There are many ways in which women internalize not only the messages of their abusers, but also the messages from the system that supports the abuser and the culture that subtly and blatantly dehumanizes women. Women are taught to believe that if there are problems in a relationship, the fault lies with them -- they are somehow defective. They must understand the relationship of the environment to their consciousness: Our environment shapes how we perceive the world and ourselves in that world.
      In her book, Lies, Secrets and Silence, Adrienne Rich identifies four primary forms of self-destruction among women living in a society that sexually, physically, emotionally and economically abuses women. She calls these "the four forms of women's psychological suicide." They are:
self-trivialization
horizontal hostility
approval seeking from those more powerful than we are, and
misplaced compassion.

      In fact, there are dozens of ways we internalize "woman hating", but these four in particular are almost universal in women's experiences.

Self-trivialization: We put ourselves down and tell ourselves that we are less than we should be. Examples of this include:
	Being afraid to add to a conversation because you think what you have to say is dumb or unimportant.
	Starting a sentence with "This may be totally off, but ..."
	Apologizing all the time.
	Feeling as though you're not dressed appropriately or your vocabulary is not sufficient.
	Believing that you can't do it.
	Disregarding compliments.
	Not taking women's or your own work seriously.
	Finding the needs of others--our partners, children, parents, friends--more important than our own needs.
	Thinking we don't deserve to pamper ourselves.
	Feeling guilty when we spend money on ourselves.
	Feeling as though people with more education have more intelligent things to say and we should listen to them and not talk.
Horizontal Hostility: We dislike other women and see them as enemies or competitors. We join in the culture's hatred of women by finding fault with other women and measuring them by standards that none of us can really meet. Some examples of this are:
	Hating a past partner of his and finding and talking about her faults.
	Saying a woman got what she deserved.
	Looking at other women's bodies and joking about them being fat, sloppy, promiscuous; comparing ourselves to other women as either better or worse.
	Saying a woman in a prominent position made it there by sleeping her way to the top.
	Preferring a male attorney, doctor, or advocate because men know more.
Approval Seeking: We look for approval from those who have power over us because we need it to survive. We do things to gain that approval even if they're at our own expense in the long run. Examples of this include:
	Not challenging your boss or husband when he takes credit for your work or ideas because he can punish you somehow.
	Wanting or needing male approval on how we look, how well we perform in our jobs, home, etc.
	Dressing to please our partners, rather than for our own comfort or preference.
	Not expressing opinions that he won't approve of or not bringing up topics in public which he knows nothing about.
	Not contradicting him in public.
Misplaced Compassion: We know that when bad things happen to him, worse things will happen to us. As a result, we are always tuned into his needs, wants and desires, so much so that when bad things happen to him and he beats us up for it, we feel more compassion for him than for ourselves. This includes:
	Feeling no compassion for ourselves, ignoring our own physical pain, worrying because he is in jail for battering.
	Trying to figure out why he is so frustrated.
	Trying to figure out why things aren't going well for him, while we are sitting in a house that he has just destroyed.
	Feeling bad for him because he is discriminated against in the job market, and letting him take that frustration out on us.

Personal Aspects

      Almost every woman has feelings that fall into one of those four categories. What she has to understand is that it is not her fault.
      Women are trained almost from Day 1 to have these feelings of inferiority, of helplessness, of dependence. What women also have to understand is that they are not all of these things. They must realize that they are equal, they are capable, and they are not pets or creatures who need constant supervision and control.

Institutional Aspects

      Institutions in the community also contribute to women internalizing these characteristics.
Self-Trivialization: Women's jobs are not as highly paid as men's, supposedly because we don't make decisions or have any managerial skills. It is not true that we don't make decisions or have these skills; this is the rationalization the corporations make for paying women less. This makes women feel that they aren't as important as men. Women of color get the lowest paying service jobs.
Horizontal Hostility: Soap operas are full of it. Companies encourage it among women employees so that we don't complain or unionize. Pay hikes, promotion practices and even comments made to women by male supervisors all encourage women to distrust each other and compete for crumbs.
Approval Seeking: If women challenge people in power, we can be punished. Social workers, for example, can take our kids away. We please them by saying the things they want to hear.
Misplaced Compassion: "The victim witness guy told me my husband would lose his job if I testified against him because he'd get at least 90 days in jail. He talked me into agreeing to drop the charges to a simple assault. My counselor asked me how I thought it made my husband feel when I left the bedroom after sex and went out to the couch and cried."

Cultural Aspects

      While every culture is different, almost all of them are the same in the way women are regarded as second-class citizens. Just this last year in an African country, their government ruled that women were equal to teen-aged males, and so they should be allowed to do anything a teen-aged male could do. This, of course, does not include voting, participating in government, etc.
      Most cultures are not this blatant about the status of women, but this attitude still exists in one form or another in every country on earth. The discrimination won’t stop until men learn that women are their equals.
      Women have to learn it too.