Great questions and I'm glad you asked. The standards were NOT built by men (the patriarchy). Betty Friedan did amazing research in 1963 where she looked at the messaging, magazines, and ads geared toward women and they are steeped in conditioning and shame. The same goes for college classes. Now, that was what our mother dealt with. But, they passed that to us. Half of us rebelled but the other half embraced "traditional womanhood" That turned into internalized misogyny. That creates a shame cycle where some women will shame others who do not conform.

It takes decades of deprogramming to get where we are this confident.