Introduction

I grew up in the 1980s, in a small town, small country, which had a rich history of both independence and subjugation to empires and different ideologies. As a young girl, the picture I was to aspire to was one of An Obedient Woman. Be a good girl was a refrain to all activities. Not be a happy girl, an individual girl, follow your dreams girl. Toe the line, don’t put your head above the parapet, don’t speak back, or better still, don’t speak at all, unless you have to. Your reward, if you are a good girl, a nice man will find you and make you happy, with a bit of luck.

In psychoanalytic language – the answer was clear – be passive. Wait. Submit. Don’t do. Just be. Be pretty, if possible, and nice.  

False politeness was the currency of the poor and female subservience its moral barometer.

The stories we were told, as girls in now predominantly white Eastern Europe, were one in which men would go out into the world to slay the seven-headed dragons, conquer enemies, make allies, and, return to the Ordinary World with a Holy Grail (minus the Holy bit, because we were oppressed by the communist regime then). Girls were to be pretty, even as they slept for 200 years, waiting for their prince to come and wake them up. The stories’ heroines always had a particular shape – in the pictures, they had big  busts, tiny waists, ridiculously small feet and big, flourishing hair that bounced about healthily and freely, in direct contradiction to their inner worlds.

This picture started to blur when I started reading for myself.

There’s always a silver lining to any cloud — libraries were free in the communist times and not completely depleted of different books, at least those considered the great classics. So reading saved me from my destiny as a Cinderella or the Sleeping Beauty.

Beginning

In this seminar, I will consider the psychosocial contribution to understanding how counselling can help when thinking about the societal oppression of women, and its link to internalised misogyny.

It is my hypothesis that the societal oppression of women continues to be perpetrated by both men and women, as a consequence of an internalised and cumulative legacy of centuries of female oppression.

More particularly, that it happens as a result of what we consciously and unconsciously pick up from our mothers, fathers and our society, the unconscious material underpinned by the ideological framework, which places women in the second place.

I believe that women continue to be oppressed because 1) some men and women need a construct of someone “lesser” to project what they consider to be their “weaker” parts into, and 2) – and this is where internalised misogyny comes in –  some women internalised this self-prejudicial construct and keep on perpetuating it in the way they mother and relate to each other including to their daughters, which I argue they do differently with their sons.

Things are constantly changing. When I wrote an essay during my masters in social sciences degree in 2018, I was feeling quietly optimistic. In 2018 I wrote – Women can vote, they can educate themselves, and there is no longer such an obscene thing as a “legal rape” in marriage in most countries. In its adapted “second generation” version, the manifestations of misogyny are more subtle and challenges to these more frequent, as the awareness gradually permeates the sturdy fabric of our thinking and feeling. With the abysmal advent of Trump, the issue of women’s rights have been reinstated at the forefront once again.

Nevertheless, women’s autonomy continues to be used and thought of according to Perry’s default man’s worldview (Perry, 2017); from how to dress, to what to think to, how to behave, publicly and privately, with no room of one’s own. Little did I know that today we would be once again facing the old tragic issue – should a man decide what a woman should do with her body, in reference to the troubling abortion laws. Today, I want to concentrate on the role that women play in perpetuating their own woe. Half humanity is made of women. And they voted for the orange man.   

Understanding the position of women in their society, the way women see themselves and how the society sees and positions its women, is important to understanding the dynamics in the consulting room. To be aware of the impact of the societal misogyny  informs our work of a position a woman may take up within the psychic space created between her and her therapist. The impact of being a female, and the influence of this particular gender on a role that a woman may take up in a (therapeutic) dyad is connected with, but distinct from, other factors which form her internal psychic structure. Being a woman puts her in the “minority”, defined not so much quantitatively but by “the relative weakness of its social praxis” and “distorted gaze of the so-called majority on it” (Akhtar, 2014), and this may affect the transference in a number of ways.

Misogyny, defined as the dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women claims its place with renewed vigour, individually and societally, overtly and subtly, consciously and not. I think of is as another form of “cumulative trauma” (Khan, 1963) passed on intergenerationally, from the moment that “Eve was created out of Adam’s spare rib”. Never a thing of her own, always defined and existing only in reference to a male. The link between the centuries-long internalised misogyny and the societal oppression of women interlocked in a continuous cycle can be explored and interrupted in the consulting room, if it is understood and in therapist’s awareness.

It all starts with her; “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world” (Dinnerstein, D. 1976).

A mother is typically the first “other” with whom we experience relating to. She is generally the first person who influences how we experience relating and being related to, and she does so both through her external way of being in the world, and implicitly, through how she perceives herself internally, and as a consequence of being a female in her particular social environment. This environment which fosters psychological variations in the mother is also internalised by her daughter (Orbach, 2018).

In the circumstances when the baby’s needs are not being met, the baby adapts to what it perceives to be the mother’s needs (Winnicott’s false self), in an attempt to get what she needs. The baby is not a blank slate but a slate with an agency, adapting itself for survival (Orbach, 2018). A slate with an agency able to adapt will adapt in different ways, depending on what their environment have shown them to be possible, which is curbed by what is expected/norm – perhaps the Lacan’s Other with the capital O;

Is it a boy or a girl; that is the question. Depending on the answer, our “slate with agency” will become moulded with a set of interactions and social constructions. A baby girl will be handled differently to a baby boy, different expectations are projected and internalised. This birth into a gender forms how we think, feel and act, and they are the foundation of our psychological make-up, starting with the primary carer, and repeatedly reinforced as we grow (Orbach, 2018).

Through projective and introjective processes, the experience the mother has of herself will become a part experience the daughter has of herself. There will be a conflict between the wish to merge and the wish for a discrete subjectivity in the daughter. by and large, a girl will be brought up to consider the emotional and physical tasks of mothering as her role while other aspects of her self-growth will be side-lined. Little girls are instructed to care for others explicitly and implicitly through identification with their mother, and by gaining approval for certain way of being. A female child’s sense of self will arise from her capacity to care for others. This socially constructed requirement that a woman be a “midwife to the activities of others” conflicts with the development of her subjectivity. If one lacks this sense of subjective self, it is unavoidable that a capacity to see her daughter, as potentially separate subject will be compromised. The daughter might be perceived as a reflection, extension or an attachment of her mother (Orbach, 2018).

A mother may unconsciously restrict meeting her daughter’s emotional needs and thwart initiatives, which do not conform to the culturally prevailing notions of feminine activity. A mother might identify her own unmet needy parts in her daughter, as well as experiences of compromising her own needs and desires. This dynamic of inconsistency between meeting needs and silencing them, leads to a conflicted internalisation of the daughter’s sense of self; she is hesitant and wary of her own needs and desires. “Being mothered by mother provides a daughter with a highly developed relation skillset and difficulties in self-actualisation simultaneously” (Orbach, 2018).

One of the possibilities, then, for a woman being mothered by a mother, is to identify with her and herself become a “midwife to the aspirations of others”; a minority, or, in the Ferenczi’s trauma triangle, a victim of a specific kind of psychic abuse which places her in a lesser position on account of her gender. Another possibility is that she rejects this identity offered to her by her mother, and, that in the masculine presence she may find the most obvious venue of disidentification (Orbach, 2018) which she might see as her only way out of the “shackles of perpetual midwifery”.

She becomes a female who identified with a male, making her identity a “male female” which is outside the “norm” as she knows it. She puts herself, internally, in the aggressor role, the dominant, the majority, in her turn oppressing, consciously and not, expecting midwifery to her own aspirations.

However, according to Ferenczi’s trauma model, the psychic trauma is not caused by the actual abuse, but by the abuse and its being witnessed and ignored simultaneously. I think we might stand in all three positions, at different times. In part an aggressor – despising the “submissive, weak” midwife woman that her mother might represent to her, in part a victim accepting the oppression and prejudice either out of fear or by identification with the mother, and, in part a silent witness.

The possibility of recognising both ourselves and our clients as moving between these various positions could be thought about in therapy and in supervision, bringing to awareness the implications for the transference and countertransference. Being aware of the challenges of a therapist experiencing this element of the psychosocial and the possibility of re-enactments of this dynamic in the therapy. We must “reflect, observe and bring to awareness male power”, in men and women, “then counter as appropriate” (Perry, 2017). The issue of internalised misogyny cannot be solved by a theory; it is only in our awareness of it that it can be worked with and used to draw out the clients’ experience of the external and the bearing that has on their internal state.

Once this awareness has saturated the societal mentality, once we enabled the silent witness to talk, its effect on the internalisation patterns of women’s own self-prejudice and conflict might become more pronounced and lasting. Not a mean feat when what we are seemingly in the process of is trying to navigate the growing consciousness of the “chaotic over-inclusiveness of the unconscious”, which includes making sense of the ever-shifting categories of what it means to be a female.

The middle

Now what has all of this to do with the Little Red Riding Hood.

I would like to start by thinking about the issues of the development of female individuality through reading an extract of a playful analysis of the old story of the Little Red Riding. Myths, fables, ballads, fairytales, all stories told in any which way, have since the time immemorial been shaping humanity; its humanness and its savagery, its brutality and benevolence,  and these to date contribute to how we shape the minds of our little girls and boys, in our present time.

As an aside, in preparation for this talk, I researched as many versions of the story. Interestingly, the little girl never comes of as an emancipated, autonomous young woman, happy with her growing sexuality, free to make her own choices. She is always either rescued or punished. She is the done to, not the doer. Passive not active. And I wonder if this is the starting point for misogyny, a fertile ground to plant the seed.

Read extract p108

The kids’ story can be thought of, like this talk, a discourse on women. Three generations of women. The old- laid up in bed, infirm and dumb (she opens the door to a stranger danger), the middle-aged, kind, pretty, caring, (baking goods for the infirm elderly), and, cautious – instructing her daughter to “stick to the path”.  And, the young one, the child woman. Curious, disobedient, either paying the price for not sticking to the path laid up for her by the generations of women before her, or being rescued by a man.

What path is this, we might ask ? I think it is Be a good girl path or else. I wonder if we can imagine an alternative to this path.

There are two male characters- the dragon (the wolf) and the dragon-slayer (the woodcutter). The dangerous one and the hero. What kind of an image of a man is this girl presented with? An image that will deeply embed itself on the girls’ psyche. Men are either scary and dangerous or they are your hero. They are there to devour you or save you – you are a helpless little girl, frozen in time.

Extract 2 – Yvonne

I will now read another short extract from the book, which is a composite of a client session, produced with her permission. I am using this extract to show what the stories like the Little Red and their lived out versions of parenting our daughters, can lead to. This is Yvonne.

P 75

 And I think this extract brings us all the way back to where we started.

Remember when I said that in the circumstances when the baby’s needs are not being met, the baby adapts to what it perceives to be the mother’s needs, in an attempt to get what she needs? Yvonne has been bending herself around her mother’s needs and desires her all life. She has been like a winding tree that grows around another tree, not given the space to shape herself in her own shape. Neither of them meant for this to happen. It just did. It did because they had no idea that there was another way.

(The baby is not a blank slate but a slate with an agency adapting itself for survival (Orbach, 2018).

Through projective and introjective processes, the experience Yvonne’s mother had of herself became a part experience she had of herself. If one lacks this sense of subjective self, as Yvonne’s mother likely did, it is unavoidable that a capacity to see her daughter as potentially separate subject will be compromised. As Orbach tells us, The daughter might be perceived as a reflection, extension or an attachment of her mother. Yvonne was brought up to consider the emotional and physical tasks of mothering as her role while other aspects of her self-growth were side-lined.

She was instructed to care for others explicitly by her mother, and implicitly through identification with her, and crucially, by gaining her mother’s approval – which might well stand for her love – for certain way of being – thus her sense of self was tied with her capacity to care for others, to put others needs first, starting with her mother.

Her mother restricted meeting Yvonne’s emotional needs in many different ways – sometimes dismissing, sometimes ignoring them, and sometimes blatantly denying her love unless her conditions for something or another were met. She prohibited activities which did not conform to her notions of feminine activity. She was highly judgmental and controlling in many aspects of her daughter’s autonomy.

What would play out later in the session with Yvonne was her conflict between her wish to merge and her wish for a discrete subjectivity in herself.

There was a dynamic of inconsistency between meeting Yvonne’s needs and silencing them, which lead to a conflicted internalisation of her sense of self; hence she has no idea what she wants to do for Christmas – hesitant and wary of her own needs and desires.

“Being mothered by mother provides a daughter with a highly developed relation skillset and difficulties in self-actualisation simultaneously” (Orbach, 2018).

In conclusion, and to bring in a man’s opinion too – I quote from Perry (whom I with pleasure describe as Philippa Perry’s husband)-

We must “reflect, observe and bring to awareness male power”, in men and women, “then counter as appropriate” (Perry, 2017). The issue of internalised misogyny cannot be “solved” by a theory; it is only in our awareness of it that it can be worked with and used to draw out the clients’ experience of the external and the bearing that has on their internal state.

Once this awareness has saturated the societal mentality, once we enabled the silent witness to talk, its effect on the internalisation patterns of women’s own self-prejudice and conflict might become more pronounced and lasting.

“Being mothered by mother provides a daughter with a highly developed relation skillset and difficulties in self-actualisation simultaneously”

We need to mother – and I mean this broadly – our children and ourselves  – we need to take up our space in our society – take up our agency and embrace we are good at caring for others, be proud of it, sure, but we mustn’t do so at the cost of our own development. We need to become louder – which in some instances will mean simply to speak up – able to speak for ourselves – ask why our salary is different to the men doing the same job, why should we be doing most of the childcare as well as holding down a job, why should anyone feel free to comment on what we wear in the circumstance when they would never dream of doing so to a man.