Nov 10 - The Nyack Villager

The Nyack Villager is now
accepting ads for our
DECEMBER
issue.
Call 735-7639
Nyack Villager ad prices start as low as $112—
and we’ll design your first ad for you
—at no extra charge.
Mental Health Notes
by Daniel Shaw, L.C.S.W
internalized misogyny
Misogyny: hatred, dislike or mistrust
of women. You could think
of it as femi-phobia, similar to the
way we use the word homophobia.
Women have fought hard throughout
the previous century, and are
still fighting, to leave behind their
designated status as chattel, and enjoy the
same rights that men (not including slaves)
have, throughout history, taken for granted.
As that awful old cigarette ad used to say,
women have “come a long way.”
But in my work as a therapist with women
from every walk of life, I often encounter a
subtle, sometimes very unconscious kind of
gender-based self-denigration. I have come to
think of it as internalized misogyny. It takes
many forms, and here’s just one example.
A patient of mine, erika, of whom I am
tremendously fond and admiring, is an artist,
with Ivy league higher education degrees, a
terrific résumé, a great intellect, and a funny,
warm, down to earth personality. She anticipated
the arrival of her first baby, whom she
knew would be a boy, with tremendous excitement,
and in his first year, was thrilled with
how great a baby he was. Two years later, she
learned she was pregnant again, this time with
a girl. e pregnancy was nothing like the
first; she was miserable the whole time. She
had nightmares and day-mares, unable to stop
herself from imagining that her daughter
would be an impossible baby, and an even
worse adolescent.
Some time after her daughter arrived, she came
back to therapy and told me about her younger
brother’s wedding. Unlike erika, whose every
move as a child was monitored by her adoring
but very demanding parents, Tom, her brother,
was left alone to develop his own style. Never
a great student like his sister erika, he did his
own thing, travelled the world after high
school, lived on a boat with his girlfriend, and
eventually, following his own timeline, became
successful developing a computer business.
What moved erika deeply about her brother’s
wedding was the way he and his bride created
the wedding they truly wanted—a joyful,
thoroughly original and beautiful wedding
like no one else’s. erika’s wedding, by contrast,
had been all about what her mother had
wanted.
erika realized that she had spent much of her
energy growing up preoccupied with trying to
figure out what her mother needed and wanted,
trying to please mother, guilty and anxious
about her impact on her mother—and always
failing. Her brother was the opposite.
He didn’t assume responsibility
for his mother’s feelings at all. And
his mother seemed content to just
let him do his own thing.
My point is that many women pass
on a subtle or not so subtle message
to their children: if you’re my
daughter, you must make me happy;
but if you’re my son, all you have to do is
make yourself happy. ese daughters grow
up feeling guilty and conflicted about their
own desires, their own self-interest; while their
brothers grow up free to become their own
man. If this daughter isn’t subjugating herself,
she’s a royal pain; but if this son goes out and
does his own thing, well, boys will be boys.
erika was able to realize that even in utero, she
was beginning the cycle all over again, imagining
her daughter as a royal pain she wouldn’t be
able to control.
early in my work with erika, I realized she was
incredibly inhibited about imagining what
kind of life she really desired. She’d found a
great husband and had yet to have kids. But
she was terribly stuck in her work as an artist.
I asked her to bring in a drawing that would
represent her deepest desires. What she
brought in, with much shame and embarrassment,
was a drawing of herself sitting by a
house where she was sipping coffee on a sunny
patio. I was kind of stunned to realize that it
was excruciating for her to feel entitled even
to having a home where she could sip coffee
on a patio.
Now, after her brother’s wedding, something
clicked. Now she knew where she wanted to
live, how she wanted to live, and what she
wanted to do as an artist. She knew what she
wanted, and she felt entitled to work toward
creating it—and her husband was thrilled.
Most poignantly, erika knew that she would
have the chance to raise her daughter in the
same way she wanted to raise her son: to become
a person who could be free from guilt
and shame about desire and self-interest; a
person who knows who they are, what they
want, and is able to figure out how to create a
good life. Finally, erika believes that that is
the model she herself can provide for her children.
I’m so happy to be able to say, you’ve
come a long way, erika.
Daniel Shaw, LCSW, practices psychotherapy in
Nyack and in New York City. He can be reached at
(845) 548-2561 in Nyack and in NY City at
(212) 581-6658, shawdan@aol.com or online at
www.danielshawlcsw.com ✫
e-mail news releases to us at info@nyackvillager.com
The next Nyack Villager—our December issue—closes November 15.
In your e-mails, please include a contact name and one telephone number.
14 The Nyack Villager November, 2010