Ladies – Step Into Your Power

As a woman who pushed to achieve what most women didn’t do – going to medical school at a time when they took ‘token females’ – it distresses me no end that in today’s world, even though over half the medical students are female, and increasing numbers of women crack the ‘glass ceiling’ in other areas, women still feel stressed, unappreciated and downtrodden in the professional arena and in the personal one as well. It is even more distressing to see a political arena where men see fit to try to tell women what they can and can’t do with their bodies and there are idiots claiming that pregnancies from rape are ‘meant to be’. It is a world where women still don’t get equal pay, even though the Lilly Ledbetter Law for Equal Pay for Women was signed in 2008. What is even worse is the number of women who feel unhappy with their lives and careers because many of the same obstacles seem to exist that existed when I started medical school in 1969. Women are still seen as inferior, not having equal rights, having responsibility for all the home activities as well as their job while hubby comes home from work and relaxes. Fortunately, there are more and more men who interact with women more fairly than in the mid 20th century and before.

However, as with many of the problems we see in psychiatry, as women we need to start looking to ourselves for the place to solve the problems instead of ‘blaming’ the men. We have to start feeling entitled within ourselves to ask for what we want, do things we want, take time to play, and negotiate with our partners for splitting up responsibilities, whether at home or work, rather than feeling we have to take on the whole burden ourselves – or accept blame for a male colleague’s errors. A major reason women can’t have career along with home, family and fun friends and activities go well for us like it does for men is because we don’t feel entitled and thus don’t stand up for ourselves. We have been conditioned for many generations to feel not as good, subservient, and often even feel we have to tolerate physical violence. We need to recognize we are not second class citizens, we are just as entitled to ask or negotiate for things as men and to expect to have the same kind of give and take with men and get the same respect that they give each other. Women also need to learn to feel good about doing this in the home and negotiating and delegating activities in the home just as they would at work in an executive position. You and your time are valuable, and you don’t suddenly assume the role of ‘domestic employee’ once you go home.

Far too many high achieving women have come to my office stressed, drained, unhappy with home and career because they are being treated like second class citizens. The reality in life is that if we expect to be mistreated, we unconsciously make it happen. It is also important for us to accept our power, and be ok with being called by negative terms for doing the same thing as a man does. So learn the lingo and then translate it inside your head. If you get called a bitch, translate that in your own mind to ‘I stand up for myself’, if you are told you ‘just won’t let go of your idea, hear the term persistent, which is the one that would be applied to a male. Most important, accept yourself for who you are – ‘flaws and all’ – and don’t feel you have to defend it. Your personality defines you, and when you accept that you are less stressed, strained and angry and more able to move forward and enjoy what you are doing. Keep in mind that there is NO way you can please everyone on the planet – nor can you even please the people you love all the time. They are different from you and have different tastes, which doesn’t mean anything bad about either of you.