Sadomasochism in Everyday Life: A Possible Alternative Theory

To sum up thus far, my argument about sadomasochism is built around two related premises. First, we have tended to view sadomasochism as an extreme rather than more typical form of behavior, as an individual and predominantly sexual phenomenon that can easily be "deviantized" or "stigmatized" as unusual. Second, not only are sadomasochistic dynamics more ordinary than extreme, but sadomasochism may be the social psychology one would be most likely to find in all contemporary societies that are structured like our own. It is the social psychology that correlates more precisely to the characteristics of class-divided (and, therefore, capitalistic) and male-dominated (and, therefore, patriarchal) modes of social organization. But this argument—via a route that will eventually bring us back full circle to a connection with feminist "sexuality debates"—may enable us to see the two interpretations, social sadomasochism and sexual sadomasochism, as not necessarily mutually exclusive. Both positions have some validity; moreover, if we are to ensure sexual freedom and to challenge a restrictive set of social structures, aspects of each need to be acknowledged.

However, we are at the moment far from reaching these conclusions; first we must consider the definition of "sadomasochistic dynamics." Why use this concept, anyway, rather than some less controversial labels (say, victims and victimizers, or the relatively powerful and powerless) to describe relationships of dominance and subordination? One advantage of sadomasochism stems, somewhat paradoxically, from its narrowly sexual common meaning. When we refer to power relations as "sadomasochistic," we apply the same concept to a gamut of social interactions ranging from sexuality (our most "private" contact between self and other) through the workplace and street interactions (our most "public" places of contact with the outside world). In this way, the feminist insistence on how power dynamics occur not only in the public, seemingly "political" sphere but also in allegedly "personal" arenas (like a bedroom or kitchen) makes the two clearly and theoretically connected. Precisely because of sadomasochism's strong association with sexuality, it becomes hard to disconnect the term from its potential applicability across a wide continuum of social relationships.

In addition, sadomasochism refers to an internally transformable dynamic. As numerous theorists have described, sadomasochism is an evocative concept indeed insofar as sadists always have the potential to transform into their opposites, and vice versa. Freud describes this phenomenon in his Three Essays on Sexuality: "A sadist is always at the same time a masochist, although the active or the passive aspects of the perversion may be the more strongly developed in him and represent his predominant sexual activity."^[18] Although Freud, too, clearly associated sadomasochism almost exclusively with its sexual manifestations, the idea of internal transformability has immense possibilities, as we will soon see, when sadomasochism is applied to the not necessarily sexual situations of everyday life.

There is a further advantage, somewhat separate but related to the ones mentioned above: the concept of sadomasochism is not essentialistic. In no way is it determined by class or race or gender: for instance, women are usually socialized into more masochistic positions of powerlessness, but they also have the potential for sadism; men, often encouraged into more sadistic postures, have a similar capacity for masochistic turnabouts under certain circumstances. Referring to power relations through the medium of a sadomasochistic dynamic, then, differs from other descriptions of victim/victimizer, dominant/subordinate relationships in explicitly acknowledging, and encompassing, how the victim of one interaction can be the victimizer of another, and vice versa. To take one of innumerable examples that could be cited, a woman perhaps masochistically situated in relation to her husband may become sadistically abusive toward her child; the man who is masochistically powerless at his job may act quite sadistically at home where he has relatively greater power. Thus, sadomasochism has the potential to capture more accurately the character of power relationships that are much more complex than has usually been recognized or than many people may wish to admit.

A final advantage is that while the traditional notion of masochism has often been used to blame women for their own victimization, the very act of maintaining the concepts of sadism and masochism necessarily allows for change. For perhaps the only thing intrinsic to the dynamic I am describing is that it constantly shifts. Thus, one cannot by nature be a masochist or sadist, even if one acts as though such an identity were etched in stone: instead, one tends to become inclined one way or the other through the pressures, constraints, and socializing influences of particular situations. Change, then, becomes an ever-present possibility,

and sadomasochistic dynamics themselves need not be inescapable when oppressive or rigid in their operations.

This addresses the benefits of using the term "sadomasochism" rather than another more static—and less specifically known to be internally transformable—description of relations based on power and powerlessness. But we have not yet touched on the problem of what this dynamic is, of what we should take it here to entail: more specifically, then, what are the characteristics of sadomasochistic dynamics as I have been referring to them? In Sadomasochism in Everyday Life, I argue that there are a set of basic traits through which one can identify sadomasochistic dynamics at both an individual and on a more collective level. This set of characteristics was initially culled from an examination of five novels, some of which are seen as "classic" literary expositions of sadomasochism (such as Pauline Réage's Story of O and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs ).^[19] In addition, I drew there on three sets of concepts based in different academic traditions of thought—existentialism, psychoanalysis, and symbolic interactionism (sociologically influenced)—in order to explore these traits' validity. By exploring three different theoretical languages (and arguing that one can translate between them), I became persuaded that each was saying basically the same thing. Consequently, I became more confident in generalizing about how sadomasochistic dynamics tend to operate.

A first characteristic of a classically "sadomasochistic dynamic," then, is that it is based on a hierarchical relationship between two unequal parties, one dominant and the other subordinate. Initially, this appears to be a dyadic relation, though we will see that it extends from the level of a pair of persons outward into other social relationships within the world. In other words, if one starts, as I do, from a virtually axiomatic premise of sadomasochism—that every masochist implies a sadist, every sadist a masochist—then sadomasochism has the potential for necessarily expanding beyond isolated dyadic pairs.

Yet, within any one particular couple, between any one particular sadist and masochist, certain tendencies unfold; there are usually a set of evaluations that the dominant party feels important enough to bestow upon the subordinated one. Again, virtually by definition, the dominating sadist is the one who asserts that he or she is somehow "better," while the subordinate masochist must seem relatively "secondary" or "inessential."^[20] Still, while necessary, the existence of hierarchy is by no means a sufficient condition for the presence of a sadomasochistic dynamic as I am defining it. Not all hierarchical rela

tionships are sadomasochistic: clearly not, since many teacher/student, boss/worker, parent/child relationships involve differential power but will not in any other way fit the remainder of the definition. Therefore, there is a second key trait—probably the most important criterion of all—for determining whether or not a particular dynamic is sadomasochistic.

This second characteristic is that the party in the more subordinate, or masochistic, position cannot just break away at will: some sort of punishment or reprisal will predictably ensue. Fundamentally, then, sadomasochism comes into being when or if it becomes impossible for a subordinate party to question or in any way challenge her or his relation to a "superordinate" without knowing that punitive consequences are likely to follow. Obviously, S/M sex, as Gayle Rubin, Pat Califia, or the Eulenspiegel society would describe it, does not meet this criterion: the rules of the game of this form of sexual exploration explicitly involve consent, precisely in order to differentiate it from the dynamic on which I am now focusing. But one knows that the seeds of sadomasochism are present if, for example, a teacher punishes the student who raises a question or challenge. Or, to cite another example, if any attempt to start a union or exert some influence in one's company is met by immediate dismissal or intimidating threats that one's livelihood could be lost. Or perhaps a parent becomes physically or emotionally abusive should his or her child express anger or dissatisfaction, even sometimes simply as a result of starting to grow and become separate. Consequently, sadomasochistic dynamics are most recognizable by the sense of threat—sometimes manifest, always latent—that underlies them, a reprisal often revealed most surely just at moments when the party situated masochistically becomes emboldened enough to challenge the sadist by breaking away and whether the attempt succeeds or not.

Third, the sadomasochistic dynamic is characterized by a situation of symbiotic dependence that bonds both a particular sadist to a particular masochist and a particular masochist to a particular sadist. On each side of the coin—from whichever perspective we view the relation-ship—both parties share a sense of interdependence on the other. They are linked by a common perception that neither can survive, physically or psychically, without the other. Nevertheless, although both know through experience what it is to be extraordinarily and symbiotically dependent on another, the forms of that dependence greatly differ for a sadist and a masochist.

For the sadist, his or her dependence is unknown or unconscious; the

vulnerability it implies is his or her best-kept secret from self and others. On the surface, the sadist appears to be the more independent one, the one in control; but his or her willingness to punish the masochist for rebelling from their interaction testifies to the extremity of this dependency. The masochist, on the other hand, has no choice but to acknowledge dependency; her or his structural position within the dynamic makes it clear how much the sadist is needed. Because the sadist cannot acknowledge dependence while the masochist can (and even though it is clear to us, looking on from outside, that both are symbiotically bound up with each other), a fascinating paradox comes into being. The apparently independent and "in control" sadist appears to be an actually weaker and probably more dependent party than the seemingly so dependent masochist because only the latter can admit to her or his vulnerability. Thus, the psychic and social realities experienced internally by sadist and masochist could be said to be virtually the opposite of what surface appearances would indicate.

The fourth characteristic of a sadomasochistic dynamic has already been mentioned: this form of relation between power and powerlessness is constantly changing. Its only permanent feature is to be forever shifting, perpetually in flux. This point, too, has quite radical ramifications. For once the sadist has a masochist in a hierarchical position of control and subordination, as is allegedly the goal of their interaction, then what? How does the dynamic move on in time—how can the sadist continue to get pleasure once the masochist has come to be controlled? Indeed, the only way for the dynamic to continue over time is if the masochist in some way rebels so that control can be exerted again and again. This may happen spontaneously; or perhaps the sadist will find him- or herself trying to bring about the masochist's mutiny. How strange and interesting, if so, because this is just the opposite of what the sadist is supposed to want—unlimited control and obedience!

Two analogous paradoxes follow from this. On the one hand, the sadist comes to need an uppity masochist, one who rebels against his or her power but only slightly, only within the rules of the sadomasochistic game I have begun to describe. The sadist has thereby begun to desire something paradoxical indeed, to wish for a highly ironic disapproval in the mode of approval: just the opposite of what he, or she, on the surface seems to desire. On the other hand, the masochist, who apparently seems to desire only that she or he be controlled, finds her- or himself becoming surprisingly uncontrollable. The masochist may discover that she or he possesses unexpectedly great power; just the fact

that the sadist wants continued rebellion tends to reveal the superior's ironic dependency and relative powerlessness. For, just as the sadist cannot entirely escape evidence of his or her actual dependence on the masochist, the masochist begins to realize that she or he cannot entirely be controlled—the masochist can never completely wipe out evidence of her or his actual independence. (I think of the 1986 film Kiss of the Spider Woman here: though he is jailed, and entirely powerless, the masochistically situated prisoner still has the mental power of imagination, and thus possesses a certain undeniable freedom even in conditions of utter captivity.) The masochist finds that she or he does not want only disapproval from the sadist—again, on the surface, the masochist supposedly only wishes to be controlled—he or she also (and again paradoxically) wishes desperately for approval. Thus, the correlate of the sadist's paradoxical desire for disapproval within the mode of approval inside the sadomasochistic dynamic is the masochist's desire for approval from the sadist within the mode of disapproval.

Each, then, sadist and masochist, can be shown through this analysis to long for something other than their apparent aims: the sadist is much more dependent, the masochist much more independent; each desires precisely the opposite—the sadist craving rebellion and the masochist approval— of what the dynamic taken at face value would suggest. Perhaps most unconsciously, most unwittingly of all, each may secretly desire that the dynamic be eschewed altogether. For a fifth and final characteristic of the dynamic is its eventually becoming unstable, unsustainable, and even irrational within its own terms. Sadomasochistic dynamics exemplify perhaps the ultimate "push/pull" form of an interactive relationship: unable to stay still, always on the verge of crisis, and thus tending toward its own self-compelled destruction. Thus a classic sadomasochistic dynamic points toward its own dissolution over time. Again, this is of course only a tendency , not an axiomatic law: the sadomasochistic dynamic is resilient and creative; perhaps it can go on indefinitely. But it is shot through with paradoxes, and so it will often be in that push/pull state: insecure and crisis ridden.

Such extreme instability is the result of sadomasochistic dynamics splitting apart what are two simultaneous human needs. If a dynamic can be imagined that is not sadomasochistic, by way of contrast, it would have to be one in which "mutual recognition" had become possible: two parties would both be able to recognize that each is at once dependent on, and to some degree also independent of, the other.^[21] But sadomasochism slices these two sides of ourselves asunder so that the

sadist tends to act as though highly independent (denying and repressing the dependent and vulnerable side of his or her needs); the masochist tends to act as though highly dependent (thereby denying and repressing the independent side of her- or himself, the side that desires power rather than powerlessness). Sadomasochism, therefore, by definition rests on the impossibility of mutual recognition to keep it going, for it to thrive. By definition, it cannot allow both sides of our human needs—needs for simultaneous dependence on and independence of others—to be acknowledged.

But who cares about this sadomasochistic dynamic, anyway? What does it matter? Before concluding by returning from sadomasochism as it is now being explored in general to the issue of feminism and sadomasochism in particular, we ought first examine what, if anything, this interpretation can (or cannot) explain about the social world around us. What reason is there to believe that such dynamics are common, that they affect day-to-day relationships not only in but also outside experiences that are specifically sexual?

We will consider two "everyday life" examples by way of illustration: the mundane worlds of work and gendered relations, respectively, to show how sadomasochistic dynamics may indeed be quite frequent rather than rare. Simultaneously, these examples support two claims with which we began: namely, that sadomasochism is much more accurately characterized as normal than exceptional, and that sadomasochistic social psychology correlates with the way we have structured many of our most basic institutions.

Work

Let's start with employer/employee relations and a supposedly extreme example. If one envisions the day-to-day social relations in organized crime, commonly known to exist though allegedly only at the margins of society, it is not difficult to see how this mode of illegal social organization exemplifies the dynamic defined above. Certainly organized crime's structure is hierarchical; its sadomasochistic iconography is unmistakable. The second critically defining trait of sadomasochism is also present: organized crime depends on ominous silence, on shared understandings that any attempt to break away will be met by severe punishment. One cannot be a middle-level organized crime member, decide midlife that one wishes to change careers, and have one's superior okay

this decision casually and supportively. Rather, for a person situated masochistically to break away may involve literally placing one's life at risk.

But is the situation so different for the average worker? Take sexual harassment, one of many examples that could be drawn from the world of work: the implication is that the victim could lose his or her job or possible promotion unless consenting to provide sexual favors. This, too, suggests the potential presence of a sadomasochistic dynamic. But I would argue more broadly, and theoretically, that capitalism itself is based on conditional psychology and that workers quite routinely—and, at certain historical moments like our own, to more extreme degrees—experience extreme fears about losing their jobs. To the extent one fears being unable to survive—literally or figuratively, emotionally or bodily—if workplace authority is challenged, then everyday relationships at work may also possess a sadomasochistic character. These relations could themselves be said to be sadomasochistic by this definition. Fear for one's life, then, may be the stick lurking behind the carrot, beneath the surface, making the production of a certain level of sadomasochistic anxiety far more a normal than a deviant aspect of the mundane workings of capitalism. Workers routinely generally fear the consequences of forming unions, especially in times of immense economic anxiety about job loss and global restructuring. Antiunion policies from the Reagan administration onward, combined with such fears, make it hardly accidental that union membership has been at its lowest rate since the 1930s, down from z5 percent of the workforce at its highest point to only 16 percent now. Moreover, as sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild wrote in The Managed Heart (1983), more and more jobs are in the service sector, requiring what she calls "emotional labor." One is expected not only to use one's body to perform jobs but also to meet emotional requirements: perhaps the repression of anger and the availability of a smile, whether or not one feels like smiling (say, if one happens to be a flight attendant, one of the examples Hochschild herself cites).^[22] Or emotional labor may be required if one works as a waitress or public relations executive, each of whom may be expected to act constantly cheerful regardless of true feelings, even in the face of mistreatment by customers or clients. One's emotional affect also has to be controlled properly to avoid the threat of possible loss of livelihood-and the sense of social legitimacy and belonging to a community that often come along with it.

In his writings about capitalism, Marx was not much concerned

about exploring this particular problem: the kind of social psychology that accords with the structured socioeconomic system he was describing. Obviously, I am arguing that the dominant social psychology that corresponds to and is produced with capitalism is inclined to become sadomasochistically structured. Marx's theory itself tended to deal with "objective" relations much more than "subjective" ones, an imbalance that itself probably reflects gender-biased assumptions called into question by contemporary feminist theories: it is precisely a personal versus political dichotomy that I am here challenging. Moreover, there are also ways in which the sadomasochistic dynamic described here illuminates interactions common in any class-divided system. Of course, sadomasochistic dynamics have existed not only in capitalist societies but in communist societies as well. Within the latter, yet another recycling of the dynamic often took place, so that parties situated masochistically and sadistically tended to reverse places rather than ceasing to exist as sadists and masochists: this illustrates applying the dynamic to a group, not only to an individual's situation.

But the sadomasochistic dynamic can illuminate the world of work even further. Take precisely that characteristic of transformability, which exists at the heart of sadomasochism. In a large corporate law firm where I worked some fifteen years ago, legal secretaries who were subordinately placed (or masochistically situated) relative to the partners (their bosses) might take on the role of the boss when dealing with a Xerox operator or mail clerk over whom that secretary had greater power. Or the young associate, meek in relation to a senior partner, might suddenly transform into a short-tempered and imperious party when dealing with his or her own secretary. In a different work setting is the domestic worker, studied by sociologist Judith Rollins, who published her research in Between Women (1985). As Rollins, an African American woman who posed as a domestic in order to conduct her study through participant observation, describes, a white woman employer might act rather sadistically (by the definition given above) toward a black domestic employee. Yet both knew that the white male husband, absent during the day, was the real boss in the home; relative to him, the white woman employer was powerless, though relative to the black domestic employee, she possessed power.^[23] As is typical when sadomasochistic dynamics are applied to social situations that (like most) are not merely dyadic, people frequently find that they are in both a potentially masochistic and potentially sadistic position at once. It would seem, then, that an important advantage of conceiving sadomas-

ochism in an internally transformable dynamic is the insight it provides into how power relationships in society are produced and reproduced. Because social situations may be structured in layers, sadomasochistically, we may be encouraged to channel anger at the powerlessness we experience onto others below us rather than express it toward those above us who actually have greater control over our lives. Such redirection of anger may serve to compensate for this powerlessness, enabling its continuation over time by making ongoing sadomasochistic relations much easier to bear. Thus, the white woman employer who expresses displaced anger at her employee may therefore be less likely to target the proper recipient, her husband.

But we should consider if yet another sadomasochistic characteristic is applicable. Do relationships of work give evidence of the sadist indeed desiring an "uppity masochist," of his or her wanting the masochist to rebel so that disapproval within the mode of approval may secretly, and paradoxically, be desired? In contemporary "management training" literature, many accounts can be found of the ideal worker whom bosses seek when hiring employees. As the sadomasochistic dynamic would anticipate, these characteristics often combined features like "competence," "reliability," and "dependability" with calls for "independence" and "initiative." Ideally, the boss does not desire someone who is mindlessly controlled but a person who questions and takes initiative—within the rules of the game, not threatening the dominant party's power to an intolerable degree.^[24]

Examples attesting to the sort of common social psychology being described can be found in daily business and professional life. In his best-selling account of life as a management trainee at Salomon Brothers, Michael Lewis depicts the sort of person least and most sought out by the partners. At a training session, a young woman asked the partner about his "secret for success."^[25] By thereby admitting his power and her powerlessness, she earned not the partner's respect but his scorn. Much more desirable were the young trainees who were sharp and challenging, but again within limits, not so aggressive as to disturb the rules of the game altogether. Or think of the graduate student who manages to win the famous professor's attention and favor. Is it likely to be the one who repeats slavishly what she or he is told, or the one who is something of a challenge to that professor's authority—although of course never failing to acknowledge the professor's power? Or consider the editor at a big publishing house—why does this person choose one novel out of a thousand submissions? Again, the editor will probably

choose something that seems "different" but not radically so; moreover, once chosen, a given author, or graduate student for that matter, may become a hot property by virtue of having been given one offer, thereby gaining a certain desirable independence relative to the editor (or to a senior professor).

These examples strongly suggest that workplace relationships share a common social psychological texture; they are structured in a way that suspiciously resembles the sadomasochistic dynamic with which we began. Like the sadist and the masochist, boss and workers under capitalistic conditions have a relationship that by its very structure discourages mutual recognition. Bosses, as individuals or collectively, cannot easily acknowledge the depth of their dependence on the worker(s) and therefore the latter's value. Simultaneously, people who work—that broad and shifting group, ranging from lower-level organized crime members to an associate at a law firm or a flight attendant or a domestic employee—are unable to acknowledge the extent of their own power. Like sadomasochistic relationships more generally, those at the workplace split dependence and independence. Structured around this split, these relationships may be shifting, unstable, and often in a state of flux.

Gender Relations

Here again, let's start with an apparently extreme case, then move to social relationships that are more mundane and everyday. Perhaps the two, the seemingly extreme and the clearly quotidian, are interrelated like distant relatives who nevertheless are part of the same family; perhaps the two exist as separate points that are nevertheless connected on a single continuum. Thus we will begin with relationships of battering and domestic violence. It is not hard to see how these fit within the definition of a sadomasochistic dynamic: again not simply hierarchical, the relationship depends on threatening or threatened exertions of force; once more, too, a sadomasochistic iconography is unmistakable. Our definition predicts that the sadomasochistic underpinnings of the relationship will be most clearly revealed when and if the person being battered, who has a very high statistical probability of being a woman, threatens to leave. At that moment, the extreme and symbiotic dependency that was always present becomes disclosed because the batterer, who has a very high statistical probability of being a man, becomes angrier and more violent. This is an empirical fact with which workers

at social service agencies and psychologists who deal with domestic violence are all too familiar. In some cases, the batterer may become temporarily romantic and repentant for a while, before punishment tends to begin again. But whatever happens at a given moment, there is little doubt that the relationship is one in which the batterer's apparent "power" and control hide the depth of dependence actually felt.

As with the examples from the workplace, however, a sadomasochistic texture may also pervade intimate gendered relationships even when no force or extreme violence is present. In such cases, the presence of a sadomasochistic dynamic is subtler and harder to trace. Yet the formats of gothic romances and soap operas still regularly feature gendered relations that are decidedly push/pull in character, sometimes including (albeit in a much softened and usually nonviolent form) some of the now-familiar characteristics of this dynamic. Similarly, there are numerous commercials, like the Calvin Klein Guess jeans series, that feature a subtle or not-so-subtle sadomasochistic edge: think of the popular cultural examples cited within the New York magazine whose cover declared, "In 1994, It's Mean Sex: S&M Culture Goes Mainstream." Moreover, when visiting local bookstores, one may discover that sections devoted to "intimate relationships" have not only recently grown but regularly feature literatures concerned with "codependent" gendered relationships: only a few years ago, titles like Women Who Love Too Much, The Pleasers, and Is It Love or Is It Addiction? were common.^[26] Some books on codependency became or are becoming best-sellers; their titles indicate that relationships of extreme dependency are about to be described, and a seven- or twelve-point process probably will be pre scribed as to how the problem might be overcome. When we look even more closely into this literature, we find that its authors are generally therapists who take a mostly individual approach to the recurrent circumstances their books depict.^[27] At the same time that this therapeutic literature frames the problem as though treatable only at the level of individuals—rather than insisting that it also requires social structural changes far more collective in scope—the books' best-selling status belie the authors' individualistic orientation: why would the books become best-sellers unless they reflected some more general theme, resonating in large numbers of people in a given society at around the same time?

Indeed, the gendered relationships described in this popular literature bear a striking resemblance to aspects of the sadomasochistic dynamic we have been examining. For instance, there is often a push/pull

character to the relationships being described. The how-to, Women Who Love Too Much texts are likely to suggest, as a matter of course, that an overly needy or "clingy" woman will certainly "turn off" men. By extension, it would appear that being much more distant—but not so distant that a relationship becomes impossible—creates a more desirable female persona. Moreover, consider that in most male-dominated patriarchal societies like our own, the welt-known "madonna/whore," "good woman/bad woman" division is a stock feature of patriarchal fantasies. Men often take comfort in security, and yet they seek uncertainty, novelty, and experiences of mystery through "affairs." But why are these dichotomies of wives versus mistresses, good women versus bad, themselves so common? I see their pervasiveness as an outgrowth of the tendency of these societies to set up men in a relatively sadistic and more powerful position, women in a relatively more masochistic and less powerful position. But just as the sadist can never get full recognition and satisfaction from an absolutely controlled masochist (but secretly looks for rebellion, secretly craves challenges to his or her authority), so the man who has taken away the freedom of a woman, of an other, may find himself paradoxically dissatisfied as well. He turns to a relatively freer and uncontrolled mistress, with whom he can give fuller play to the more dependent side of himself. And so, on the other hand (and just as we would anticipate, given the sadomasochistic dynamic's tendency to internally transform), a woman who may be relatively powerless elsewhere may find herself endowed with relative power in her role as mistress—at least, we should add, temporarily.

Moreover, just as Marxist theory helped illuminate why workplace relationships so commonly contain a sadomasochistic texture, so feminist theory makes it easier to understand push/pull gendered relationships. Returning now to Simone de Beauvoir's classic The Second Sex (1949), we are reminded that many second-wave feminists have described the deeply rooted socialization processes that accustom men to differential possession of power, women to feeling relatively powerless. From this analysis, it is not very difficult to see once again how patriarchy—as a form of social organization in which men are the dominant party, women the subordinate—also does not allow for mutual recognition. Rather than seeing two people in a relationship as mutually inter-dependent—each being vulnerable to the other, but also partly autonomous—patriarchy, like capitalism, splits one side of ourselves from another. The man is the "macho" one, apparently independent and strutting through the world with immense confidence; as de Beauvoir

recounted so well, he has been told from early childhood that he must not let on to feelings of dependency. On the other hand, women are socialized to acknowledge their dependence on and "need" for others, especially the man; for women, power and independence are much more difficult to assert for fear of the rejection that might follow such assertiveness. Thus men may grow up feeling angry toward women for the dependency they feel but must suppress; conversely, women may end up exerting power and expressing their own anger in ways that may often be indirect. Together, their mutual relationship may indeed result in characteristically push/pull patterns, frequently rather than infrequently, because of a fundamentally sadomasochistic division at patriarchy's—like capitalism's—very heart.