Why Daughters Abandon Mothers...

I became interested in Hillary after I observed, in real time, the subtle gender bias I have always been intuitively conscious of in my own travels.  The night before the New Hampshire primary I saw an intrinsic unfairness in how she was being dealt with in the presumed objective media.  It seemed to me to be generated mainly from the media, not by comments of regular people on the streets of America which I also find curious.  That's probably another story but it mainly made me really mad and it made me much clearer on how I felt about Hillary Clinton and her strengths.  It begs the question however; why wouldn't all women identify with Hillary and what she has been up against her entire professional life.   Why wouldn't women, like myself, who know what it's like to be in the professional world, be inclined to support her more? 

I watched one night in horror as Bay Buchanon, a conservative female pundit lambasted Hillary for being a 'cry baby' for suggesting that she was not benefitting from the same treatment from the media as her rival Barack Obama.  She roasted her for what she characterized as "whining and complaining, something she has always done! It's classic Hillary!" I noted the vitriolic nature of her comments and thought to myself 'well you can disagree with Hillary but why hate and demoralize her this way.' Would John McCain or Barak Obama be accused of whining?   Bay Buchanon is an articulate and educated woman in her own right.  It got my analytic juices flowing.  Why do women turn against a strong female leader just as some male counterparts?

Sigmund Freud wrote a paper, some may be familiar, "Female Sexuality."  In it he explains how the female baby comes to turn away from the mother and pursue the father.  In opposition to the male baby who never gives mother up and essentially competes with father to win mothers partnership:  The Oedipal struggle.  The first piece of this dynamic describes the phenomena of penis envy and the mothers lack of penis.  The female child comes to notice this that reflects poorly on the mother.  Mother is regarded as weak, inferior, perhaps even mutilated, grotesque. At the risk of being horribly reductionist, could this be part of the explanation for the abandonment of Hillary as a potential leader by women?     

Oh Brother! It's Mother!

I would like to say, from the bottom of my heart, sorry, to my three fans for falling short of their expectations of me and this blog.  I never meant to let you all down...  forgive me.  I will try to find some more regularity. 

I've been ruminating some on the "three o'clock in the morning ad" of Hillary's that pushed everybody's buttons.   I don't know what you all three think but I think there is something very fishy about the reactions.  Something distorted... dare I say it... something psychodynamic.  

There were pictures of children sleeping... a close up of an infant.... a worried mother standing in the door way... then calling the doctor...?   on the line was Hillary...  Up at three in the morning and ready for action!  

Just ask yourself this...  Who usually wakes up at three in the morning to save the three month old infant starving and frightened by the lack on connection to something 'other' that might protect it from annihilation?  Mother.  Who knows most of the time, without words, intuitively what the infant needs and when? Mother.  Who is generally more reliable to get up to feed and clean the baby and lull it back to a feeling of safety and slumber?  Mother.

Hillary has played the girl card!!!  I must admit it.  But it doesn't bother me much.  I think it's fair ground in the political war games.  And I think a lot of people will respond to it.  You can hear echos of it when some say "it's time for a woman to be in the white house."  It's time to put someone there who will actually wake up and get out of bed when the vulnerable and innocent little people need her.  

 

Finally the Psychoanalysis...Hillary

As far as debates go, this one was more substantive than most.  I saw two people in a heated contest attempting to make their case.  Even though I am still convinced Hillary is the better candidate I appreciated the both of them and their obvious passion to help this country out of some of the darkest days in our history.  

That being said, I can't believe how disgusted I've become with the pundits and the coverage of the primary.  It was as if we watched two different debates.  They talked about it as if it is a boxing match that never produced a knockout.  No blood!  How boring!  But the consensus seemed consistent with past coverage, the press has chosen sides and clearly it is Barak Obama's.  They can barely control their glee while projecting the imminent strike when Hillary receives the fatal blow and finally goes down for the count.  I wouldn't be surprised if the pundits become depressed when their fantasy is finally realized.  

I keep promising my analytic take on why Hillary rouses a reaction from many that is overblown and distorted.   This is main gist of it: Lets think first about the main criticisms you hear that are directed mostly toward attributes of her personality that some find offensive.  She's described as cold, corrupt, not authentic, withdrawn, guarded, aloof, and inaccessible. Personally, I can understand how she developed qualities that can be experienced as cold and untrustworthy.  She has been through one heck of a ringer and handled it in such a way that produced an overdeveloped stoicism, a mask of protection so to speak.  As I said in my last blog, the way she handled the attacks and the hate mongers is one of the things that I admire her for. However, the attributes described above, if ascribed to a mother, or a primary care giver, spells trouble.  This would likely incite rage in the rejected and abandoned child whose needs are not only unmet but also invalidated leaving a child feeling a host of probable feelings such as loss, loneliness, badness and distress. All of these terrible feelings will come to roost someday as rage.  A mother who does not love well, likely inspires rage and rage can inspire homicidal fantasies on the part of the child.  Can this perhaps be why some can't wait to see Hillary metaphorically get trounced.  Unless of course this rage is turned against the self as often happens with mortal rage.   Some of us may know what happens next, depression.  The irony is that in this day and age people in the corporate sphere are expected to be tough as nails. For a man these attributes may not cause so much trouble.  I think they play better for men.  Men had typically been more aloof and tough (?) when it came to child rearing.   Women were typically far more involved in the intimate goings on of the little child and therefore yielded more opportunities to fail the child than men.  

This is probably all terribly reductionist and over simplistic of me.  As most Analytic scholars know, there are many factors that contribute to behavior but I still stand by this explanation.  I believe it has it's merits as a part of the phenomena, one part of the puzzle.  There are a couple other ideas I have on Hillary.  As always, stay tuned!  

The Same Old Subtle Marginalization...

You would never know it by how things are being covered in the media, but Hillary is still extremely competitive in the race with Barak Obama for the Democratic nomination.  

At the risk of sounding bitter... because we all know women are considered extremely unattractive when they express cynical however valid views...  I can't watch the news anymore! Everybody has drank the cool aid!! There doesn't seem to be an objective pundit left.  Chris Mathews who I actually really liked before all this, should be getting a paycheck from the Obama camp.  When Hillary was winning... the pundits were all talking about Obama.  When Obama is winning.... the pundits are all talking about Obama.  It's so obviously unfair.    

At the risk of sounding like a Hillary operative, which I assure you I am not!  I'd like to illustrate my point.  This is how I've come to view Hillary:  She is extremely smart and learned. She has been dedicated to public service since her adolescence demonstrating her deep care and commitment to the American people.  She is a staunch supporter of women's rights and civil rights.  She's managed to keep her private life, private, under the most intense of scrutinies. She has demonstrated strength and dignity while being horribly attacked by hate mongers for years.  She has well thought out plans, WITH DETAILS, for the big issues.  And she's courageous!  She is a hero to me and probably to a lot of other women out there.  Now why is that not a story line the pundits are interested in?   

It's hard to be reminded, how hard it is for a strong smart woman to get a fair shake in America.  I have and do experience the same subtle marginalization in my own professional life. And I hate that I am reducing Hillary's struggles to feminist issues, especially since I rejected the radicalism of feminism many years ago while studying in college.  I have instead, a psychoanalytic theory about the difficulty strong women have getting the same treatment and having the same expectations as their male counterparts.

I promise it's coming soon. 

And Now, The Psychoanalysis... Hillary Clinton, part 1.

Enough of the political analysis, it's time for the psychoanalysis...

It’s not that political analysis does not have a place in the deliberations and discourse of current issues and events. For me, political analysis is simply not a comprehensive discussion of the actual micro and macro behavioral phenomena we spend so much time and energy brooding over.  It leaves me and most others wanting. It’s like the proverbial 800 pound gorilla, everybody knows there is more to it, but no one is sure how to discuss it.  For me, a modest young psychoanalyst who is used to thinking about gorilla’s, it’s difficult to let these observations stand without compulsively blurting them out.  Lets take as an example, the sorry story of my hero Hillary Clinton. 

For some time now I have been struck by what I see as outright disparity in the coverage of Senator Clinton as compared to her opponents.  Even before this recent run, I have noticed in the past years a vitriolic hatred toward her by some that was hard to understand.  Has Hillary Clinton done anything so horrible as to deserve this passionate display?  I used to ask people... “what is it about Hillary you object to?  Why don’t you like her?”  There were various answers but few appeared substantive.  Most answers I encountered were vague and weird like, “I can’t believe she went back with Bill” or “she’s too cold, she has no heart.” For some, these attributes may be basis enough to disqualify her from considering her for public office.  I find these explanations lacking.  That may simply be a preference issue however, it does not explain the passionate hatred I observe in these Hillary haters.  I get the feeling there is something more to this story.

One of the first things we notice as psychoanalysts are distortions.  When a reaction appears in congruent to an incident or event, and there is a certain amount of subjectivity involved in this obviously, when it appears to be bigger than you would expect, it’s usually fueled or enhanced by something deep in the subconscious.   

I plan to spend some time analyzing, what I am going to tentatively call, the dominant female effect.  This effect I propose, is a common reaction people have to a strong woman figure.  In my view, it’s etiology is well explained using a Freudian and neo-Freudian psychoanalytic theoretical framework.

Stay tuned for further explorations of the Dominant Female Effect.  

  

Comments and feed back welcomed.