Systemic Sexism in the Therapy Room
Systemic sexism has re-emerged into the collective consciousness and global conversation since the #MeToo and #BelieveHer movements came into existence. Just like during the 1960’s when women joined consciousness raising groups in which they shared their daily experiences with sexism and misogyny, women today are calling out the deeply embedded and normalized sexism in our society. And recently, we witnessed this kind of calling out in how Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez publicly shared her experience with Rep. Ted Yoho. It is curious to me why this conversation about systemic sexism went silent for many years, but that is for another blog. In this blog I talk about how systemic sexism needs to be part of the conversation in the therapy room, because it is present, whether the client or therapist realizes it or not.
Through my work with women, I have learned that there is a wider socio-cultural reality or story connected to every issue a client brings into the therapy room, and understanding my client’s socio-cultural reality is essential to fully comprehending her life, emotional reality, and the emotional issue she is wanting help with. My mother-daughter clients have taught me that if I only listen to what a mother and daughter are fighting about, I will miss a lot of information about what is causing their relationship conflict. I unpack their generational experience with sexism, which includes their experience with violence, emotional silencing, lack of support, inequality, and being undervalued, and I connect the dots between these experiences and what a mother and daughter are fighting about, because there is always a connection.
Women’s lives and how mothers and daughters relate are a mirror reflection of how women are treated in their generational family. This means that how women and girls feel about themselves, how they behave in their relationships, and how they behave at school or at work, and what mothers and daughters fight about are deeply connected to whether women and girls are listened to or silenced, emotionally supported or emotionally neglected, and the sexist and emotionally disempowering beliefs, cultural practices, and gender role stereotypes that women, girls, mothers and daughters have been taught to internalize and normalize.
When I begin working with a client, I map her mother-daughter history. I created this exercise years ago because I wanted an exercise that mapped out my female client’s experiences and how she views herself without any contamination from the male perspective. In a sexist society the male perspective is omnipresent, and I believe that in the therapy room women deserve to be understood as themselves, outside of the male gaze or perspective that influences many of their daily decisions and experiences. Women deserve to have what it feels like to be female in a sexist, patriarchal, misogynistic society listened to and understood, and to have their emotional and relationship issues understood as a symptom of the sexism and gender inequality they navigate on a daily basis.
In the Mother-Daughter History Mapping exercise, I unpack the stories of what has happened to my client and her mother and grandmother, and particularly their emotional reality. A woman’s emotional reality tells her attachment story, whether she was listened to or silenced, emotionally supported or emotionally neglected, and what gender role stereotypes limited her choices and power in all her relationships. Mapping a woman’s emotional reality reveals generational themes of selflessness, self-neglect, being too compromising in relationships, and how selfless, sacrificial behavior is regarded as good and liked and self-focused, self-caring behavior is regarded as bad, wrong, and disliked. The exercise reveals how it feels when a woman isn’t given the resources to follow her dreams and realize her potential outside of her traditional gender role. And it connects the dots between what her family, culture, and society teaches her about who she is as a female and how she should behave in order to be seen, liked, and appreciated, and her symptoms of low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and her struggle to be heard in her mother-daughter relationship, and in all her relationships. (See “The Mother-Daughter Puzzle” for detailed instructions on how you can map your own and your client’s mother-daughter history.)
Every day I hear stories of women and girls being mistreated by men they love, and by a society that disregards women’s voices, truth, and human rights, and it makes me angry when they tell me that their emotional issues or struggle to be heard in their relationships are all their fault.
Whenever anyone isn’t listened to repeatedly, and the silencer behaves with impunity, it makes sense that this experience will have an emotionally harming impact.
Whenever anyone’s human rights are denied, this experience causes harm. And the therapy room of all places, needs to be a space in which women are not blamed for reacting to the sexism and misogyny they experience. The therapy room is a place where women learn to claim their voice and truth, identify the sexist beliefs they have internalize and normalized, and claim their strength and power.
Reprinted with permission from my American Counseling Association blog.