Where were we?
In her book – Women and Desire: Beyond Wanting to be Wanted – Polly Young-Eisendrath hypothesises that Lacan might have been right: women want to be wanted, not to be loved. She also suggests that women’s “compulsion” to be desired and desirable persists throughout life, wreaking havoc on their “self-direction, self-confidence and self determination.”
This post is about outlining the issue and its scale.
Trapped in images
Young-Eisendrath’s thesis is that women’s compulsion to be desired and desirable is not limited to the realm of love and sex, but infiltrates and directs every aspect of women’s lives. It’s the desire to be “nice”, to be the
perfect mother, the ideal friend, the seductive lover … the kind neighbour, the competent boss.
To put it in a nutshell, it’s about wanting to be seen as an image, rather than being known. Known by others, and known by one’s self.
The story of one of Young-Eisendrath’s clients whom she calls “Anne” illustrates the issue.
Anne’s story
Anne is in her mid-40s. She is a professor, a mother of three children and is viewed as competent, a leader and someone who “has it all”. This includes a caring and supportive husband who runs the kitchen and is fully engaged in parenting and contributing to the couple’s children.
Despite outward appearances, each time Anne comes to therapy she complains bitterly about her life “being out of control”, and talks about feeling overwhelmed, overworked and never having a “moment to herself”, including having no time for her creative pursuit of painting.
Young-Eisendrath describes Anne as “dominated by others’ needs and demands”, and as someone who
struggles mightily with how she is seen by others, not wanting anyone to think she is demanding or pushy.
The disparity between how Anne appears and how she feels about herself and her life is a symptom, Young-Eisendrath says, of “wanting to be wanted.”
The ”film” night
A recent incident from Anne’s life demonstrates the issue.
Anne was invited to a friend’s house to hear about her friend’s overseas trip. Anne went along, despite wanting to spend the night at home; hours later, her friend was still talking about her trip. Anne sat there feeling bored and resentful and longing for the night to be over.
When the therapist asked her why she’d accepted the invitation even though she didn’t really want to hear about the trip, Anne said:
I don’t know. I couldn’t imagine turning it down. After all, this friend has spent a lot of time listening to me bitch and moan about my job … I didn’t know how resentful I really felt until I was sitting there, feeling under her control with no chance of going home.
Anne went on,
Of course, I couldn’t tell her how I felt. I would never say something that sounds so rejecting to a friend. I wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings.
As Young-Eisendrath points out, to Anne it appeared that her friend was “controlling” her or coercing her, when it was Anne’s own compulsion to be desirable that was coercing her. The compulsion, however, is hidden from Anne and while ever it remains so, much of her behaviour must appear confusing, even inexplicable, to others and to herself.
The compulsion led Anne to deceive her friend by appearing to be interested when she was not. And to deceive herself in a number of ways, including thinking she wanted to appear supportive. Because, as Young-Eisendrath notes, Anne was not being responsible even for this desire; if she had really wanted to appear supportive, then she would have gone to her friend’s home and made a success of the night.
What’s the result of this morass of indirection? For Anne, and many other women, it’s the experience that
we seem to have chosen to be in a situation – a dinner party, a committee meeting, even a marriage – but we feel as though we had no choice …
Next post: That word “wanting”
*****
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Image: Poster by Lelong, c 1920, courtesy of Galerie Montmartre in Melbourne, Australia
After reading your last post on “Women and Desire” I ordered a copy of the book. Thanks for your discussion of this interesting topic–I look forward to reading the book.
Hello, Mrs Daffodil. You’re most welcome. Glad you got something from the post and ordered the book. You might find it as stimulating as I do … esp because we’re both fans of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. I have an old tattered copy given to me by my Auntie Joan when I was about 8. She is an old lady with Alzheimers now but I remember her spunkiness and generosity when I see it in my bookcase. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
I thought the term for this type of behavior was learned helplessness?
If this is learned helplessness, is the hypothesis that women are more prone to it than men?
No, that’s not the hypothesis. I think that one may belong to Martin Seligman’s evil twin.
The hypothesis is set out in the first para of the post.
Notice how difficult it is for all of us not to refer to men when we’re discussing women …