Interdependence versus Dependence

The confusing of psychological dependence with expressiveness partially explains why many feminists do not see expressiveness in a positive light. This confusion has also led some feminists into self-blame or a "women are their own worst enemy" position. The logic runs something like this: Women are expressive, which is erroneously assumed to mean dependent. This dependency is then seen as leading to any number of other defects such as blind conformity, passivity, inability to take control of one's life, and inability to achieve or to "get ahead." The next step is to conclude that women are their own worst enemy, which of course is what men have been saying, or suspecting, all along. Women are then exhorted to recognize these deficiencies, get over their dependency, take charge of their lives, quit complaining, and make something of themselves. Colette Dowling's The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence, which appeared in 1981, is one example of this approach that became a bestseller. Dowling's main thesis is that

"personal psychological dependency—the deep wish to be taken care of by others—is the chief force holding women down today" (p. 21).

I do not deny that women have dependent motivations, but these are brought about by structural factors (not the least of which is women's economic dependency on men) other than those related to women's expressiveness. As our research and women's common sense suggests, expressiveness is not the same as dependency, and many women do not associate it with dependency. Miriam Greenspan, author of A New Approach to Women and Therapy, argues, counter to Dowling, that women must not deny their authentic need for "intimate connection" by confusing that need with helpless dependency and then blaming themselves for being dependent.^[34] As a therapist, she tries to show her women patients that their relational needs are legitimate.

The tendency to confuse expressiveness with dependency has also plagued studies of "achievement" in psychology. A widely reprinted article written a decade earlier by Judith Bardwick and Elizabeth Douvan provides an example. The article is entitled "Ambivalence: The Socialization of Women," and is itself a model of the authors' own ambivalence, created in part by the initial failure to separate dependency from expressiveness. They begin with a list of traits that they say are ascribed to women. This list includes psychological dependence, passivity, and fragility along with the more desirable traits of interpersonal orientation, nurturance, and supportiveness. They then argue that girls' problem is that they remain dependent on others for feelings of affirmation. When Bardwick and Douvan asked their students, both undergraduate and graduate, what they wanted, they answered, "When I love and am loved; when I contribute to the welfare of others; when I have established a good family life and have happy, normal children; when I know I have created a good, rewarding, stable relationship" (p. 231). While these statements do sound "traditional" in the sense that they imply children and marriage, they also express an active and responsible orientation to the general welfare of others. Bardwick and Douvan take a dim view of these statements, however, and conclude that "up until now very few women have succeeded in traditionally masculine roles, not only because of disparagement and prejudice, but largely because women have not

been fundamentally equipped and determined to succeed" (p. 233). What it takes to succeed in these roles, according to Bardwick and Douvan, is "objectivity rather than subjectivity, aggression rather than passivity, the motive to achieve rather than a fear of success, courage rather than conformity, and professional commitment, ambition, and drive" (p. 233).^[35]

Although Bardwick and Douvan criticize women for not meeting these standards, their point is that women are ambivalent about them. They point out that "the masculine [is] the yardstick against which everything is measured." They go on to say "since the sexes are different, women are defined as not-men and that means not good, inferior" (p. 234). The ambivalence women feel then is the product of women liking the way they are and at the same time, because both men and women esteem masculine qualities and achievements more, knowing that their own qualities are second rate. The authors then find it "disturbing to review the extent to which women perceive their responsibilities, goals, their very capacities as inferior to males" (p. 234). Although Bardwick and Douvan at this point try to upgrade women's contributions in traditional roles, it is a losing battle, and women end up sounding weak. The traits attributed to women become even more ridiculous when one thinks of women who are not white and upper middle class. Those women who have always worked and who also constantly take on responsibility for others on a reciprocal basis can hardly be called dependent and passive. To paraphrase Sojourner Truth, "aren't they women?"

I do not blame Bardwick and Douvan or other psychologists for their ambivalence concerning women in 1970. Many of us shared this ambivalence because we accepted the more typically masculine definition of what women were. Bardwick and Douvan's article made a positive contribution, however, in pointing out the ambivalence that accepting a male paradigm causes women to feel, and in recognizing the existence of a male paradigm in the first place. The task now is to extricate ourselves from that paradigm more clearly than was possible in 1970.

Increasingly, what seems to be happening is that women are able to attain and achieve in high-level jobs while retaining a sense of self as expressive. Lillian Rubin describes middle-aged middle-class women who, while sitting in their offices surrounded by work

and the symbols of work, still answered the question of "who and what they are" by describing themselves as "warm, sensitive, considerate and kind." No one mentioned work.^[36] In a sample of college-educated women born in the 1950s, Rosalind Gottfried documents that these women did not maintain that work took primacy in their lives over relationships. Although they did view work as important, these women were most concerned with their connections to other people, and these connections were more basic to their self-concepts. Moreover, these attitudes about connectedness were those of women who were the least passive, most feminist group— those most concerned with directing their own lives.^[37]

In 1976 Jean Baker Miller made the point clearly that women are being punished for making affiliations central to their lives and that women can be highly trained, high achievers, and still give great weight to affiliations. To simply dismiss women's need for affiliation as dependency is an error.^[38] Finally, if we look at school achievement, it is incorrect to assume that women perform less well than men. With regard to school performance rather than occupational performance, the "problem of female underachievement" ceases to exist. Women achieve beyond their potential as measured by IQ tests to a greater extent than men at every grade level through college.^[39]