kind of family we grew up in is perhaps the most important factor of all. Virginia Satir, a world renowned therapist, writes:
I am convinced that there are no genes to carry the feeling of worth. It is learned. And the family is where it is learned . . . an infant coming into the world has no past, no experience in handling himself, no scale on which to judge his own worth. He must rely on the experiences he has with the people around him and the messages they give him about his worth as a person.
We do not need a perfect environment to give us a healthy confidence in ourselves but we do need a ‘good-enough’ one. D W Winnicott, an excellent and well-known psychoanalyst, wrote:
A good enough environment can be said to be that which facilitates the various individual inherited tendencies . . . it requires a high degree of adaptation to individual infant needs.
Do Women Have Special Difficulties?
The feminist movement has, of course, had a tremendous impact on the lives of women.
But, although women have achieved tremendous advances in their battle against sexism and inequality, we still live in a society in which men hold real power over the vast majority of women. Equal opportunity is really still a dream. In Britain, even after a spell of being governed by a woman Prime Minister, the nation remains ruled largely by men. Women are slowly creeping up the management ladder in industry and the professional organizations, but it will be many years before any real balance of power in the public world is achieved.
| Nobody can argue any longer about the rights of women. It’s like arguing about earthquakes. Lilian Hellman |
Although we are all aware of the many changes which have taken place, there is also abundant evidence to show that men still hold the real power in most families. This power is often embedded in the family finances.
Nowadays most married women work. But we know that this is still often part-time, temporary and low-paid work. Very few wives are able to earn more than their husbands. Working mothers are particularly hard-hit because not only do they have to battle with the general discrimination against women in the world of work, but they also have to cope with many other practical problems.
Even in the most liberal of families, where equality is genuinely being strived for, you find that choices have to be made. The result is that a woman’s earning power may be reduced. If one partner’s job has to suffer because a child is sick, a child minder is on holiday, or the family decides to move, whose job is protected? Usually it is the man’s, if only because it seems to make sound economic sense to protect the job which pays the most and is the most secure. Even as a successful, assertive, professional woman, this is a choice I have had to make many times in my life, and it is a choice that hurts. It can eat away at your self-esteem, especially if you are already lacking in confidence or have other reasons not to feel powerful and in control of your life.
As ‘Daddy’s little girls’ many of us were raised dreaming of a prince who would be bristling with confidence and who would battle through the undergrowth to rescue us. Colette Dowling has called this the ‘Cinderella Complex’ in her book of the same name (Pocket Books, 1981) and forcibly argues that women must recognize and own this yearning for dependence and desire to be saved.
We must also remember that stereotypes such as this affect our sexual behaviour and those around us.
And in the world of work, I once heard some women talking self-deprecatingly about their role in the workplace (in this case a factory). They said things like, ‘Women can put up with boring jobs, men need something more to occupy them,’ and ‘It’s not a bad life for a woman anyway.’
Somewhere deep in our subconscious, men and women alike often associate being ‘good’ with playing the demure second fiddle to a man. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that men do generally have more confidence if, as women, we perpetuate the stereotypes in our own behaviour and in the way we continue to parent, educate and generally encourage boys and men to possess ‘masculine’ traits, and girls and women to possess the ‘feminine’ ones.
Do Men Have Special Difficulties?
Since writing the first edition of this book, I did a Master’s degree specializing in ‘Men and Masculinity’. The reason I chose this special subject of study was that more and more men were consulting me with problems, particularly in the area of confidence. I felt my personal experience of men (although possibly above average in its breadth!) needed professionally augmenting. I was right. The course did open up my eyes to the particular pressures that were at the root of many men’s problems. Thankfully these are now written and talked about so extensively in the mass media that you don’t need a Master’s to become aware of them! We know that many men who may have formerly had masses of confidence are now quaking internally because:
they have lost their jobs or fear they are about to do so. (Men’s inner confidence is inextricably linked to their ability to work and earn. Most women’s confidence is less dependent on their having a job.)
many of their wives and daughters or female colleagues are more successful (the masculine psyche is still influenced by centuries of gender programming which says the reverse should be true).
they have lost control of and possibly the respect of their children (perhaps simply because work or divorce has kept them at a distance).
they are unable to understand or work with the new softly-softly style of management at work (the old hierarchical style is one which most men have been culturally programmed to feel more at ease with, even when they want to change it).
they are losing their partners (perhaps simply because they cannot meet their new demands to be ‘emotionally intelligent’).
So both genders have their own special problems with regard to confidence. But I am sure we share many more which stem from very similar roots. Very few boys or girls can emerge from childhood without their confidence having been knocked in some way or other. (Because, quite simply, there are no perfect parents, perfect teachers, perfect siblings or perfect peers!) Another truth is that very few men or women can travel through adulthood without encountering some heavy confidence-bashing en route. After all, don’t we all feel the effects when, for example, we:
• make a mistake or fail to live up to our own expectations
• are left by people we have loved
• are ill and lose a degree of independence
• are without a home or financial security
• are let down by people we trusted
• are heavily criticized
• are bullied
• are mugged or burgled or conned
• face a change for which we are not adequately prepared.
| Confidence boosting is a skill that everyone needs in order to survive normal everyday life and rise to the continual challenges of our evolving universe. |
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