wish after a dream

(it was a painful dream about a man who had harmed others with his behavior patterns and got away with it)

wishing that some people would know, really inside themselves, how certain types of harmful behavior can affect people. In many cases this is not what they want, so they shut their eyes and their ears and their hearts, for it would likely be a painful knowledge. Why? Are they bound to be loyal to role models who were patriarchal and steeped in social mores about old-fashioned gender roles?

In addition to imitating what they learned (conciously or unconciously?), there are people who behave this way who have very little reason to change if the society around them continues to enable and tolerate less than stellar behavior.

Sometimes this is how men are treated, and sometimes this is how men treat men and women.

However, sometimes women are also in denial about what they were taught and how they treat other women for various reasons.

IRL - Yesterday the patriarchy was at work in a woman at the store who was loud on her cell phone, trashing another woman's character, and mentioning how all of the gossip she relayed had happened at church, of all places.