, her own healer, and her own creator. She becomes a force of authenticity, sovereignty, and power, capable of shaping her own reality.

The beauty of the radical reclamation is that it cannot be given by anyone else. It is self-generated and self-sustained. It does not rely on external systems of approval or recognition. It is the rebirth of the woman into her full sovereignty, her full truth, her full power. It is the creation of a new world — a world where the woman is the architect of her own existence.

Conclusion:

The system’s ultimate goal is to make women captives of their own despair by stripping them of their subjectivity. But through awareness, self-love, and radical authenticity, women can break free from this prison and reclaim their inherent sovereignty. This article is not just a critique of the system—it is a call to action. To see the truth is the first step toward breaking the chains.