The truth is that the powerful tentacles of masculine conditioning aren't shed that easily - if at all. They've been embedded in the male mind from a very early age - from birth in fact - and by the time adulthood is reached they're well dug-in and pretty hard to shift.
I know my own mind is warped by my masculine upbringing, and it would be stupid to pretend otherwise. I was taught that women should be seen in a certain way - that they should be objectified, fetishised, sexualised, pornified, commodified, trivialised, ignored, ridiculed, controlled and dominated. That's a hefty rejection of decent, healthy behaviour towards half the population, and not something that can just be shed overnight like torn jeans or a faulty kettle.
At the age of 71, I'm very aware that those disgusting misogynistic attitudes still hover at the back of my mind, however much I might pretend they've been thoroughly purged and forgotten. But unlike the men who still see those attitudes as normal and mindlessly act on them, I can at least clearly recognise the hatred of women that runs through them and consciously adopt different and more civilised behaviour.
When women angrily point out my residual anti-women habits, as they sometimes do, it's a timely reminder of that stubbornly entrenched conditioning that I might otherwise think the passing years have obliterated. If only. Unfortunately society did a bloody good job of indoctrinating me at a tender age when I was too ignorant to realise what was being fed into me.
PS: I think trying to shed masculine conditioning is like trying to shed a Catholic upbringing - virtually impossible.
