The Fakeriarchy:A False Reality That Keeps Women Disconnected and Why Midlife Shakes Us Up

There comes a point in a woman’s life, often around midlife, where things stop making sense in the way they used to. What once felt manageable starts to feel almost unbearable. The noise gets louder, the roles feel tighter and the truth that’s been quietly whispering beneath the surface suddenly starts to rise.

For me, that moment came when I began to see that much of what I’d been taught to believe about myself, about success, about what it means to be a woman, wasn’t actually true. I had been handed a script that simply wasn’t mine and it had been absorbed, inherited and acted upon without question. That script was created by the ‘Fakeriarchy’: the invisible system that runs underneath the more obvious one, the Patriarchy, feeding us false stories about who we are and what we need in order to feel safe, worthy, or loved.

The Fakeriarchy is not always easy to describe. It doesn’t wear a name badge or hold press conferences, but you can feel it. It shows up in the pressure to perform, to prove, to be perfect. It shows up in the subtle shame we carry for feeling too much, needing too much, or wanting more than what the world says we should be happy with. It is an invisible system that keeps us busy, disconnected, and distracted; from each other and from ourselves. It rewards appearances over truth, achievement over alignment, and being good over being real. And it’s so cleverly woven into our culture, our families, our education, and even our spiritual beliefs, that we don’t realise it’s there; until we do.

This is why I believe menopause becomes such a powerful turning point, because for many women, it brings a kind of emotional and spiritual clarity that can no longer be ignored. The cracks begin to show, the coping mechanisms that once got us through stop working, and the roles we’ve played so convincingly for so long start to feel false, even suffocating. It’s not that we’re falling apart; it’s that we’re waking up to something deeper, more honest, and less willing to pretend and I’ve come to think of this as our collective ‘shake-up’, a necessary disruption that invites us to finally question everything we’ve been told to be.

This awakening isn’t about rage or blame. It’s about finally seeing the system for what it is; an illusion that was never built to support our full expression and choosing not to keep pretending. The journey through menopause invites us to come back to our soul, to reconnect with the parts of ourselves that were buried under years of programming, people-pleasing, and pushing through. And yes, that process can be messy and uncomfortable. It’s resulted in a marriage breakdown for me. But it can also be incredibly liberating, because once we stop pushing ourselves to succeed within it, things can start to flow in a different direction. Once we see the game, we can choose to stop playing by its rules.

The Pink Diamond evolution was born from this place. It’s not about fixing women. It’s about reminding them they were never broken.