The Wounded Woman. Linda Schierse Leonard
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of self-discipline, limit, and authority, quite often suffering from feelings of insecurity, instability, lack of self-confidence, anxiety, frigidity, and, in general, a weak ego. Moreover, if the father was overtly weak (as in the cases of the man who doesn’t work or the addict), the daughter is likely to suffer from a sense of shame. And if she was ashamed of her father, she is likely to carry this sense of shame over to herself. In such cases, she often unconsciously builds up an ideal image of man and father, and her life may become a search for this ideal father. In seeking the ideal, she is likely to be bound to a “ghostly lover,” i.e., the ideal man who exists only in her imagination.5 Hence, her relationship with men, especially in the sphere of sexuality, is likely to be disturbed. The lack of commitment she experienced with her father is likely to produce a general lack of trust in men which may extend also to the whole realm of spirit, i.e., metaphorically speaking, to “God the Father.” At the deepest level, she suffers from a religious problem since, for her, spirit was not provided by the father. How, then, is she to find it? Anaïs Nin, who had such a father, has expressed it: “I have no guide. My father? I think of him as someone my own age.”6
Other fathers err on the side of rigidity. Hard, cold, and sometimes indifferent, they enslave their daughters through a strict authoritarian attitude. These men are quite often exiled from the vitality of life, cut off from their own feminine sides and from feeling. Their emphasis tends to be on obedience, duty, and rationality. And they insist that their daughters have the same values. Obedience to the established order is the rule. Departure from society’s norm is looked on with suspicion and distrust. These fathers are often domineering old men, frequently embittered, cynical, and sapped of life. Because their emphasis is on control and doing things right, frequently they are not open to the unexpected, to the expression of creativity and feelings. And they tend to treat such things with sarcasm and derision. On the positive side, their emphasis on authority and duty provides a sense of security, stability, and structure. On the negative side, it tends to squash “feminine” qualities of feeling, sensitivity, and spontaneity. Some extreme examples of fathers who function as domineering old men can be found among the old patriarchs who retain control of all the money, dominating their wives and children financially, fathers who make all the rules and require obedience, fathers who expect their daughters to achieve inordinate success in the world, fathers who demand that their daughters follow the conventional feminine roles, fathers who cannot acknowledge any sign of weakness, sickness, or even difference from themselves.
In later life the daughters of these domineering old men often find themselves cut off from an easy relation to their own feminine instincts, since their own fathers could not truly acknowledge their femininity. Since these women experienced strictness and harshness from their fathers, they are likely to be hard either on themselves or others. Even if they rebel, one often feels in that rebellion something relentless and sharp. Some daughters knuckle under to the authoritarian rule and never live their own lives. Others, though they may rebel, stay bound to their father’s control, living always in reaction to him. These daughters, too, like those of the more indulgent fathers, tend to be cut off from a healthy relationship to men and to their own creative spirit.
So far, I have described two extreme tendencies that may exist in a father’s relationship to his daughter. But most fathers are a mixture of the two. And even if a father has lived out his life in only one of these two extremes, he often acts out the other extreme unconsciously.7 There are many examples of rigidly authoritarian fathers who suddenly fly into irrational, emotional outbursts which threaten all the security and order they have established, instilling a terrible fear of chaos in their daughters. Since the feeling realm is not consciously acknowledged by the father, but instead seems to overwhelm him from time to time, it seems all the more threatening to his children. Sometimes these rages have sexual overtones as well—for example, the father who physically punishes a disobedient daughter in such a way that she becomes threatened on the sexual level. So, while the father’s conscious emphasis may be on duty, rationally toeing the line, in the background may be puerile moods and impulses which pop out unconsciously at unexpected moments. In the same way, indulgent fathers are likely to have in the background of their lives the sneering cynicism of the rigid judge. Such a father may suddenly turn on his daughter, criticizing her for those impulsive qualities he dislikes in himself.
Obviously, the role of the mother is another important factor in the daughter’s development.8 Since my purpose in this book is to focus on the father-daughter relationship, I do not go into the mother’s influence in any breadth or depth, but only hint in that direction. Quite often one finds certain pairs in a marriage. The father who is an eternal boy often has a “mother” for a wife. In these cases, the mother often rules the home and is the disciplinarian for the family. Through her alone come the values, order, authority, and structure that is usually provided by the father. Sometimes such a mother can be more rigid than the most rigid of old men fathers. And together with that comes the force of her female emotions. When the father is weak and indulgent and the mother strong and controlling, the daughter has a double problem. Not only is the father not able to provide her with a masculine model, but he does not stand up to the mother and help the daughter differentiate herself from her mother. The daughter may remain bound and identified with the mother. In this case, she is likely to adopt unconsciously the same rigid attitudes as her mother. In addition, when the mother has to function as the father, sometimes the daughter receives neither genuine fathering nor mothering.
A contrasting pair is the rigid old man father who has a girl for a wife. In this case, both mother and daughter are dominated, and the mother in her passive dependence does not provide a model for genuine feminine independence. So the daughter is likely to repeat the pattern of feminine dependence, or, if she rebels, she does so out of a defensive reaction against paternalistic authority rather than out of her own feminine needs and values.
It is also possible for both father and mother to be eternal youths, in the fashion of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and then there is usually little stability, structure, or authority provided by either parent. In these cases, the commitment of both parents is often tenuous and the marriage and family may dissolve, leaving the daughter in chaos and anxiety. Or, it may be that both father and mother are rigid elders, both ruling with tight reign. And then the daughter is cut off on both sides from the sources of spontaneity and feeling.
In myself and in my female clients, I have found two opposing patterns that frequently result from a wounded relation to the father. And these two conflicting patterns frequently exist together in the psyche of a wounded woman, doing battle with each other. One pattern I call “the eternal girl” (or puella aeterna).9 The other I call the “armored Amazon.” Here I want only briefly to describe each pattern in broad strokes, since each is described in more detail in later chapters.
The “eternal girl,” or puella, is a woman who psychologically has remained a young girl, even though chronologically she may be sixty or seventy years of age. She remains a dependent daughter, tending to accept the identity others project upon her. In doing so, she gives over to others her own strength as well as the responsibility for shaping her identity. Quite often she marries a rigidly authoritarian man and becomes the image of woman he wants. Often she looks and acts innocent, helpless, and passive. Or she may rebel, but in her rebellion remains the helpless victim caught in feelings of self-pity, depression, and inertia. In either case, she is not directing her own life.
In the dreams of such women, I have found several recurrent images. One dream theme is the loss of one’s pocketbook, with all one’s identity cards and money. For example, one woman dreamt that her man friend had left her, and when she tried to go home, she realized she had no money. The only means of transportation she could take was a school bus for children. Another frequent dream theme revealing a basic dependence is not to be driving one’s own car, often sitting in the back seat feeling helpless and out of control while the father drives. Still another frequent image in the dreams of women who psychologically remain young girls is that of a mean old man chasing, threatening, and sometimes brutally dominating them. One young woman with whom I worked dreamt she was on a high diving board while a sadistic old man kept demanding she do increasingly more dangerous dives. Unless she stopped following his commands, she was in danger of losing her life. These dream motifs reveal the danger of losing one’s own source