MMO: Shame
seems to be the weapon of choice in the so-called “mommy wars.”
Comments tossed off in casual conversation— such as an at-home
mom declaring “I could never let someone else raise my children,”
or an employed mom remarking “I would go crazy if I had to
spend all day at home with the kids,” or any mother saying
“I’ve never felt (conflicted, ambivalent, depressed,
angry) about being a mother… I guess motherhood is not for
everyone”— are, knowingly or unknowingly, calibrated
to provoke tremendous pain and rage in women who are vulnerable.
It’s always dangerous to generalize, but my sense is that
some mothers self-righteously (or, at least unselfconsciously) demean
other mothers in an effort to avoid coming into contact with their
own vulnerability. Do we wield shame to stop ourselves from feeling
shame? Is shame used to enforce ideology?
B
Brown: Well,
clearly, as your examples demonstrate, shame is an effective and
piercing weapon. This is especially true in high vulnerability areas
like motherhood and parenting. In fact, parenting emerged as one
of the most divisive issues among women. I think there are three
primary reasons that motherhood and parenting are such vulnerable
areas: First, there are so many unattainable and conflicting expectations
that many of us often feel like we are drowning and taking our families
down with us. It is easy to lash out when we are overwhelmed with
feelings of confusion, judgment, fear and anger. Second, most of
us are absolutely committed to doing the best we can, and it is
easy to perceive someone else’s decision to do things differently
as a criticism of our choice rather than seeing it as simply another
path. Just like when we are feeling judged, fearful and angry, feeling
criticized makes it very difficult to respond to someone with empathy
and understanding. Third, and this goes back to your suggestion
that we may use shame to stop shame; we have all developed what
the Relational/Cultural theorists from the Stone Center at Wellesley
call “strategies of disconnection.” Using shame to fight
shame is certainly one of them.
Let me say a little bit
about empathy and strategies of disconnection—both of these
concepts are critically important pieces in building our understanding
of shame. Building shame resilience is about reaching out to others
and building connection. When we do this with people in our support
systems, we often develop relationships that are built on a foundation
of empathy. This is incredibly important because, based on this
research, I found that the opposite of experiencing shame
is experiencing empathy. When we tell our stories or share
an experience with someone and they respond with empathy, most of
our shame loses its power. Expressing empathy or being empathic
is not easy. It requires us to be able to see the world as others
see it, to be non-judgmental, to understand another person’s
feelings and to communicate your understanding of that person’s
feelings (Wiseman, 1996).
When we talk about high
vulnerability areas like motherhood because it is exchanges within
these areas where our hopes of finding connection and empathy are
often dashed and we find ourselves instead feeling attacked, shamed
and disconnected. Many of us have developed strategies for dealing
with shame and our unmet need for empathy. Some of these strategies
are rooted in connection, but many others are what Relational Cultural
theorists call “strategies of disconnection.” Dr. Linda
Hartling uses Karen Horney’s work on moving toward, moving
against and moving away from to outline the strategies of disconnection
we use to deal with shame.
In order to deal with
shame, we have learned to move away by withdrawing, hiding,
silencing ourselves and secret-keeping. We have also learned the
strategy of moving toward. This can be seen when we attempt
to earn connection by appeasing and pleasing. Last, we develop ways
to move against. These include trying to gain power over
others, using shame to fight shame and aggression.
Often, we can find ourselves
engaging in these strategies of disconnection when it comes to the
mommy-wars. If you think about issues like work and motherhood,
labor and delivery options, breastfeeding, disciplining and sleep
strategies, we often stay quiet when we disagree or have alternative
ideas or opinions and/or we say what we think we are supposed to
say in order to not jeopardize our connection with other mothers
and/or sometimes, we use shame in response to our own threatened
feelings.
Unfortunately, these
strategies often move us deeper into shame. It is so important that
we find support systems, even one or two friends or family members
with whom we can share our experiences and know that they will listen
with empathy and understanding. Both reaching out for empathy and
offering empathy are key to building shame resilience.
To answer your question
about how shame can be used to reinforce ideology, I definitely
found evidence of this in my research. In fact, I have two sections
in the book that specifically explore the concepts of “membership”
and what I term, “fundamentalism.” The idea of membership
is very important to us. Shame is often associated with the feeling
of “not belonging” or being rejected from a valued group
or community. I call this type of shame “membership shame.”
Membership shame is not restricted to official clubs or groups with
card-carrying members. Membership shame is based on the desire to
belong to any group, large or small, with whom we want to be associated.
We can desire association because we share the group’s circumstances,
beliefs or values; or, we can desire association because we look
up to the members and want to belong as a way to “be like
them.”
Some of the “membership
groups” identified by women include families, neighborhood
play groups, political affiliation groups, treatment/recovery groups,
sororities, profession-specific groups, faith communities/churches,
identity groups like feminists, liberals, conservatives, fitness/health
groups, intellectuals and mother’s groups. While we resist
being labeled and put in categories, we also find security in belonging
and identifying with a group of like-minded or like-spirited people.
It’s not uncommon
to find that we share a membership category (formal or informal,
spoken or unspoken) with our closest friends. If we are politically
conservative, we might have politically diverse friends; however,
we probably also have a subset of friends or family that share those
political values. Membership in the subset holds importance for
us, especially when we feel criticized or ostracized by people with
different opinions.
Some membership groups
keep group members “in line” by using very fundamentalist
tactics. I define fundamentalist groups as any group espousing a
belief system that holds itself so right and true that it discourages
or even punishes questioning. Although we often associate fundamentalism
with religion, fundamentalist thinking can be seen across all types
of membership groups. While the research participants did talk about
religious fundamentalism, they also gave a wide variety of examples
like motherhood fundamentalism, political fundamentalism, therapy
fundamentalism and parenting fundamentalism. These groups often
support one ideal or one approach to various subjects.
Fundamentalist groups
often provide “ideology-reinforcing” answers to every
imaginable question and reject answers or explanations outside of
the accepted “ideology.” These groups can also encourage
members to be ideologues versus critical thinkers and discourage
questioning by labeling members or threatening them with expulsion
from the group. Unfortunately, shame is often used to threaten members.
Fundamentalist groups can also seem appealing because they often
offer members a place to hide from people who disagree with them
by supplying members ready-made, pre-packaged rebuttals and strategies
for dealing with critics. Fundamentalist groups are often effective
at convincing members that they can’t succeed or survive without
membership in the group.
There are over 100 stories
and examples in the book. One example of “membership”
shame that comes to mind is a woman who spoke about her mother’s
group decision to adopt a specific “sleep strategy”
book:
Every
mom in my play group loves this one guy who writes books about
how to get your baby to sleep through the night and books about
how to discipline your children. I hate his books. I can’t
stand him or his advice. I think he’s terrible and I don’t
like the way these women treat their kids. It’s completely
opposite from what I want to do. The shaming thing is that I don’t
say anything. I don’t agree or disagree when they’re
talking about it. I just walk over to the swing set or pretend
I’m busy doing something. I know if I said something they’d
give me the cold shoulder. This sounds overly-dramatic, but I
know there was one mom who said she thought they were wrong and
she pretty much got kicked out of the play group. That’s
a bigger deal than you think. When you stay home alone with kids,
neighborhood play groups are a big deal.
Membership and belonging
are, unquestionably, an important part of our lives. This is especially
true in high vulnerability areas like motherhood and parenting.
When we feel rejected or even threatened with rejection by a group
we value, we are very vulnerable to shame. If we want to belong
to groups that offer us connection, power and a sense of freedom,
we must choose our groups with some level of acknowledged vulnerability
and critical awareness. We need to understand why group membership
is important to us (acknowledging vulnerability) and how the groups
really work (critical awareness).
MMO: Based
on your research, you conclude that it’s impossible
to get rid of shame or repair it, but we can build resilience to
it by cultivating empathy, discovering and acknowledging the sites
of our personal vulnerability, practicing critical awareness, and
reaching out to others for validation of shared experiences. But
because shame “demands that we hide our ‘shamed selves’
from others in order to avoid additional shame,” doesn’t
shame work against forming the empowering connections we need to
build resilience? How can women get started on developing shame
resilience? What can they expect as they go through the process?
B
Brown: First,
I would say that we can repair shame, or at least repair its effects.
Repairing the effects of shame is very much a part of the healing
process. Developing shame resilience, this ability to move toward
empathy in the face of shame, is not an easy process. If it were,
shame would not be such a prevalent and destructive force in our
lives. As your question suggests, the greatest challenge to developing
shame resilience is the way shame actually makes us less open to
giving or receiving empathy. Shame protects itself by making it
very difficult for us to access its antidote. When we are in shame,
reaching out for empathy feels very dangerous and risky. And, when
we are in shame and someone reaches out to us, it is unlikely that
we will be willing to dig deep and find anything besides fear, anger,
blame and confusion.
The primary purpose of
the book is to help readers explore and define shame and to share
information, ideas and strategies for building shame resilience.
This is not an easy process, and for every strategy there are potential
barriers. But fortunately, the amazing group of women who participated
in the research really talked openly about these barriers and about
how they moved past them and, in some cases, right through them.
If we learn from their wisdom and anticipate those barriers and
understand how they work, the process can be much more effective.
In fact, I think the single most hopeful piece of this work is the
fact that shame resilience can indeed be learned. It is not inherent—it
is about skills and information. Shame resilience is something we
can all work toward and something we can share with other women.
MMO: Do you
think men and women experience shame differently?
B
Brown: I’ve just finished the initial
research pilot on men and shame so I’m not ready to talk in
terms of “findings” or a theory of men and shame. I
will say that I’m starting to believe that we are more alike
than we are different. The purpose of the pilot was to determine
if I would need to develop a new theory of shame resilience or if
the theory that emerged from the study on women and shame would
fit and I could interview around it. I’m still analyzing data;
however, I believe that in almost every important way, the model
fits. While women are faced with a web of many layered, competing
and conflicting expectations, there seems to be one major expectation
for men—do NOT appear weak. There definitely appears to be
a relationship between the perception of weakness and how men experience
shame. While the web is the best metaphor for describing how women
get trapped by shame, I’m starting to see a “very small
box” for men. I’ll keep you posted!
mmo : August
2004 |
