Loss of Inner Authority
and the System of Oppression

The belief that babies and children do not know themselves allows our society to impose our adult truths upon their experiences. As babies grow into children and begin to verbalize and name their desires, needs, and experiences, we continue to deny the validity of those experiences. Parents, teachers, clergy, and other authority figures are given power in our society to “mold” children into productive adults. They replace the child’s inner authority with a required obedience and acceptance of outside authority.

These authority figures stand in proxy for the larger system, which in order to continue to exist, must deny personal power and authority for systemic and institutional power and authority.

One quite striking example of this systemic power and the ways in which individuals stand in proxy to enforce social norms is around gender identity socialization. From before birth, we feel a need to identity a baby’s gender. We decide that blue is for boys and pink is for girls. We determine that boys must learn to be tough and strong and girls must learn to nurture and take care of others. Through children’s books, clothing, songs, and games, we teach our children their proper place and behavior based on their genitalia.

If a boy wants to play with dolls, wear pink, and cries in our society, our society’s gender norms are called into question and challenged. Individuals who believe in these gender norms, or who do not question them, will reinforce those norms through teasing, scolding, punishment, etc…. If the boy has been disconnected from his inner authority and has no support to follow his own path, he has little internal guidance to help him withstand the pressure to conform.

If, as babies and children, we are allowed to maintain a strong connection to our inner authority and personal power, social institutions and mechanisms are less able to influence our conditioning and learning. Instead of accepting as truth that which is given to us by authority figures, we are able to examine what is happening around us and test those experiences against our own. If we have supportive and respectful parents and other adults around us, we can continue to maintain this connection to ourselves.

Maintaining our connection to inner authority is in many respects a subversive act. By resisting the replacement of our own authority with that of institutions and systems, we can begin to break the cycle of socialization.

This does not mean we cannot or do not participate in society. It does not mean that we become social outcasts. Resisting oppression and the indoctrination that comes with the cycle of socialization frees us to create new paradigms of respectful relationships for children and adults.

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