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Issue #2: Women's Experiences

Coming out of the first Silencing Critical Voice workshop, I am reminded of the power of sharing, discussing, and unmasking these voices publicly. It is definitely an empowering experience for most women to join forces and resources in a group committed to supporting each other in finding peace from this torture. Not only does such process break the isolation in which critical voices thrive but also, it creates a community of support in each participant's life, a team that encourages each one of us to stand up for self-acceptance in a culture heavily dominated by these voices.

Most women suffer from one type or another of critical voices ranging in intensity. Examples of these are: perfectionism, powerlessness, shyness, anxiety, lack of entitlement (self sacrifice), self-doubt, self-hate, high expectations, comparison, self blame, and the "if you were a good mother" voice. Other examples even more directly related to our culture are looksism, ageism, sexism, classism, internalized homophobia and racism. These voices can also create and/or support problems such as anorexia, bulimia and depression. In general these voices make women feel like they are never good enough. Specifically, many women feel as though they never do enough, think enough, say enough, work enough, raise their children well enough, perform well enough at work or look good enough. There is always that lingering whisper into most women's mind that says "if only I... then everything would be so much better". From the moment she is born, a women is raised in a culture that emphasizes the necessity of her pleasing others and trying to do better. Many grow up to believe that they need to change their body, themselves, their life and get a little extra like a relationship, a good title, a respectable degree, an award, a perfect grade, a child or any other external sources of "embellishments" to feel like a valuable being. It's as if a woman in "itself" is fundamentally inadequate and incomplete. When this social pressure is internalized as a critical voice, many women become a slave to it and find themselves trapped into a requirement to perform, to "do" instead of simply "be".

Unfortunately, "doing" does not allow women to escape these voices. Critical voices are harsh and trying to argue with them or prove them wrong often only gives them more power. Indeed the cruel whispering will not go away with accomplishments but simply adapt to the situation by using a different tactic of oppression: "you aren't striving to accomplish this because you are a determined, bright and courageous woman but because you need to compensate for your dreadful worthlessness and weakness". The critical voice will simply shift from minimizing/disqualifying you as a person to minimizing/disqualifying your accomplishments and their meaning. Women's desires, needs, goals, and achievements are all subjected to the same treatment. This constant disqualification can generate a sense of "pretending to be strong and clever" as opposed to really "being" and feeling that way. This process has serious overlapping harmful effects. To name only a few:

1. it makes women feel bad about themselves and feel hopeless about their dreams
2. it invites them to disown their strength and blinds them to their own resources
3. it places women in the uncomfortable spot of doubting the legitimacy of their goals and questioning the meaning of their desire. (For example: "do you want a degree or a relationship because you are interested in learning or sharing or, because you are weak inside?")
4. it transforms experiences of success into frauds (For example: "you had a scholarship because you were lucky not because you are smart").

Critical Voices thus create awful traps where you either don't do something because of the critical voice (and it proves that you are worthless) or you actually do something, but only because of the critical voice (and it still means that you are worthless). Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Of course, for most women, this experience comes and goes depending on who is around us and how good we feel about what we're doing. Its effect thus ranges from a little concern in the back of our mind to the debilitating self-hate. Generally, it gets women to be anxious, to worry about their ability, to give up and not even try to do certain things (especially activities traditionally reserved to men like dealing with computers, sport, car mechanics...). How many of you for example, will immediately ask for help when faced with a computer problem or a car mechanical problem without even trying, as if you are resourceless and don't have problem solving abilities.

Typically, as you may recall in your last encounter with such a problem, the helper (often a man) will not know more than you what the problem is but he will engage in an analysis of this situation or will try a few things. Yet women have learned to be rescued and are often "disconnected" with their own potentials and abilities. Critical voices thrive on this disconnection. They disconnect women from their own valid realities and replace them with self-doubt; they disconnect women so much from their intellectual and physical abilities that most victims of rape or assault don't even try to defend themselves, they become paralyzed and frozen as if it was not even worth trying to protect yourself because you are so weak. The reality is that women who do fight back are often able to escape safely even if they did not have any fighting or martial arts skills (although in some cases escape is truly impossible). Most women however, don't even question the assumption around their weakness because of the critical voice which keeps them busy revising the lengthy and vivid description of their flaws and mistakes.

Escaping the critical voice does not mean changing oneself or one's body like many diet products, magazines, TV commercials and billboards advertise. In fact, such changes typically lead to more misery and hopelessness because it is never enough and because it doesn't address the real problem. It typically not only endangers a woman's health, but also the failure of such changes to bring happiness makes her feel even more as if she had no will or no worth as a person. In other words it strengthens critical voices and weakens women. Women have to re-connect with their value as a person, re-write their stories leaving out the critical voices' perspectives, find meaning within themselves and their connections, find their voices, acknowledge their contributions, dare to be visible, hold on to their hopes and dreams, and so on.

Since the goal of this journal is to support women in escaping critical voices, it is tempting to share a list of strategies to fight critical voices. However not only would this reproduce the culture of telling women what to do to feel better but also such a list would be useless. It would have the same effect as your good friend telling you "don't worry, you're fine" or "take more time for yourself and you'll feel better". Strategies are helpful when they come from your own experience, when they connect in a meaningful way with your own life and your own struggle, when they speak personally to you. As such, I will leave the reader not with answers but rather with questions that will allow you to dig in your own life:

• if you were to treat and value yourself as a best friend, what would you say or do differently?
• remember people in your life who believed in you; find a person in your childhood, your adolescence, your early adulthood, your recent past, and your present. What did these people see in you?
• who around you or which context supports your own voice and allows you to connect with your strengths?

I will now turn your interest to the storying and writing of women whom I have had the privilege to know and who were willing to share their knowledge and experiences with you.

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Contents of Issue #2:

• A letter of hope to women oppressed by domestic violence
• If Problems Talked...
• An (un)invited problem's speech
• A story of "courage"
• The Critical Voice versus Trudy: a courageous re-entry student

Drawings & Artwork:

• Charlotte with Anxiety
• Facing the Elephants
• WANTED!
• The Entity - Anxiety