Women's Reality

An Emerging Female System

Anne Wilson Schaef

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780062507709
• eBook ISBN: 9780062303981
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

chapter one

Fitting in: The White Male System and Other Systems in Our Culture

The White Male System and the Way the World Isn’t

When working with clients, therapists have traditionally taken one of two approaches: the intrapsychic or the interpersonal. In the former, the therapist focuses on what goes on inside the person, emphasizing the importance of dreams, fantasies, defense mechanisms, fixations, and the like. Of special significance are the first five years of a client’s life; these are seen as having shaped the person and determined what she or he would be and become in the future.

Many practitioners now feel that the intrapsychic approach is sorely lacking. The information gained by that methodology may be useful, but it is just not enough. True, a therapist can work with an individual’s insides and make great strides, but it is also necessary to work with her or his outsides—specifically, to become aware of and/or involved with the significant others in the client’s life. After all, no one lives in a vacuum! The interpersonal approach, then, focuses on the system in which the client lives and on the system which is the client herself or himself.

As a practicing psychotherapist, I myself have used both approaches—the intrapsychic and the interpersonal—with my clients, depending on their needs and my perceptions. Both have worked at different times; both have helped people to become living, loving, capable individuals. Still, I have never been entirely satisfied with either approach or the combination of the two. Something is missing from each one—something which I have grown to feel is essential not only to the therapeutic process but also to getting along in the world on a day-to-day basis.

What is missing is an understanding and awareness of what I have chosen to call the White Male System. It is crucial to be able to define this system and deal with it simply because it surrounds us and permeates our lives. Its myths, beliefs, rituals, procedures, and outcomes affect everything we think, feel, and do.

Let me explain what I mean by the White Male System. It is the system in which we live, and in it, the power and influence are held by white males. This system did not happen overnight, nor was it the result of the machinations of only a few individuals; we all not only let it occur but participated in its development. Nevertheless, the White Male System is just that: a system. We all live in it, but it is not reality. It is not the way the world is. Unfortunately, some of us do not recognize that it is a system and think it is reality or the way the world is.

The White Male System—and it is important to keep in mind that I am referring to a system here and not pointing a finger at specific individuals within it—controls almost every aspect of our culture. It makes our laws, runs our economy, sets our salaries, and decides when and if we will go to war or remain at home. It decides what is knowledge and how it is to be taught. Like any other system, it has both positive and negative qualities. But because it is only a system, it can be clarified, examined, and changed, both from within and without.

There are other systems within our culture. The Black System, the Chicano System, the Asian American System, and the Native American System are completely enveloped in and frequently overshadowed by the White Male System. As, of course, is the Female System, which includes women from the other ethnic systems as well as white women.

There are a few white men who do not fit into the White Male System. They form a small but growing group which is frequently perceived as a sanctuary by white men who do not want to acknowledge their sexism. Whenever I mention the existence of this group during a lecture, I can almost see the men in the room rushing to crowd into it. If they can just get into that circle, they can be “different” and not have to face themselves. I wait until they are comfortably crowded in before saying, “Of course, at this point in history that group is largely homosexual.” They then quickly rush right out again! I use this statement for effect, and while it is not necessarily accurate, it does encourage men to realize that there is more to sexism than meets the eye. This keeps the focus where it should be and is also an amusing process to observe.

Saying that you are not sexist—or that you do not want to be, or would rather not admit that you are—is not the same as doing something about your sexism. To give a parallel example, this is much like what many of us white liberals did during the civil rights movement. We needed our Black friends to tell us that we were different. We needed to hear that we were not like everyone else, that we were not discriminatory and racist. Once we heard that, we could avoid having to deal with our racism, which was real no matter how hard we tried to ignore it or cover it up.

I had two Black colleagues who simply refused to tell me what I wanted to hear. I finally learned that the issue was not one of whether I was racist, but of how I was racist. As soon as I was able to acknowledge this—with my friends’ help—then and only then could I begin to work on my own racist attitudes and behaviors. Similarly, because we all live in a white male culture, the question is not one of whether we are sexist, but of how we are sexist. (This is true for women as well as men, by the way.)

Before we can deal with our sexism, we must learn to distance ourselves from the White Male System. We must learn to step back, take a long look at it, and see it for what it really is.

Clearing the Air: Pollution vs. Non-Pollution

I like to think of the White Male System as analogous to pollution. When you are in the middle of pollution, you are usually unaware of it (unless it is especially bad.) You eat in it, sleep in it, work in it, and sooner or later start believing that that is just the way the air is. You are unaware of the fact that pollution is not natural until you remove yourself from it and experience non-pollution.

I live in the Colorado mountains where the air is very clear. Whenever I go to the East Coast, I almost immediately start coughing and fighting a post-nasal drip. As I choke and sputter, I comment to local residents, “My, the pollution is bad today!” They in turn look startled and ask, “What pollution?” What they are really saying, of course, is this: “Isn’t the air always a little thick and yellowish-gray?”

When flying into New York—or Los Angeles, for that matter—it is easy enough to look down and say, “Now, that’s pollution!” Once you are in it for a while, though, you simply forget all about it and accept polluted air as a given.

Native Americans have always recognized the White Male System as pollution. The Blacks were the next group to challenge the system. The Blacks went off by themselves and said, “We have a system of our own—the Black system. It isn’t always right, but it isn’t always wrong. Black is beautiful and our system is just fine.” Until then, very few groups had stepped away from the White Male System, reflected on it, and declared their own alternatives.

It is very difficult to stand back from the White Male System because it is everywhere in our culture. You can get away from pollution by leaving New York City and going to the mountains, but you cannot get away from the White Male System as easily as that. It is our culture. We all live in it. We have been educationally, politically, economically, philosophically, and theologically trained in it, and our emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual survival have depended on our knowing and supporting the system. White women believe that they get their identity externally from the White Male System and that the White Male System is necessary to validate that identity. Therefore, challenging the system becomes almost impossible.

There is a direct correlation between buying into the White Male System and surviving in our culture. Since white women have bought into the system the most, they have survived better than other groups both economically and physically although they do get battered and raped and mutilated (for example, through unnecessary surgery). They have had to hide and/or unlearn their own system and accept the stereotypes that the White Male System has set up for them.

Blacks have accepted the White Male System less wholeheartedly than white women and have not done as well within it. (Of course, white men have not exactly been enthusiastic about welcoming Blacks into their system.) Chicanos and Asian Americans are even further removed. Finally, most Native Americans have generally refused to have anything at all to do with it. When one looks at how Native Americans have fared within this culture, one sees graphic evidence of what happens to those who try to escape or ignore the White Male System. They are either exterminated outright or have to fight every step of the way. Economic and physical survival have been directly related to accepting and incorporating the White Male System.

There is also an inverse relationship between accepting and incorporating the White Male System and personal survival. The stress of having to be innately superior at all times is more than the human organism can tolerate. Those persons who buy into the system the most and work the hardest to become shining examples of what it means tend to drop dead ahead of their time from heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, ulcers, and other physical after effects of unrelenting tension and stress.

One unforeseen consequence of the civil rights movement is that more Black males are dying of heart attacks these days. As they move into the White Male System and become part of it, they inherit the unfortunate legacy of stress and early death. The same appears to be true for women who are “making it” in the White Male System. It seems as if high blood pressure goes hand in hand with three-piece suits and attaché cases.

This does not have to be so, however. One big problem with the White Male System is that stress is assumed to be an integral part of the system. If one tries to live up to the myths of the system, then one naturally undergoes a great deal of strain. One can choose not to live up to these myths. One can choose to remove the causes of stress rather than merely learning how to cope with them. The only really effective way to go about doing this is to challenge the myths of the White Male System and eventually to change the system itself. It can be done; in some cases, it is already being done.

I am not talking here about women’s liberation, or Black liberation, or the liberation of any other single group within our culture. Instead, I am looking forward to a time when we can all become the persons we really are. Blacks and women are learning to tell the difference between pollution and non-pollution. They are showing us that it is possible to stand back and say, “The White Male System is only a system. It is not reality. It is not the way the world is.” Blacks have defined their own system, and some of them have tried to communicate this to the rest of us. Unfortunately, many of us have been very slow learners. It is difficult to teach a new concept to someone who already “knows it all” (one of the myths of the White Male System). Some Blacks have not bothered trying to tell others about their system. They have just focused on getting into the White Male System because they know they must in order to survive.

I have described the White Male System as it is perceived by Female System women. Similarly, there is a Female System. It is not good or bad. It just is. It is not necessary to choose one system over the other. As the Female System is described, we will see and understand another system. The more systems we know about, the more choices we have. Over time, perhaps, more new—and better—systems, models, and alternatives will emerge.

The Four Great Myths of the White Male System

The White Male System has four myths that feed it, sustain it, and (theoretically at least) justify it. These myths have been around for so long that most men are not even conscious of them. Many would deny their existence. Yet to challenge or doubt them is akin to heresy: they are sacred givens.

The first myth is that the White Male System is the only thing that exists. Because of this, the beliefs and perceptions of other systems—especially the Female System—are seen as sick, bad, crazy, stupid, ugly, and incompetent.

This myth is damaging in two ways. It limits women who want to explore their own perceptions and abilities, and it limits men who want to experience and learn from them.

Almost every woman has heard these words more than once: “You just don’t know how the world is!” implying that the White Male System’s view of the world is somehow “right.” Women are also told time and again that they do not understand “reality.” The White Male System is not reality. It is a reality, but it is not the reality, and women may very well have a reality all their own. Neither reality is right. Neither is the way the world is. Each simply is. When one is set up as being the only true reality, however, and the other is dismissed as sick, bad, crazy, stupid, etc., then no one is free to explore the possibilities inherent in other realities.

There may be one true reality somewhere, but it has not yet been demonstrated that the White Male System can claim it. If we were all given the opportunity to seek out and study other realities, we might come closer to understanding one another. The myth which states that there is one and only one reality limits our search for others.

Since the White Male System is so thoroughly convinced that it is the only thing that exists in the world, it lacks what I like to call a “theology of differences.” Once someone is sure that the way in which he (or she) sees the world is the way things are, then he (or she) perceives any differences of opinion as threatening. This results in a closed system and a rigid approach to life in which all differences must be discounted, disparaged, or destroyed. No one is allowed to explore them or use them as opportunities for new growth because their very existence jeopardizes the most basic myth of the White Male System—that it is the right and only way of life without which there would be nothing.

The second myth is that the White Male System is innately superior. Note that the first and second myths do not follow logically. If the White Male System is the only thing that exists, then how can it be superior and to what? Unfortunately, this inconsistency is of no concern to the White Male System.

At some level, the White Male System has recognized in spite of itself that other realities exist. It has gone on to define itself as superior to them while simultaneously believing that it is the only reality. Anyone who does not belong to this system is by definition innately inferior—and this includes members of all other racial groups, women, and the few white men who do not fit into the White Male System.

According to the White Male System, innate superiority and innate inferiority are birthrights which cannot be earned or traded away. Some men would like to give their innate superiority away—it is often too large a burden to bear. It is just plain difficult to be “the best” all of the time. Nor is it good for one’s health. Superiority can be a killing gift.

The third myth is that the White Male System knows and understands everything. This is one reason why women so frequently look to men for advice and direction. Both sexes genuinely believe that men should and do know it all. In contrast to the first two myths, which are diametrically opposed, this myth follows the second one very nicely. If one is innately superior, then by rights one should be omniscient as well.

This myth is directly related to racial and sex-role stereotyping. A stereotype is no more than a definition of one group of persons by another who wishes to control it. Taken together, stereotypes support the myths of the White Male System.

No one would deny the fact that there are other people in our culture besides white men. Blacks, Chicanos, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and women are not exactly invisible. Precisely because they are different from white men, the White Male System must come to terms with them in some way. So it develops stereotypes that neatly describe and categorize these other ...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Author’s Note—1992
• Author’s Note—1981
• Foreword by Carol S. Pearson
• Introduction
• Chapter One Fitting In: The White Male System and Other Systems in our Culture
• Chapter Two The Original Sin of Being Born Female
• Chapter Three Getting Along: Male/Female Relationships in the White Male System
• Chapter Four Stoppers
• Chapter Five The Female System and the White Male System: New Ways of Looking at our Culture
• Chapter Six Paradox, Dualism, and Levels of Truth
• Chapter Seven An Introduction to Female System Theology
• About the Author
• Praise
• Other Books by Anne Wilson Schaef
• Copyright
• About the Publisher