It always comes with quite shock when Hollywood celebrities face accusations from countless individuals regarding sexual harassment or rape. While the initial shock usually stems from “who” the accused is, what's always more shocking is the number of people who come out with these accusations. After one comes out, they continuously pile up, ranging anywhere from 10 to hundreds of people.

One wonders, how many hidden stories are we not aware of? How many sexual predators are lurking around us? While we all agree this is not normal, we can't help but think how such acts have become a defining characteristic of our world!

The damage of living in an overtly patriarchal society is shown through many forms of sexual exploitation such as sex trafficking, organised prostitution, and consistent power-yielding social interactions that favour men. Considering power has always been patriarchy's main characteristic, the correlation between power and abuse is not far fetched.

It's very important to make a clear point that patriarchy is not bad and is not the cause behind abuse but rather toxic patriarchal tendencies are the cause of our broken ideas on how men view women. The main culprits of these cases are often predominantly men. It gives rise to the question of patriarchal conduct and behaviour, what exactly is wrong with our society that men believe and often get away with such horrible acts for years and sometimes decades?

Women have become more vocal about the negative effects of toxic masculinity, and patriarchy has long been praised and hailed as the fundamental basis of our society. Although feminist movements have been around for hundreds of years, it's only recent that we have all taken notice of the importance of having gender neutral roles across many different sections of our societies.

Conditioning: a long time ago, we became used to this idea that women should always watch what they wear. It was quite normal for people, mostly older women, to scold a liberated girl to 'go cover up' or 'to watch what you wear'. All of us want to look and dress in clothes that make us feel good, better yet, that make us feel confident, and for most ladies, sexy, because it gives them the opportunity to express their confidence.

This desire of women to dress with personal confidence usually leads to wandering eyes from men, and often ends with cat calls, unwanted male attention, and men always asking the question ‘Well, why does she dress like that if she doesn’t want to be approached?’

This thinking showcases the weird social standards that we have so long believed in. While it's almost obvious why older women develop the ‘cover up’ type mentality, what it tells us is that they talk like this from experience and because they have seen the worst side of men’s sexual uncontrollability.

One thing we know for certain is that rapists or sexually abusive men are sick people, and they feed on any type of cleavage that satisfies their sickening behaviour. Often you sense them blaming this kind of barbaric behaviour on how their victims seduced them with how they dress, an excuse for their lack of sexual control.

Women have become more liberated. We see how pop stars embrace their bodies with how they dress, and they possess a certain sex appeal that one wonders, do they do this purely for liberation against patriarchal norms or has the conditioning of how sex sells given them the only power they could possess, the ability to wear and dress how they want because no one can take that power away from them?

Power relations: the positional power that men have held in society for a long time has created at least for the longest time an imbalance in power between men and women. The effect of such differences in power has affected our entire idea of the role of men and women. The psychological depth of gender roles is so ingrained in us that it has evolved to affect our physiological make-up, including hormones, natural selection in partners, and societal norms.

When we think about how relationships work and how they have worked for centuries now, the man predominantly holds more power in dictating the relationship, and this extends beyond romantic relationships—also in friendships, and family relationships too.

If we go along with the idea of what was just mentioned, the submission of women is an attractive quality to men, however, this submission has to be allowed by a woman, it’s not something men can demand from them, it is done willingly.

Men have built social structures that ensure they have power over women. Women are underpaid because men would much rather ensure that they are not able to have the same spending power as them, and it not being a matter of women not having enough experience.

What we have seen since the turn of the century is just the beginning of a revolution that actually goes beyond sexual orientation—it is a personal attack on our society. While we celebrate the breakdown of those social norms that are outdated and backwards, we must also be careful in remembering the good as well as the bad to ensure we don’t entirely shoot ourselves in the foot over the long term.