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Quote by Colette Dowling

“The psychological need to avoid independence - the "wish to be saved" - seemed to me an important issue, quite probably the most important issue facing women today. We were brought up to depend on a man and to feel naked and frightened without one. We were taught to believe that as women we cannot stand alone, that we are too fragile, too delicate, needful of protection. So that now, in these enlightened days, when our intellects tell us to stand on our own two feet, unresolved emotional issues drag us down.”

Quote by Colette Dowling

Book:The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence
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The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence

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Colette Dowling

Colette Dowling, born in 1938, is an accomplished writer known for her unique style and profound insights into the lives of women. more

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“Women (...) have been encouraged since they were children to be dependent to an unhealthy degree. Any woman who looks within knows that she was never trained to be comfortable with the idea of taking care of herself, standing up for herself, asserting herself. At best she may have played the game of independence, inwardly envying the boys (and later the men) because they seemed so naturally self-sufficient. It is not nature that bestows this self-sufficiency on men; it's training. Males are educated for independence from the day they are born. Just as systematically, women are taught that they have an out - that someday, in some way, they are going to be saved. That is the fairy tale, the life-message (...) We may venture out on our own for a while. We may go away to school, work, travel; we may even make good money, but underneath it all there is a finite quality to our feelings about independence. Only hang on long enough, the childhood story goes, and someday someone will come along to rescue you from the anxiety of authentic living. (The only savior the boy learns about is himself.)”

WomenFeminismPatriarchyGender RolesMale PrivilegeSocietal ConstructsCinderella ComplexEmotional Dependency
Book:The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence
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“(...) performance anxiety [in the worplace] is connected to other, more general fears which have to do with feeling inadequate and defenseless in the world: the fear of retaliation from someone with whom one disagrees; the fear of being critisized for doing something wrong; the fear of saying "no"; the fear of stating one's needs clearly and directly, without manipulating. These are the kinds of fears that affect women in particular, because we were brought up to believe that taking care of ourselves, asserting ourselves, is unfeminine. We wish (...) to feel attractive to men: non-threatening, sweet, "feminine". This wish crimps the joy and productiveness with which women could be leading their lives.”

FeminismPatriarchyGender RolesMale PrivilegeSocietal ConstructsPsychological TraumaCinderella ComplexEmotional Dependence
Book:The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence
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“Because of the way society sets them up, women never again experience the need to develop independence - until some crisis in later life explodes their complacency, showing them how sadly helpless and undeveloped they've allowed themselves to be.”

WomenFeminismPatriarchyGender RolesSocietal ConstructsCinderella ComplexEmotional DependenceFinancial Dependence
Book:The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence
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“Women retain their dependence needs long past the developmental point at which those needs are normal and healthy. Unbeknownst to others - and worse, unbeknownst to ourselves - we carry dependency within us like some autoimmune disease. We carry it with us from kindergarten through college and graduate school, into our careers, and into the convenient "arrangement" of our marriages. (...) Much of the time - for many of us, all of the time - our unwillingness to stand on our own two feet goes unnoticed because it's expected. Women are relational creatures. They nurture and need. This, we have been told for many, many years, is nature. And although it cripples us, we have to let it go unquestioned.”

WomenFeminismPatriarchyGender RolesSocietal ConstructsCinderella ComplexEmotional Dependence
Book:The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence
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“Much of what is considered "good" in little girls is considered downright repulsive in little boys. Physical timidity or hypercautiousness, being quietly "well behaved", and depending on others for help and support are thought to be natural - if not outright charming - in girls. Boys, however, are actively discouraged from the dependent forms of relating, which are considered "sissyish" in male children.”

WomenFeminismPatriarchyGender RolesSocietal ConstructsCinderella ComplexEmotional DependenceFemale Socialization
Book:The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence
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“One strong idea being put forth these days (...) is that women should above all be given choice. (...) But this "right to choose" whether or not we provide for ourselves has contributed mightily to the female achievement gap. Because they have the social option to stay home, women can - and often do - back off from assuming responsibility for themselves. (...) There is something wrong with this. (...) We want so desperately to believe that we do not have to be responsible for our own welfare.”

WomenFeminismGender RolesMale PrivilegeSocietal ConstructsCinderella ComplexEmotional DependenceEconomic DependenceThe Fallacy Of Choice
Book:The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence
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“Because of a profound, deep-seated doubt in their own competence, which begins in early childhood, girls become convinced that they must have protection if they are going to survive. This belief is bred into women by misguided social expectations (...) Girls are trained very differently than boys. The training leads to their becoming adults who stay stuck in jobs beneath their capabilities. It leads them to feel intimidated by the men they marry, and to defer to them in the hope of being protected. It even leads (...) to the crippling of women's intellectual abilities. Long praised by teachers for being diligent and dutiful in school, we who rely on dutifulness to get us by in the professional world son find ourselves being treated as if we were not quite grown up. (...) Not to be taken seriously. And (...) easily exploitable. (...) The way girls are socialized continues to predetermine an agonizing conflict over the psychological independence that's necessary if women are ever to spring free and take their place in the sun.”

WomenFeminismPatriarchyGender RolesMale PrivilegeSocietal ConstructsCinderella ComplexEmotional Dependence
Book:The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence
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“While we've painted the guardians of the pale in a somewhat reactionary light, let's give the gatekeepers their due. What lies beyond the pale isn't always safe and secure. Outside the fence of state-sanctioned consciousness, there are, to be sure, peaks of profound insight and inspiration. But there are also the swamps of addiction, superstition, and groupthink, where the unprepared can get stuck.”

ConventionsDrugsDrug AddictionDrug ProhibitionSocietal ConstructsContrabandWar On Consciousness
Book:Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work
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