MADDOW:  If choosing a summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Princeton graduate with the J.D. from Yale, and 11 years experience on the second circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals—where only three of her hundreds of opinions have been overturned by the Supreme Court—who happens to be the first Latina ever nominated to the high court, weren‘t enough to secure President Obama‘s first Supreme Court nominee, her confirmation, if that weren‘t enough?  The Obama administration deployed its most powerful asset on the campaign in support of Judge Sonia Sotomayor yesterday.  They deployed FLOTUS, the first lady of the United States, whose favorability rating stands at 76 percent, which does happen to outpace Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton at similar times in their husband‘s presidencies.

Here was Michelle Obama speaking yesterday to a high school graduation in Washington, D.C.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA:  And she‘s the first Hispanic woman to be considered for the position.  The first.  And she went to Princeton.

And in the story, she said that when she arrived at Princeton as a freshman—and this was nine years before I would even think about going - she said, when she stepped on that campus, she said—and this is a quote—she said, she felt like a visitor landing in an alien country.

She said she never raised her hand her first year because—and this is a quote—she was too embarrassed and too intimidated to ask questions.

So, despite all her success at Princeton, then she went on to Yale Law School where she was at the top of her class in both schools—and despite all of her professional accomplishments, Judge Sotomayor says she still looks over her shoulder and wonders if she measures up.

And when I read her story, I understood exactly how she feels.

The Rachel Maddow Show June 4 2009

~~~~~~

Of course, impostor feelings are not limited to one gender - many of us men do feel inadequate, unqualified or fakes at times - but there may be strong social influences to make it more likely or more intense for girls and women.

Related issues may include our feelings of introversion, self-criticism and high sensitivity.

Research into this impostor phenomenon or syndrome began with the work of psychotherapists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, who wrote a paper on the topic in 1978.

They found many women with notable achievements also had high levels of self-doubt which could not be equated with self-esteem, anxiety, or other traits, and seemed to involve a deep sense of inauthenticity and an inability to internalize their successes.

They often had the belief they were “fooling” other people, were “faking it” or getting by from having the right contacts or just being “lucky.” Many held a belief they would be exposed as frauds or fakes.

[From my article Gifted Women: Identity and Expression.]

Related pages:

Impostor syndrome

Self-criticism

> articles:

The imposter phenomenon - Feeling like a fraud

The Impostor Syndrome - Finding a Name for the Feelings, by Dr. Valerie Young.

10 Steps to Overcome the Impostor Syndrome, by Dr. Valerie Young

impostor syndrome, building self confidence, self esteem confidence, confidence building, building self esteem

“This documentary film follows the trials and tribulations of five women artists, and how they maintain the shaky balance between motherhood and art in their lives. It is the kind of movie everyone should see, but may not be able to because of limited media coverage.

“Who Does She Think She Is?” exposes the enduring sexism that continues to permeate the art world. I was unaware of this, until someone in the film asked random people outside of museums if they could name five women artists. No one could answer the question!

“I had a sinking feeling in my stomach when I realized that I couldn’t give a complete response either. My embarrassment turned to determination; I have to make an effort to learn more about those talented (and often unrecognized) women who see little of the artistic spotlight, as opposed to their male counterparts.”

Who Does She Think She Is? was directed by Pamela Tanner Boll, co-directed and edited by Nancy C Kennedy.

www.whodoesshethinksheis.net

Here is the trailer:

~~~

Related article: Women used to shrink from creating art. Now they’re taking over. And I think I know why, by Germaine Greer

“For most of my life I have been trying to understand why it is that women have not played a more active role in art. Why couldn’t women paint as well or better than men? If a few women could paint as well or better than men, why couldn’t more women do it? …

“Eventually I arrived at a theory, which I offer for consideration. It goes like this: women, being generally more rational than men, are aware that life is more important than art. This is simple logic: art is a part of life, therefore art cannot be greater than life.

“As long as the art object was conceived as a monument to itself, women shrank before attempting it. Women who modify their environment every hour of every day, whether they are shaping their child’s damp hair, or twitching a blind, or choosing wallpaper, or dressing themselves with wit and ingenuity, are unexcited by the self-contained, self-regarding work of art.”  [Continued]

Germaine Greer serves as Professor Emeritus of English Literature and Comparative Studies at the University of Warwick.

Her books include a biography of Anne Hathaway entitled Shakespeare’s Wife, and The Female Eunuch.

~~~

More related articles

A Few More Good Women
Academy Awards have been achieved by women since the 1940’s for editing, art direction, sound, special visual effects and costume design…

Women in architecture

Support for Gifted Mothers: America Is Not a World Leader

The Artist Is a Glamour Puss [NY Times]

Internal barriers, personal issues, and decisions faced by gifted and talented females.

creative meaning, developing creativity, creative potential, creative expression, creative experience characteristics, creativity and women

Simpson declares in an Elle magazine article, “There’s nothing on my album that you’re gonna hear that I don’t relate to or that I haven’t experienced. Because the only way I know how to sing is from life experience. I have definitely experienced abuse in a way that I would tell people to take their heart and run.”

SARK (Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy) is the bestselling author and artist of fifteen books, including Succulent Wild Woman, Bodacious Book of Succulence, Eat Mangoes Naked, and other titles. She is an acclaimed speaker and teacher, and CEO and founder of Planet SARK, a business that promotes empowered living, and her writings and artwork.

Her new book is Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper: Gifting the World with Your Words and Stories, and Creating the Time and Energy to Actually Do It.

In an interview, SARK said she knows that art is healing “because of how it heals me and how I see it healing other people every day. Through art, we come alive through the deep connections to our souls and spirits. I’m talking about being ‘artists of life,’ not only visual artists. I believe there is an ‘art of living’ and that this art practiced heals each of us everyday in small and significant ways. [From Arts and Healing Network interview.]

In another interview, she explains how challenging and difficult her path has been.

Q: What were you doing before you started writing books? Were you always so creative and spiritually aware?

SARK: No, not at all. I’m a survivor of incest. That was a period of seven years and it pretty much, at that point, destroyed my life. Then, from the ages of 14 to 26, I had 250 different jobs because I was trying to figure out what I was supposed to do [with my life].

During that time period I was also living a very self-destructive life and I wasn’t at all creative in any kind of physically manifested way. At 26 I finally turned to dedicate myself to art and writing, and proceeded for the next ten years to be rejected in every way that you could be.

Q: What motivates you to keep writing?

SARK: The people, and my own spirit. My own need to express my experience drives my writing. Also, what I feel to be speaking through me. It’s like taking dictation, in a way. [From interview: Living Juicy: A Creative Conversation with SARK, by Laura Barcella.]

SARK has explained how much she chose to stop living as a victim, “as if someone was doing something to me. I was flying blind in my life, crashing and burning. As an incest survivor, I was hiding, avoiding, living less than a half-life, careening around and dealing with many addictions and an overall dysfunctional environment. Life was like a pinball game and I was the ball moving from one dramatic event to another. I made a clear decision to change my mind and my role by using role models, mentors and teachers.” [From Balance magazine interview.]

On her site she includes the urgent advice to “Wake up to your pain and investigate it.”

That can be hard to do when trying to protect yourself emotionally. For men and boys as well as women and girls, of course. Physical, emotional and sexual abuse can have profound impacts on how we accept and treat ourselves, and how we interact with others and life.

Actor Teri Hatcher revealed in 2006 that as a child she was sexually abused by an uncle. “This is something I’ve tried to hide my whole life,” she said. She never told her parents, but thinks they suspected. “I think their way of dealing with things is denial and guilt. Nobody wanted to talk about it. But all I did was blame myself.

“I have so much pain. I’m a woman who carries around all these layers of fear and vulnerability. I’m trying to be my powerful me; it’s in there, but I have to find the strong part underneath the layers of ‘I’m shit. I’m never going to go anywhere!’” [More on the page Abuse & creative expression.]

Dealing with abuse through therapy and art can have profound, life-changing value.

Roxanne Chinook, a Tribal Member of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon, experienced rape and family violence. She says, “My art emulates a personal and cultural experience, from the spirit of the trickster to healing from the traumas of my past. The process of creating strengthens and restores my spirit, and has rendered me a relationship with the sacred.” [From the page Healing & art.]

One consequence of abuse may be deep rage, and art can help deal with that anger constructively.

Psychologist, Stephen Diamond, PhD says “Creativity is one of humankind’s healthiest inclinations, one of our greatest attributes.”

As he explains in his book, “Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil, and Creativity,” our impulse to be creative “can be understood to some degree as the subjective struggle to give form, structure and constructive expression to inner and outer chaos and conflict.”

But this isn’t an easy or comfortable process, he notes. “To confront consciously one’s inner demons — the daimonic — takes great courage. It is an enormous struggle with one’s self, a coming to terms with who one really is and how one really feels, an arduous, demanding process in which pursuing or persisting in artistic work can be instrumental.”

In his book, Diamond writes about a number of prominent and accomplished artists who exhibit varying degrees of success in accessing and expressing their demons in positive ways.

Painter and sculptor Niki de St. Phalle, was able to find “a fertile outlet for her ferocious rage toward men — and the dominant masculine art establishment — via the creative expression of violence in her highly controversial work.

“Her famous ’shooting paintings’ resulted from firing live ammunition at paint-filled, white-washed balloons mounted on a blank, virginal canvas.

“Thus, rather than becoming a crazed killer or vengeful victimizer of men, de St. Phalle’s fury — some of which stemmed from having been sexually abused by her father — fostered a fecund creativity, that served her well throughout her prolific career.”

More in my interview with Dr. Diamond: The Psychology of Creativity: redeeming our inner demons.

A new biography looks into the shadows and ‘Untold Story’ of Doris Day
On screen, she was America’s smiling, singing darling. But off screen, her husbands weren’t Rock Hudson and her life was no light romp.

A former singer with Les Brown’s band in the 1940s.. Day was always portrayed as happily married.. But the real story couldn’t be further from the truth, according to David Kaufman’s expansive new biography, “Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door.”

Instead it’s a sad story — partially told in the actress’ 1975 autobiography — of a talented woman who was unloved by her father, pushed by an ambitious stage mother, with four failed — and mostly loveless — marriages, who never got what she wanted: simply to have a happy home life.

“What is even sadder to me and what I have learned in the course of researching this book, interviewing people and from quotes from her own autobiography is how insecure she is about her looks and about her talents,” said Kaufman.

“This woman has lived so much of her life unhappy with herself, I think, and yet she brought so much happiness to so many people all around the world,” he added.

More in Shadows of Day, By Susan King, Los Angeles Times.

Heather Thomas based her new novel “Trophies” on Hollywood trophy wives - who, she says “get a bad rap, and there’s a lot of misconceptions about them. But really, there isn’t a hospital wing or a library in this city that wasn’t the result of some trophy wife’s efforts.”

Here is an excerpt from the mediabistro blog GalleyCat:

Thomas readily admits that she and her fellow philanthropist/activists are held up for ridicule, dismissed as intellectual lightweights, sometimes even by the ostensible political allies who come courting the money they control. “If you’re a wealthy second wife,” Thomas says, “you’re like a poster child for schadenfreude…

“But as a feminist, I don’t think we should attack other women. I’ve never met a bimbo trophy wife. I think women label other women because we’ve been socialized to compete with one another—but when we stop attacking each other, we’ll realize how powerful we are.”

It’s a subject she cares passionately about, and her argument about contemporary political activism is peppered with references to Leonard Shlain’s theories about the different ways men and women process information, which lead her to believe that YouTube and other elements of digital multimedia are reestablishing a feminizing influence over the Internet after an early period of text-heavy conservatism.

For Thomas, it can’t come fast enough. “It’s not even patriarachial anymore,” she says of the current political situation. “It’s just fascism.” To combat those forces, she says, the “ladies’ groups” others so readily mock are “the only people who have the time, the money, and the will,” and she plans to continue her fundraising efforts in the months leading up to this fall’s presidential election.

From A New, Literary Spotlight for Heather Thomas, mediabistro blog GalleyCat.

Leonard Shlain has noted that “one pernicious effect of literacy has gone largely unnoticed: writing subliminally fosters a patriarchal outlook. Writing of any kind, but especially its alphabetic form, diminishes feminine values and with them, women’s power in the culture. …

“I propose that a holistic, simultaneous, synthetic, and concrete view of the world are the essential characteristics of a feminine outlook; linear, sequential, reductionist, and abstract thinking defines the masculine. Although these represent opposite perceptual modes, every individual is generously endowed with all the features of both.”

From his book The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image.

“Years ago my husband and I were at the Golden Globes. I was wearing some borrowed dress that wasn’t me, my hair was done in a way that I never wear my hair, and I had earrings on.

“And my husband said, ‘You know who is the most beautiful woman in the room?’ And I was hoping he was going to say me. And he pointed across the room at Jessica Tandy. She was sitting at a table wearing a cream-colored silk-shantung pantsuit. Single strand of pearls, short white hair, a little lipstick—nothing else. And I thought, ‘He’s totally right.’ There was none of the pretense, none of the trying so hard.

“My style is a distillation. I’ve etched out who I am through myriad haircut attempts, outfit attempts, beauty attempts, diet attempts. It’s been an evolution. I’ve let my hair go gray. I wear only black and white. Every year I buy three or four black dresses that I just keep in rotation. I own one pair of blue jeans. I’ve given away all my jewelry, because I don’t wear it.

“The same way that midcentury modern architecture was in the ’50s, I want to be as a human being. New. Different. Challenging the old. Function over frivolity. Clean living. Clean lines.”

[From article: Jamie Lee Curtis Turns 50, By Nancy Griffin, AARP The Magazine, May & June 2008.]

In addition to acting, Curtis expresses her creative talents by writing books for children. Her next upcoming title is Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods That Make My Day.

Actor Tyne Daly [left, with her "Judging Amy" costar Amy Brenneman] has commented about aging as a way to grow and change: “I feel less obliged to protect any made-up version of myself. When you’re young, you want to make a good impression in Hollywood. But I’ve kind of moved on from caring very much about other peoples’ judgments of me.” [From my article Maturity and Creativity.

Also see more quotes on the page: Maturity.

She has talked about how her multi-ethnic background was at times in her life painful, but has also helped fuel her ambition to achieve, along with the inspiration from her parents.

“From my mother, I got an attitude that’s fundamental to me,” Curry said in an interview. “She used to say, ‘gambaru.’ It’s a Japanese term that means ‘Never, ever give up, even if there’s no chance of winning.’

“Gambaru symbolized her life. She survived bombing raids during the war in Japan, starvation on the rice farm where she grew up, racism in America right after the war. From my father I got this ‘be of service’ thing. He’s the guy who said, ‘Ann, try to be of some service.’

“But gambaru is also why a poor girl, from a family without any history of anyone going to college — a mixed-race girl, no less; a girl growing up in a family where the mother barely spoke English correctly — could rise and become someone who speaks in English to millions of people every day.”

[From MORE magazine, July/August 2006.]

This word “gambaru” has a lot of meaning relevant to how we live and pursue success. An English translation of a Japanese article says: “Gambaru is, for one thing, a process-oriented concept that emphasizes the moral significance of an effort, or doryoku.

“What is important is that one makes the sincerest effort possible, and the outcome of that effort is secondary at best, and, in many situations, completely irrelevant. In other words, in the value system of gambaru, the process of making an effort is intentionally dissociated from the outcome that the effort brings, so that the effort can be evaluated, and admired, on its own merit.” [Lost In Translation blog.]

Gaining a high level of achievement and fulfillment may depend on that kind of attitude, and on motivation and perseverance.

Carol S. Dweck, PhD, a Professor of Psychology at Stanford, thinks “our society tends to believe that geniuses are born, not made. And I wouldn’t dispute that there might be a strong innate component, but it’s just clear from the histories of so many geniuses that motivation is a key component.

“And when you sift through the literature on creative genius, the researchers agree that motivation is perhaps the number one component in the realization of genius.”

From my post It takes more than talent.

Also see Grit and perseverance mean more than talent.

Jenny: You know, I read this book [A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle] when it first came out and that was one of my big wake up calls. Realizing that when I was with Evan, all I needed to do was just be with Evan. And our relationship bloomed like you wouldn’t believe, the love connection was there.

He was getting fulfilled because he knew, even when Evan wasn’t able to speak. This is when Evan still wasn’t able to use words. Energetically he felt that I was with him, that I was being with him. And I’m so grateful, Eckhart, that you taught me that.

I do have a question. Okay. It’s long so bear with me. It’s not spelled on but bear with me. One very common emotion that I have personally experienced and that I have seen in many mothers is this emotion called guilt. Mothers today experience a few different forms of guilt and I’m going to explain three different versions where I’m sure moms listening right now, one of them will say that’s my guilt.

The first one is the 9:00 to 5:00 working mom feels guilty for leaving the baby with the nanny all day. The second one is the stay at home mom feels guilty for getting bored playing with her, you know, her son or daughter all day long.

And sometimes you can only play choo choo so long and you can’t do it anymore and you feel guilty for not wanting to do that.

And the last one being, and this one I can really connect to, the thousands of mothers I’ve met who have children with autism carry a huge amount of guilt with them.

Tolle responded in his article On Guilt and Ego.

Jenny McCarthy is author of Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism.

“She was a woman of charm, style and wit, and will and savagery.”

That is a description of Anne Boleyn (second wife of Henry VIII) by Susan Brigden, author of New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors, 1485-1603.

Natalie Portman portrays Anne in The Other Boleyn Girl [right], and says she saw the film as “a cautionary tale about capitalism. All of the characters who subscribe to these values of rising up and gaining power and who will step on anyone to get there are punished. Anne is certainly the most forward about it, but she is following her family’s values…

“I think it’s very different to be ambitious and to be ruthlessly ambitious, which Anne certainly is in the movie. In reality, an argument can be made that Anne Boleyn was witch-hunted because she had so much power.”

Asked by Elle magazine about her own independence and ambition, she says, “It’s definitely complicated. I bury it a lot, which is a very common woman thing to do. They say women often preface their statements with ‘This might sound stupid, but…’ It sort of tempers what you are going to say. It takes the edge off so you can still be seen as ladylike. I think I have a lot of that in me. I’m very nonconfrontational; I’m definitely a pleaser.”

But she has also started her own production company, Handsomecharlie films (named after her late dog, Charlie). She says, “It is proactive. It gives you more control over creating things, as opposed to having to get hired every single time… Having your own company is a nice way to concentrate your ideas and make the kinds of movies you want to see.”

From Natalie Portman interview by Ariel Levy, Elle, April 2008; more quotes in my article She Is Running The Show.

Being a “pleaser” may be one reason for many women having conflicted feelings about leadership and power.

As “Fried Green Tomatoes” co-producer Anne Marie Gillen once noted, “If you look at how little boys play on a team, there’s a leader, they pick you or they don’t pick you, they go out there and beat each other up, they win the game and it’s over and they put their arms around each other and go on. But little girls play one-on-one (and think), she’s my best friend - I don’t want to hurt her feelings, because if she leaves, I’m alone.”

And psychotherapist Laura Morris, who works with a number of women in the entertainment industry, thinks “We are brought up to compete with other women. They are ‘The Enemy’ - they’re going to get something we’re after. Men have a closer bonding… they aren’t that competitive with each other… I think we make our own glass ceiling by not being very nice to each other.”

[Both quotes from my article Women in Film: Identity and Power.]

But do women have to “play like men” to gain leadership roles, corporate power or to realize other talents?

Judy B. Rosener, Ph.D., a management professor at the University of California, Irvine, thinks “we have defined everything in our society in terms of male behaviors, attitudes and values. Straight, white male. So if you’re anything but that, you are perceived as deficient, and have internalized that.”

She also asserts, “From the day we’re born, we are told - in the United States, anyway - that only white males are smart, and the rest of us haven’t quite got it. It’s scary.

“I’m married to a white male, I’m the mother of one, and I’m the daughter of one. It isn’t white males against the rest of us, it’s that white males think it is unfair that they now have to compete with women and people of color.

“Until now, they only had to compete with other white men - and they understand them. They don’t understand the rest of us and that makes them anxious.”

From my interview with Judy Rosener - she is author of America’s Competitive Secret: Women Managers - “This book proposes an audacious idea: that leveraging the talents of professional women will lead to more innovative, productive, and profitable organizations.”

A related comment by Sharon Stone: “If I was just intelligent, I’d be OK. But I am fiercely intelligent, which most people find very threatening.” [From my article Gifted Women: Identity and Expression.]

Perhaps many women of high intelligence and competence share her experience.

But some of the most compelling women in literature, films and on television are characters who use their sexual, intellectual and political power effectively - and with evident pleasure, though not without complications and conflicts.

Julianna Margulies plays defense attorney Elizabeth Canterbury on “Canterbury’s Law.” In an early scene her character walks into a men’s bathroom to demand answers from another lawyer.

Margulies explains why she liked the scene: “Because it’s what’s important to her. To me, it’s nothing’s going to stop her from getting to the point. And if you’re in the men’s bathroom, I don’t care.” [From interview on blog.meevee.com March 07, 2008]

She continues, “I personally, as Julianna, would have waited and waited, and then the moment goes by and then the person comes out and then you forget your whole point, you know?

“This is a woman who gets what she wants. She’s diligent; she’s unbelievably pushy and bossy. She doesn’t care if anyone is in there; she wants to go and get what she’s after.”

Related:
article: Women of Talent - Power and Leadership
pages: Power; Leadership

Related perspective: Elizabeth Wurtzel on feminism
“Feminism, which was meant to be fun, has lately started to seem so sour… But it cannot be the case that we went through all that bra-burning and consciousness-raising to be left choosing between, yet again, the madonna or the whore.

“Balance is difficult. But we can do it; we’re women. Like Ginger Rogers, we’ve been doing everything that men do, only backward and in high heels, for a very long time.”

More in her article Bitter ashes of burned brassieres.