Slate's Bizbox
books: Reading between the lines.

Blindsided AmbitionDiagnosing a crisis in young women's lives.

By Christine Stansell
Posted Tuesday, June 1, 2004, at 10:53 AM ET
Book cover

For 30 years, America has been turning out gifted girls—athletes, student leaders, artists and writers, science whizzes. Cheered on by parents, teachers, and coaches, they go to college and universities and do brilliantly. Routinely, they head off from graduate and professional schools to demanding positions in business, philanthropy, medicine, the law. They do everything asked of them and more, but unaccountably, as they draw closer to the vocations for which they've long been preparing, a cloud gathers over them. By turns hectoring and anxious, a gloomy chorus announces that success will deplete their romantic prospects and cheat them out of the families they want to have. It seems that Virginia Woolf's imagined adversary, the Victorian Angel in the House—she who always put her own needs second—rises to flap triumphantly over the times, despite Woolf's hope that modern women would kill her.

Anna Fels, a practicing psychiatrist in New York City, has arrived to wrestle with the Angel. In Necessary Dreams, she mixes the empirical findings of social science, her own observations from 20 years of clinical work, anecdote, and cultural analysis to question why and how ambition is leached out of American women's lives. She uncovers a quiet crisis in the inner lives of the kind of educated, talented women who are her patients and her peers. Whether you believe women are as embattled as Fels does, her book reframes the struggle for equality in a powerful way. She goes beyond debates over employment discrimination, harassment, and the problems of working mothers. What she's after are the buried psychological debilities that afflict women in their working lives outside their homes: the ways in which, she maintains, they feel compelled in a thousand different ways to take themselves out of the picture.

There is plenty of sociology to explain why women falter in their worldly ambitions, often giving them up altogether: the difficulties of the double shift for working women who raise families, the stalled public policies that refuse to adapt to the realities of mothers' employment. But Fels sees deeper roots to the problem. She begins with the psychologists' insight, derived from object relations theory, that in human development, ambition requires both the drive for mastery and the support of an audience. It's nice to think that skill and excellence are their own rewards, but we are social creatures who need to be recognized and praised: The ego forms in response to a caregiver who echoes the baby's utterances, smiles when she smiles, applauds baby's first steps. And so it goes in adult life. A lawyer pulls off a shrewd courtroom move and shares her pleasure with her partners; a businesswoman relishes her success closing a difficult deal and brings the exciting news back to her boss.

It's not that women lack the desire for mastery. The problem is that over time—as girls shift from being prized daughters to adults—the recognition dries up. Thus the lawyer's story may well meet with polite indifference; that business deal mysteriously turns into a prosaic matter that anyone could accomplish. Raises and promotions, despite the hard work and triumphs, go to others. Yes, feminism has brought greater equity to the workplace, but interestingly the statistics show that equality is limited to young women in their 20s, at the lower levels of job hierarchies, who work at comparable jobs at comparable pay to men. After that, glass ceilings descend and pay differentials set in.

Fels is interested in how gender roles persist amid these inequalities, feeding off them, rationalizing them in this post-feminist era when it all was supposed to be different. Drawing on anecdotes from journalism, memoirs, and her own psychiatric practice, she dissects the ways in which interest and recognition go toward encouraging women's self-deprecating behavior, their "niceness." Women distance themselves from the "bragging" and assertiveness that they come to associate with egotistic men and obnoxious women and claim, instead, a principled modesty. Fels quotes, for instance, Susan Estrich's observations of Harvard Law School faculty interviews: "[W]omen would come in and apologize before they began; downplay their goals; admit to the limitations of their accomplishments."

The pervasive climate of nonrecognition leads women to seek sanctuary on the higher ground of internal satisfaction: They look for rewards in the work itself, not in fame, honor, or money. Maya Lin, in a magazine profile after a documentary on her life was nominated for an Academy Award, literally shrinks before the attention, testifying to the value of being small and slight since "people don't see you." Lin's desire for privacy is understandable, notes Fels, yet she did permit a documentary to be made about her. "One can't help wondering," Fels writes, "if her palpable unhappiness serves as a kind of preemptive strategy: if she's already cringing with discomfort and pain, no one else need criticize her for being self-promoting or egotistical."

Fels calls it the "gender recognition differential." Men routinely expect their goals and achievements to be valued, and they seek recognition from others when it's not forthcoming. But then they can always count on an audience primed to appreciate individualistic achievement and the competitive drive that fuels it. Despite 30 years of modern feminism, women still labor as the recognizers: generic listeners and deferential conversational partners. Fels says it flat out: "[T]he mandate that females provide recognition to males is a basic requirement of the white, middle-class notion of femininity." The idea runs rampant through the mainstream psychological and sociological literature. Study after study proposes that women's identity is more "relational," defined by efforts to support, help, and nurture; that men's sense of self is goal-oriented, based on achievement.

Indeed, some feminists—most prominent among them the psychologist Carol Gilligan—vaunt women's "relationality" and "connectedness," celebrating the reluctance to call attention to their achievements as part of an unspoken critique of the culture that puts such a premium on the self-centered, preening behavior of men. Gilligan and her followers have suggested that women more easily fold their ambitions into a more cooperative way of working and sharing recognition.

The problem with this argument, Fels points out, is that the massive research literature has not supported it. Women's deferential demeanor varies greatly, it turns out, depending on whether or not men are around. "Girls and women change their behaviors when their interactions involve men," she finds. "They more openly seek and compete for affirmation when they are with other women." The corollary is that they are least likely to make claims on others' attention when they are competing face-to-face with men for available recognition—in a conversation, say, or a meeting.

But why do women, even the most accomplished women, go along with this state of affairs? "Being silenced or ignored ... often remains a baffling and frustrating barrier," Fels comments in a remarkable passage on the psychic structure of the modern workplace. "It's hard to spot. It's not as obvious as being denied the vote or access to birth control. Women tend to feel foolish asking for more attention for their contributions." One ingenious study shows that men's attention flags if a taped phone message is in a woman's rather than a man's voice.

True, not every single woman is deterred. But whatever the female response, the psychological double standard remains powerful. There is more latitude of "choice," but the research shows that women permit themselves to "choose" only when everyone else has been accommodated. Their own time, money, careers, training, and power come second. The hidden requirement to relinquish ambitions slated to enhance only oneself underlies the fraught crisis of the 20s and 30s, a moment Fels finds as volatile and potentially derailing as the more widely recognized crisis of female adolescence. The desires of even highly trained young women start to get fuzzy, as if blurring them makes it easier to give them up. Is a tenure-track job really so valuable, the gifted young historian asks, if it means asking her husband to relocate from the East Coast to a boring Midwestern town? Isn't pediatric medicine better than surgery, after all?

One way out of the conflict is to embrace "love, our subject," as Adrienne Rich put it years ago. In the short run, for young women, sexual love and admiration provide affirmation that's in short supply elsewhere. For married women, the retreat to the time-honored plaudits that come with successful motherhood is the strategy du jour for those who can afford it. But Fels cautions about the long-term risks of economic dependence on a spouse, which only increase as a woman ages and her time out of the work force accrues. And there is a heavy psychological toll as well: Full-time mothers show up in the therapists' offices, too, bringing their own crises of loneliness and depletion. In their 20s, when mothering small children is in full swing, the literature shows that homemakers manage better emotionally than their employed peers; but in their 30s and beyond—if they can make it through the roughest early years of juggling—career women think much more highly of themselves, are happier in their marriages, and are more convinced of their competence at home and in the world.

Necessary Dreams is mild-mannered, well-documented, and reasonable, but it is also laced with fierce indignation at the waste of women's gifts—so gratuitous in a world where truly, so many different ways of life are available for men and women. She doesn't offer any solutions. Necessary Dreams appears rather as a diagnosis, a warning, an encouragement to ambitious women everywhere that their yearnings are not luxuries but absolutely necessary.

Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Christine Stansell, professor of history at Princeton, is the author of City of Women and American Moderns.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Remarks from the Fray:

…There are many cases where tolerance of women in the workplace is really not an option. Do we relax our disapproval of those in this situation who live on the dole, or do we find some way of working with them in the workplace and in society to help them find the tools and resources they need to do both jobs? Do we find some measure to stop this situation from ever happening?

I am the sole support of myself and my children. Unless I want to live my life on welfare, rolling from low-paying fill in job to low paying fill in job when required to keep my benefits, I have to have a career. I don't have the option to accept a "lower standard" and stay home with my kids unless I spend my life on the public dole. For me, what choices I can make have been made (or maybe it's just stubborn pride talking).

It doesn't play out that way at work, though. I face the same pressures and prejudices as the girl in the next cube who's working so she and her husband can go to Africa next year. On the other hand, I guess there are many guys who are there because they have a family to feed, and then there are those who are there because they want to go to Africa.

Maybe a constructive question would be, "How do you guys deal with that?" I know it is an issue for some. And they are caught in a bind, too. I don't have any answers, but I do know some way of dealing with this has to be modified into the system and into our society because it sure as heck doesn't handle it now.

--MsZilla

(To reply, click here)


…The article mentions that current trends persist DESPITE 30 years of modern feminism, but I would ask if current trends are not partially CAUSED BY 30 years of modern feminism. So long as we seek to locate group identities and prescribe group-based solutions, we miss the point. Doing so at once lays the foundation for discrimination from others by reinforcing perceptions of the world based on classifications rather than reality and introduces its own discrimination by insisting that there is an ideal life-path for a self-actualized member of the group.

The antidote is simple: treat each person as an individual. If you have to send out someone from the company to lobby your position, pick whomever does it best without pondering whether a colleague's assertiveness or passivity is based on an acceptance of unfair gender roles. If the water cooler is empty, it would be thoughtful to help out the guy with the bum knee who's trying to lug the bottle down the hall, but there is no reason to jump to the aid of a physically capable woman out of some misguided notion of chivalry.

There is a great amount of androgyny in the world, and gender classifications miss and mistreat this subtlety. In areas where gender differences are societally imposed and considered unjust, individualized treatment solves the problem. And if most women are hardwired differently than most men in a certain area, there still remains a sliding scale with people of each gender acting more or less feminine or masculine…

--Jester2459

(To reply, click here)


…Being a stay at home mom is not an escape valve. It's a conscious choice that many women make because the people around them pressure them constantly to put all of their needs last. But, stay home for a couple of years, and the ugly reality sets in: no one takes mothers seriously in this society--your calls aren't returned because you're 'just the mom', you can't find a job when you need or want to, people question your personal ambition, etc. Motherhood is a road to personal disintegration in a way that fatherhood is not. Men choose to be fathers just as much as women choose to be mothers. Fathers should start recognizing that it's selfish and cruel to ask their partners to give up their dreams 'for the good of the children,' and should encourage & support their mates on a regular basis to achieve, despite the constraints of parenthood…

--jgirl

(To reply, click here)


…It is a difficult thing for men AND women to deal with, and most of them live lives of quiet desperation. Every little achievement is applauded loudly in the young. So many children are 'prodigies.' To be sure, much of this is earned. A child's first steps are to be encouraged, even though running is nothing special in a few years.

However, much of this is infantilization and misplaced social priority. 'Self-esteem' is not helped by a plethora of prizes and awards which are effectively unearned or disproportionate.

The more successful the child, the more notable the slide into unnoted anonymity. The gap between the college years, the last years of 'award bounty,' and 'lifetime achievement' years is a 50 year dead zone.

That women need more help then men getting through this is not surprising. Men expect to be the bread-winner, doing whatever nasty and dirty job needs to be done, just to bring home ... something. Women expect applause in their fancy 'career' - while many men are just doing what needs to be done.
For women, there is the escape valve (actually a legitimate, maybe more legitimate, option, of marriage and child rearing). So they leave the field, when the going gets really discouraging. The men have no option but to grit the teeth, to take the lumps, ... or the become unemployed undesirables.

Is any of this fair? Only if you consider that men and women are different. They both suffer. They just suffer differently, and that's not at all wrong.

--BenK

(To reply, click here)

(6/2)