RD 1 Women’s Trauma While Adjusting with Gender Role

Uyen Nguyen Hill

30 January 2012

RD 1

Women’s Trauma While Adjusting with Gender Role

The gender barriers have greatly been lessen in the past couples of decades, which means women are more respected and have more values in the used-to-be man domination world. Women have more means to access their resources and expand their potential. However, everyone, no matter a man or a woman, was born with fixed hormones. Men are believed to have more strength and assumed to be the leader; while women are more on the weak and fragile side. [THESIS] Therefore, day by day, women at all ages, from adolescence to menopause, are facing specific psychological traumas trying to blend in with their changing world either the trauma is temporary or permanent. [THESIS].

In her article “Saplings in The Storm”, psychologist Mary Pipher made it clear that “…women who are not struggling, who have forgotten that they have selves worth defending…” As an experienced woman herself, Pipher sees right away the problems, particularly the pain that her female patients are going through. She understands how much women care and want the best for “their coworkers, husbands, children and friends” that sometimes they just entirely forget about themselves. They weigh so much how others would feel or judge them for not completing their tasks as women, also known as gender role. These women keep asking themselves how I could do better, how I could please everyone, but ignoring their own needs. Even worse, sometimes women feel absolutely pushed to the wall; they hopelessly blame themselves as the reason for an imaginary catastrophe in life. In most developed countries, women might not feel as pressure as women in developing countries, where cultural gender roles create such burdens on women. Often times in Asian countries, for example where I’m from, even though it is outlawed, some men cheat or divorce their wives for not being able to have kids or having at least one baby boy.

I have left my country and had lived with my aunt and her daughter for about three years. They are strict, critical and stereo-typed women even though they are very loving and caring inside. Therefore, I was not surprised about how they treated me and what moral values they expected me to know and follow. However, no matter how hard I tried to remember that they just wanted the best for me, I was still suffering with certain distresses. There is an old Vietnamese saying: you must bend your tongue seven times before we speak. I literally thought seven times before I opened my mouth while communicating with my aunt and her daughter. When I expressed my feelings about personal interests, everything was fine because they could not argue with what colors, food or movies, etc. I should like. Dramas occurred when I had done something that according to them was stupid or immoral. I remembered the time when I left a note for my aunt, saying I was going out with my friends and would be back on time; when I got home, she lectured me for half an hour about how unmannerly and infantile my note and action were. For a teenage girl who lived away from home and parents, I felt absolutely hurt and disrespected. I felt like the biggest failure trying to become a proper human being. Time to time, I learned to ignore everything they criticized me about and enjoy the beautiful Hawaiian paradise. What helped me through was that I could share all of this with my parents. They could not really help me, but at least they listened, understood and sympathized for me. What I remembered most was what they had always said “We’re sorry we can’t give you an easier life. Try for yourself, a couple more years and everything will be as you wish, for your own future honey.”

Besides cultural causes for girls or women’s trauma, Michael Nolasco points out girls also experience “comparable and related troubles” through media, in particular “unrealistic, idealized, color enhanced movies, magazines, advertisements and television programs”. Nolasco suggests “parents and caregivers [to prevent] children and young adults from being influenced by unrestrained commercialism.” When faced with a certain situation such as: drugs, violence, sex, etc. a parents’ first reaction is to tell their children not to do that or they will get in trouble. Children or teenagers tend to do the opposite of what they are told, especially when the kid does not view that act as being wrong or bad. This usually leads to the parent reacting harshly towards their child. In the past the authoritative parent saying no, and don’t dos worked for the most part.  In an age where almost everyone has access to the internet and television just saying “Don’t do that!” does not work anymore.  To avoid this disruptive and repeated cycle, parents need talk with their children, explain what is right and wrong, what is to do or avoid, why drugs are bad, why they cannot watch this movie now, and so forth.  Communication is the best tool and also strengthens the bond between parents and their children.

No matter how society has shifted, women at all ages from adolescence to menopause are still dealing with daily challenges that lead them to inner destruction and psychological trauma. Every woman needs to “put themselves into the equation” while trying to watch out for everyone and balance their lives (Pipher, “Saplings in the Storm”, p. 353). Just like growing up girls need informative, affectionate and enlightening conversations from their parents or responsible persons. From here, no woman should feel like they are struggling by themselves against the entire society.

Works Cited

Nolasco, Michael. “Causes and solutions.” Online posting. 26 Jan 2012. Laulima Discussion. 30 Jan 2012.[https://laulima.hawaii.edu].

Pipher, Mary. “Saplings in the Storm.” Dialogues: An Argument Rhetoric and Reader. 7th edition. Eds. Gary Goshgarian and Kathleen Krueger. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2011. 348-354.