(..) psychiatrists today recognize the contortionist's act that was required of women in an age when they were expected to stifle their own healthiest impulses. (..) "To be able to renounce your own achievements without feeling that you were sacrificing requires constant effort. To be lovely and unaggressive, a woman spends a lifetime keeping hostile or resentful impulses down. Even healthy self-assertion is often sacrificed since it may be mistaken by hostility. Therefore, [women] often repress their initiative, give up their aspirations, and unfortunately end up excessively dependent with a deep sense of insecurity and uncertainty about their abilities and their worth.Colette Dowling
About This Quote
The quote above by Peggy Orenstein is a reflection of the negative pressures women are under today. These pressures are not only found in the workplace but also in the family. Women are expected to be nice, quiet and agreeable. When they express their opinions they are labeled as too aggressive, too critical or too direct.
The quote above reflects how women are expected to repress their own wishes and ambitions for fear of being labeled as selfish or overtly aggressive. It is said that women should stifle their own healthy impulses in order to be pleasing to others. This is because when they act on their own wishes or desires they may be seen as selfish or hostile.
We often see this when women do not get promoted when they should because they are too assertive or when men do not get promoted when they should because they are not considered assertive enough.
Source: The Cinderella Complex: Womens Hidden Fear Of Independence
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