Resisting Female Leadership

Dear Editor,

It is interesting to note how relatively little is said about the national reaction to a historical likelihood: the possible election of the first U.S. woman president. Are we really too mature for this to be an issue, or are we reluctant to explore a subject that may be conflicted?

Surely, the contest between a “mother figure” and a “father figure” to head the national “household” should provide a field day for psychohistorians. Yet, when I read the ten articles devoted to “The Psychology of Election 2016” (Clio’s Psyche, Vol. 23, No. 1), I was intrigued to see that only two are substantially directed toward the female contender, and neither of these particularly consider her in terms of opposition to her primary male rival. I wonder, does this journal itself reflect to some degree the reluctance of the collective conscious to delve into this subject?

Reading on, I find the balance of the journal equally evocative. “Assorted Articles” is devoted to a piece on pioneer women analysts who have been “erased and forgotten” (and have met violent ends), and another on the “ritual sacrifice” of a national woman president. “Letters to the Editor” are more gently gynocentric, concerned with mother-child attachment, whether we are making sufficient “progress by elevating the status of women,” and most to the point, a plea that it is “time for a woman president.” Looking over Clio’s Psyche as a whole, I wonder if it reflects, unawares, not only the emerging significance of the topic of female leadership, but also our hesitation in approaching the matter directly.

What sorts of psychic conflict might be involved here? For instance, does a negative reaction to a female contender contribute to the popularity of a misogynistic candidate who caricatures masculine “power”? Is the “mother figure” candidate handicapped by an apparent lack of maternal warmth? What unresolved Oedipal issues are called up when we have to choose between “mother” and “father”? And how about unconscious reactions when contentious debates suggest the primal scene?

Beginning with Freud himself, it has been easier for psychoanalysts to focus on the father figure. Even with increasing exploration of the mother-child relationship, the emphasis is on the pre-Oedipal, where the maternal influence does not usually meet with paternal competition. Analytic theory, preoccupied with the child’s inner world, has perhaps underplayed the importance of the parental dynamic. The Oedipal

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parents need to guide the child past conflicting fantasies to a concept of a caring, mutually interactive social relationship. Our willingness to consider the “mother” of equal value to the “father” in taking responsibility for the well-being of the national “family” seems to me to be an important step in our cultural growing-up. Our resistance to this eventuality, however, may be in need of some working through.

Sincerely yours,

Candace Orcutt

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