Almost all workplaces – that I know of anyway – are dominated by Men Are From Mars thinking that was described in the previous post. This is because in workplaces we have to get things done, achieve goals, follow logical procedures, plan strategically, have outcomes and outputs and not be held up, i.e. slowed down by dealing with emotionality.
Since women entered the workforce in greater numbers one would think that this might have changed but from my observations it hasn’t changed that much really.
Even maternity (and paternity) leave and parental/caring duties are governed by logical rules and leave is taken in accordance with company procedures (and the law of the land). Someone doesn’t head off on such leave, or to attend to their own emotional needs, or care for someone at home just when they feel like it!
Of course, most workplaces have some flexibility around this for emergencies but in the long term the employee will be called to account for absences. Also, if a worker is certified to be sick then they are out, and they can’t just wander in, before their cert is up, if they themselves feel better.
I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with this – I’m just stating it so that we remind ourselves that the logical, left-brain world is in the ascendancy in the workplace and this has implications for the modality we choose, that is, the way that things are done, in the workplace that is set up to alleviate hurt in people who have suffered trauma.
While I think of myself as quite a logical/rational kind of person – I often feel that one of my life’s missions is to fight for the right of illogical/irrational people to be heard. Firstly, they have a right to be heard, but also I believe that if illogic and irrationality are not heard the non-hearing will create a lot of trouble for us as a society.
Another thought that I have about this matter is that irrationality must have a very important role in humanity. If it didn’t it would have died out over tens of thousands of generations of evolution. Perhaps it is linked to the survival role that our intuition has – I’m not sure, but my openness to thinking that it is leads me to esteem it highly.
Discouraging irrationality (perhaps spontaneous anger, spontaneous love, or indeed, sometimes, doing something because we feel sorry for someone, and for no other reason) to the point where it is imperceptible, is denying part of our humanity. All workplaces are enriched by the inclusion of what I might call typically female values.
While organisations that are concerned with banking, manufacturing, or even farming and teaching etc. can probably get by affording irrationality lesser status I believe that it is very important to give it some status in workplaces that support families in distress, as such a workplace should try and mirror, in some respects, the good enough family.
Now (and this is important) I am talking here about values – not numerical proportion of males and females. While it is true that most support workers in family support agencies are women, the dominant values tend to be those that abound in the Pillars.
Those values are typically male, left brain, logical and they continually filter almost unnoticed into the Pillars from the corporate world.
Another reason for the inclusion of right-brain, intuitive parts of us is that unconditional positive regard is a typically female quality. Despite your experience (I am fairly sure) of your mother’s love being conditional on how how got on in exams, or which boyfriend/girlfriend you went out with, etc. I would say that loving someone no matter what they do, even if there is anger mixed up with the love (in fact, the anger is part of the love), is more typically female than male.
(As an aside, you may be interested in what Greek philosophers believed to be the four types of love, also mentioned here [1]. One of them; agape is identified as a type of love that mothers have, that makes sacrifices for others, asking for nothing in return – i.e. unconditional. I already referenced Mary, the mother of Jesus, as an iconic example of this in the Christian tradition. So this thinking goes back a long way).
I was brought up in the CBT world of mainstream education and employment. And I did well out of it! But one outcome for me was that for some of my life I was coaching myself to behave in a way that pleased others and I was not really aware that I had intrinsic value myself. (See a later post in the Chapter on Myth And Reality for clues as to how this might happen).
On my therapeutic journey, experiencing unconditional positive regard allowed my root foundations to flourish. This is probably why I value it so highly.
It was when I became aware that the more creative, intuitive parts of me had as much validity as the logical, rational parts that I began to have confidence to actually (ironically) do something about the values that I wanted to live my life by.
I think that I was very lucky because if that part of me had been ignored – i.e. if conditions had been placed on my learning and/or growth – then I don’t think that I’d have got the message that I was really of value and I could choose.
I am going to finish this post by looking back quickly to the last post but one above.
I believe that it is just as necessary to include the typically male values of logic and rationality in the workplaces supporting vulnerable families and assisting them in the very important task of solving their problems.
Indeed, like the good enough family, strength lies in the synergy
of the two, not the dominance of one over the other.
[1]. The Greeks identified four types of love. Eros (romantic, sexual), philia (affection, family), storge (dutiful) and agape (unconditional)!