For most women being other-directed, focused on how other people feel and nurturing them, was (and can still … - Judith M Bardwick

Same topic Authors

Quote of the day

He that hath a trade hath an estate; and he that hath a calling hath a place of profit and honor. A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees.

Judith M Bardwick

For most women being other-directed, focused on how other people feel and nurturing them, was (and can still be) a quality that girls were (are) heavily pressured to become. The unselfish or Self-less woman was (is) seen as ideal. The realization and articulation that the cultural ideal of the perfect woman was someone who had no sense of Self and was a key part of the angry energy that drove Feminism to its swift success.

Girl, People, Perfect, Quality, Woman, Swift

Same Author Quotes

. . . there's a large core of powerlessness which is balanced against the unwritten contract that says that if you behave, you'll be okay. No wonder people pay so much attention to knowing the rules, to knowing the right people, to not making waves, to never making errors -- to not risking, trying, innovating.

Contract, Errors, Knowing, Making, People, Risking

Most people think of a balanced life in terms of how much time is given to the various sectors of a life. While time is one measure of involvement, I think the critical variable is passion. How energized, fascinated and absorbed are you in each sphere in which you are engaged? They are rarely, and usually only briefly, equal.

Passion, Thinking, People, Critical, Engaged, Think

I was appalled at how children had become the focus and gravitational center of the nuclear family around which parents orbited instead of the traditional arrangement in which children orbited around their parents. This is a huge change because a critical job in early childhood is to get children weaned away from the total narcissism normal to infancy. With the children as the center of the family's actions and decisions, narcissism is at a minimum prolonged and may never significantly decline.

Children, Focus, Childhood, Minimum, Orbited

The sense of loss of control over what happens to you at work (and thus in your life is vital). This further involves a sense of fairness as in, I did my part and look where it got me! "The deal," the contract between employee and employer has eroded and been replaced with unilateral power by the organization over the employee.

Employee, Fairness, Happens, Loss, Power, Work

The Psychological Recession is the cluster of feelings that the present is really scary and the future will likely be worse. It comes from the sense you have no control over what's happening to you and you don't see a way to get your life back under control. It's the feeling that life is unfair; you paid your dues, you worked hard, and you ended up naked and vulnerable. There is no comfort to be found in the dismissal of the Psychological Recession as being just an idea; it is a real phenomenon with real consequences, all of them bad.

Real, Scary, Feelings, Worse, Sense