Hillary and Melanie and the Power of Sexism

I've been thinking a great deal about the debate at our Diocesan Convention concerning the resolution which called for the diocese to be 'sensitive' about inclusive language used during our corporate, diocesan worship and all diocesan events and communication.

I continue to be stunned by the ordained women and obvious liberal leaders who spoke against it. It's a fascinating phenomenon for this diocese, when it isn't flat-out disturbing.


Here's what I'm thinking. I suspect this is at least part of what I'm calling: "The Hillary Effect"

You know. Bill's "wife". Chelsea's "mother." The "former First Lady."

Yes, that Hillary. The Senator from New York. The candidate for President of the United States, who, by the grace of God and the consent of the majority of people (the Electoral College and Supreme Court not withstanding), will be the first woman to hold that office in this country.

She's got lots of people scared, hasn't she? Even some women - especially those who reap the benefits of all those feminists - men and women - who have struggled to work for equality but do not know (or, perhaps, even care) about the history of the Women's Movement.

As I've been trying to work my way through understanding this, I've found some solace in rereading "Envy and Gratitude," my very worn, dog-eared version of the book written by Melanie Klein

Personally, I think everyone in a position of church leadership - lay or ordained - should read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the wisdom of Klein's work. It's not an easy read, so go gently on yourself when you begin. Stay with it, though, and you will be richly rewarded for years to come.

Klein was a student of Freud, but found herself in disagreement with some of his teachings (Oh, my! What a surprise, right?). In her work with children, she began to apply her Freudian background with her own observations and laid the foundation for the development of a discipline of psychology known as "object relations theory."

This is not a place for scholarly discussions, so don't expect a 'magnum opus' on this topic. I'm just thinking out loud, as it were. Here's a bit of a snippet of her work which will give you a sense of her unique brilliance:

"...feelings of love and gratitude arise directly and spontaneously in the baby in response to the love and care of his mother. The power of love - which is the manifestation of the forces which tend to preserve life - is there in the baby as well as the destructive impulses, and finds its first fundamental expression in the baby's attachment to his mother's breast, which develops into love for her as a person. My psycho-analytic work has convinced me that when in the baby's mind the conflicts between love and hate arise, and the fears of losing the loved one become active, a very important step is made in development. These feelings of guilt and distress now enter as a new element into the emotion of love. They become an inherent part of love, and influence it profoundly both in quality and quantity." (from Love, Hate, and Reparation)


Basically, it builds on Freud's idea about libido and death - love and hate - and how these are made manifest in us as infants and young children at our mother's breast. As we grow older, we learn that we can love and hate the same object. Children, however, have a difficult time with the nuance of the interplay of these two drives or dynamics. Children view objects as either all-good or all-bad, thus only seeing a part of that object instead of the object's whole good/bad reality. Children are too young to understand that objects can be both good and bad; they only see one part of the spectrum.

Envy in adults is one of the immature manifestations of this dynamic between love and hate. What we can't have or feel frustrated or anxious about, we may envy. Envy is among the seven deadly sins and, says Klein, “it is unconsciously felt to be the greatest sin of all, because it spoils and harms the good object which is the source of life. . . . The feeling of having injured and destroyed the primal object impairs the individual’s trust in the sincerity of his later relationships and makes him doubt his capacity for love and goodness” (Klein 20).

I think (and, it has been argued that perhaps I think too much on these things) that what we are seeing in "The Hillary Effect" is the effect of envy. How DARE a woman seek to be elected to the highest political office in this country? How COULD she even think of becoming "The Leader of the Free World"? Clearly there must be something wrong with her. She can't possibly be a 'real woman'. She must be a 'real bitch'.

Next thing you know, we'll have to start changing the language we use. I mean, who ever heard of "Madam President"? Before you know it, that will mess up our images and understanding of God. Look what's happened since we elected a woman to be Presiding Bishop! There you go! See what I mean?

I think what we fear most- what animates our anxiety - is the loss of our 'traditional' cultural understanding about the role of women - especially mothers, in this country where "Apple Pie and Motherhood" reign supreme.

It's all about the primal forces of love and hate. This is nothing new. The Greeks have incorporated this into their earliest mythology in terms of the personifications of Eros and Thanatos. What we can't have or don't want, we seek to destroy. And, envy is a highly destructive force,

This is not to be confused with jealousy, which Klein says is between two individuals. Envy is bigger than that. Much bigger.

In these days of high anxiety, when we're deeply involved in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with no easy way out, when the 'r' word (recession) is hot on everyone's breath, when the genocide in Darfur continues unabated despite global howls of protest, when good, middle class families have to think carefully about whether or not to spend money on fuel or food and we begin to realize that we're all just two paychecks away from financial chaos, and when the political campaign on both sides of the political aisle bring these issues before us as our daily bread, is it any wonder, any wonder at all, that we're all anxious?

Guess what happens when we eat too much of the Bread of Anxiety? We all become little children again, losing our capacity for intelligence and reason, forgetting our history, inadvertently seeking to "spoil and harm the good object" which we learned to identify first at our mother's breast.

The antidote: Gratitude. I'll say more about this in a later post, but let me just say this. I am convinced that gratitude is deeply anchored in our spirituality. One of the real ironies of this new wave of Evangelical religion that is affecting and infecting our national politics at the moment is that everyone - even politicians - has suddenly got 'religion', but I don't think we have a developed sense of spirituality. That takes maturation. Depth. Intelligence. Reason.

And, the ability to let it all go in deep gratitude for the One who loved us first.

I must say: I've gotten some interesting insights from all of this about the dynamics of sexism. The bottom line is this: The "Hillary Effect" says far less about Hillary than it does about the state of our own souls. We can choose to be anxious and become envious children or we can become grateful adults. Neither one insures a victory for Hillary or inclusive language. It does, however, help us deal with the health of our own souls.