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By Jane Hoober Peifer
timbrel, January-Febrary 2002
As I sit down to write this article on how we as women sometimes struggle with the need of others’ approval, I realize I have embodied the point in my preparation for this task. What did I do? I asked my women friends what thoughts they had on the topic.
A friend told this story. She got brave and painted her room a bright color, and then started asking her friends and family to give their opinions about her choice. Her good friend observed: “So you needed to know what others thought in order to know what you thought?”
Does this realization—that we women seek out others as we are formulating our own opinions—mean that something is wrong with us? Is there something about women that makes us more prone to needing others’ approval for our decisions?
I contend that there is nothing wrong with us, and yes, for good reasons we find ourselves “worrying about what others think” perhaps more than do our male counterparts. Still, our desire for others’ approval holds the potential for trouble.
At seminary, I remember how “at home” I felt when I began reading Women’s Ways of Knowing, authored by four women psychologists. The very fact that they were able to write a book together illustrates so well their observations about how women understand themselves in the world, and how they know.
The authors suggest that our conceptions of knowledge, truth, and what is important have been shaped throughout history by a culture dominated by men. We women have been taught not to trust our gut, because so often what comes naturally to us (relationships and connections) is not valued as much as what comes naturally to men (separation and autonomy).
Thus women’s need for approval is strengthened in two ways: first, because our natural sense of things has not been the valued way of knowing, we end up feeling critiqued and therefore need reassurance; and second, because relationships and connections are really what make us tick, it is just logical that we will want to take into account what our sisters and brothers think.
Here’s one example. I have heard men declare that having congregational co-pastors does not work because it isn’t clear “where the buck stops.” After eight years of experience as a co-pastor, I don’t know what they are talking about. Certainly co-pastors may have problems working together, but I’m not convinced it has anything to do with where the “buck” does or does not stop.
I, personally, do not enjoy being in a buckstopping position, but I’d argue that this preference has not hindered my ability to lead: gathering opinions from the congregation, negotiating, making connections, setting direction, and moving forward with confidence, sometimes prophetically. This difference in leadership styles has been documented in the business world as well.
In an essay recently republished in The Wisdom of Daughters, Virginia Wiles describes the differences between men and women like this: “Stereotypically, the ‘boy’ is encouraged to choose self, even at the cost of the destruction of the relationship; the ‘girl’ is encouraged to choose the relationship, even at the cost of the destruction of self. . . . Placed in the context of the Christian tradition, the ‘boy’s’ pride is recognized as sin. But the ‘girl’ and her church think her sacrifice of self is virtue. No one noticed her fall. And yet her choice, no less than her brother’s, leads to a trap that can be described as a death.”
As women our challenge is to avoid sacrificing ourselves in order to maintain relationships and connectedness. Many of us know that tension well. And sometimes we are totally enmeshed in a relationship and have no idea how out of balance we’ve gotten.
This happened to me some years ago when, through a very painful experience, I became aware that a particular person in my congregation—whom I admired and liked a lot—had “taken up residence” in my head. As I prepared worship services, I would register in my thinking whether this person would like my plans. I realized that I needed to “evict” this person and return to my own center, where God resides, nurtures me, and calls me. In this case, I needed to distance myself from this person for a while until I could return to the relationship with freedom. “Free me, Lord,” became my breath prayer during those months.
I have found great help and strength from the book Inner Compass by Margaret Silf. She tells the story of feeling God’s nudging to get more involved with a person who needed healing. She knew that more involvement with that person would be costly for her, and so she was struggling to make the decision.
In the silence of her prayer, she writes that she sensed the assurance from God saying, “I won’t love you any more than I already do if you say yes, or any less if you say no.” She recalls feeling kind of disappointed—after all, wouldn’t she get a few more brownie points from God if she gave herself to this person? Then the voice continued, “No, because to do so would be to violate your freedom.”
Unconsciously, we make decisions because we are afraid of losing something or because we are hoping to gain something, and we need to monitor the times when we are hoping to gain the approval of those around us. Our ability to rest in the unconditional love of God, rather than to act in response to our fears or hopes, will free us to be connected in this world in the way God designed.
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