Tag: sexual harassment

Monica Lewinsky, and You, and Me 4 Ways You Can Correct Your Story

Patricia O’Gorman, PhD
@drogorman


If you don’t know yet, Monica Lewinsky has gone public with a Ted Talk. It is well worth seeing because she does what I’ve been inviting you to do:

Stop listening to your girly thoughts —
that toxic inner dialogue that blames YOU
for anything that goes wrong in your life.

Monica’s Courage

She talks about being young and in love, and not making the greatest decisions at age 22. She is tired of being vilified. She is claiming her power to tell her story, something I want to encourage you to do as well, as I share one of my own.

Your Story

Which one of us hasn’t wished we’d made a different decision at some time in our lives? A decision that, if circumstances had been different, if you knew then what you know now, if you were the person then you are now, you would take back in a heartbeat.

One of My Own

I know I have. In a time before sexual harassment at work was a concept, when I was a young mother living in a rural community with few jobs, I too lived through a time when I was held up to public rebuke. I had a high position in a very politically divisive work environment, in which I was blamed for virtually everything that happened, including all those areas over which I had no control. I was a psychologist, an author. I had run a division of the federal government, for goodness sake. I was hired as a star, and surely stars have special powers, don’t they?

I had one ally, a man who had more real power than I did. He was supportive, a great tactician . . . and very attracted to me. Yes, he was very helpful, but he wanted more in return than I was willing to give. When I’d confront him, he’d say: “You’re just so luscious, I can’t control myself.”

So I was the problem. What could I do? I wore more layers of clothing, no makeup, but I was who I was, and I felt I was in a no-win situation.

Making Peace with Your Story

That was the dance we did. Yes, I was dependent on him; I tried to maximize his positives to save my job, as I ran—literally—from another of his qualities.

Was this the first time I did this dance, this bonding with an abuser?

No. For some of us from troubled childhoods, this is a life script learned early and repeated often. We learn to depend on those who extract a very high price for us needing them. The good news is that we can change this dynamic by consciously acknowledging what we are doing, how we are feeling, and embracing our strengths; more about this in a later blog.

Making Peace with Those Who Judge Us

By now, some of you reading this will be judging me, thinking surely I had other options than to endure this. But others of you have been in similar situations, situations you felt you needed to endure, and you know that sometimes we just don’t see the options.

We are all Monicas in some way. We’ve all made decisions we later regret. And we can all do what she is doing: we can know and share our real story.

Beginning today, the important thing is to stop blaming yourself.

Yes, stop those girly thoughts that hold you, instead of the other person, responsible. For me, this involved finally sharing the situation with my husband, letting him know what had happened and giving myself a break by reassuring myself that I did the best I could.

I’m not victim. I have power.

4 Ways to Correct Your Story

How to do this?

  • Acknowledge how you have been seen, blamed, and misunderstood, which was not true, and understand how you blamed yourself for something that wasn’t your fault.
  • Claim your truth.
  • Decide if you want to share it, and how—merely by acknowledging some truths, you set yourself free, but others you may want to consider how to share.
  • Notice and embrace how stating your truth makes you feel.

And let me know how this feels.

We are not victims. We have power.

Let’s stop blaming ourselves! Let’s correct our stories.

You’ll find more ideas for getting rid of your negative self-talk in my latest book, The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power

Warrior Women Give Themselves a Voice – A Lesson We Can All Learn

As women we know that within us is a warrior.  We may joke about being tiger moms but that’s not far from the truth.  And part of our power comes from our being attuned to our own inner opinions, inner voices, if you will.  This has allowed us to know when we feel something is right, or should be right, and when it is not. Translating that into action isn’t always as easy, but with using our strengths individually, and as a group we have accomplished many things such as when our great-grandmothers fought for the vote, and obtained this right.  We have achieved this again in the military by being recognized for what we are already doing, serving in combat.

Here women have been advocating to be recognized for what they have already been doing – serving in combat.   As of 1-24-13 women are able to “officially” serve in the front line, something we’ve been doing, without this being recognized, officially.  And guess what, being able to “officially” be in combat puts women in line for promotions that were previously not open to them. Interestingly this action opens up an additional 7.3 percent of positions in the military for women to advance, as combat experience is a big plus for promotion. Read: the possibility of more equal pay.  Now women will have the same opportunities for advancement as their male peers. As they will be able to list “combat” experience just as their male counterparts are able to do, a key requisite for advancement (2).

But there is more to this “official acknowledgment” than just the career and financial implications, doing this, changes the culture of the military, for the better.  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dempsey, saw the similarities between women and men in the military: we all take the same oath, we all where the same uniform.  And in this one action he also sees the possibility of a reduction in sexual assaults in the military. How does he connect the two?  He understands the implicit message sent to our military personnel “when you have one part of the population that is designated as ‘warriors’ and one part that is designated as something else, that disparity begins to establish a psychology that — in some cases — led to that environment. I have to believe the more we treat people equally, the more likely they are to treat each other equally.” (1)

In this he is utilizing what research has found, that people tend to form impressions of others based upon how respected they are within their group.  So it stands to reason that if you are in a “warrior” group where others (women) are seen as “non-warriors,” then you have set up a situation where there are two classes.  And this was the case in the military where women were seen as “less than” than their male counterparts.

Circumstances in which one group has more importance than other, sets the stage for the group in “higher position” to potentially take advantage of the group in the “lesser” position by asserting their power.  One disgusting way that this played out in the military is through sexual assaults on women, which we know have nothing to do with sex, and are all about power and dominance. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has acknowledged sexual assault is vastly under-counted in official records (2).  But the numbers we do have are mind-boggling; approximately one in three military women have been sexually assaulted, about 33.3%, double the rate of those in civilian life (1), an outrageous number!

What to do?

Women have fought for equal status and we will continue to do so. Yes, when we give ourselves the gift of own power, when we listen and take to heart what our inner voice, the voice of our own personal hard-fought battles, our resilience, tells us, we too can achieve incredible things.   In giving themselves a voice, in pushing for their rights, women in the military are creating a safer environment for themselves to not only do their job, but also to thrive. Now that’s a lesson we can all learn from.   For more inspiration, listen to Alicia Keys’ ode to giving ourselves a voice and relishing in our personal power –

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