An Undoing of Betrayal

I sat in a lovely home tonight, surrounded by lovely women. In total, there were nine of us, ranging in age from mid-20s to 70. Amazing diversity in lifestyle, belief systems, and certainly experience, we came together to think and talk about betrayal among women in general and specifically issues of envy in the mother-daughter relationship. Paradoxically, beautifully, the experience of our dialogue and relationship was counter to any form of betrayal. Even more, it was an undoing – offering redemption for that which we’ve all known, experienced, and even perpetuated.

Our conversation pivoted on two axes: One, an article entitled Betrayals Among Women: Barriers to a Common Language, written by the two women who opened their home to us – Karen Fite and Nikola Trumbo. And two, the dissertation work of Dr. Mara Applebaum, a young woman who is in the process of finalizing important work on issues of envy between mothers and daughters – seen through the lenses of mythological study and and deep psychology. Heady, amazing stuff!

I could say much about what it feels like to be in the midst of these kind of conversations, to be surrounded by brilliant, intelligent, witty, compassionate women. But, given that it’s after midnight, I will let a few of their voices speak for themselves. In the morning, or in the days ahead, when I am more cogent and have had more time to process, I will speak for myself – complimented and affirmed by my time with them. Hardly betrayed; rather, the opposite.

Culture is embedded in history, and, since men write history from which women are erased, women have no base in history with which to create a culture. Therefore, the culture women do have is fragmentary.

What must a daughter be taught about her worth, her abilities, her destiny? Who must be her teacher? And where can she look for connections which support here worth, her own individual abilities, and which suggest a choice of destinies?

Having virtually no opportunity to practice taking our lives into our own hands and nowhere to look for models who have, we are our own trailbreakers; and the pressures against opening new paths are everywhere we look – both within ourselves and outside ourselves. When we do manage to carve out the semblance of the new way it closes around us like an equatorial jungle because we don’t have the resources of connections to sustain our efforts.

Women are taught to worry about “too-ness” — too smart, too strong, too assertive, too loud, too fat, too old, too ugly. No one talks about the sense of personal loss a woman experiences when she attempts to be other than she is and the sense of self-betrayal she feels when she learns to act, and ultimately to be less than she is, less than she can be. The limits to what men allow women to be in strength, smartness, and assertion are always reached before the individual woman has reached her own personal limits. She never gets the chance to test herself out to the full, and so always at some level she has betrayed her own potential. Thus to assert strength is to encounter self-doubt, and to fail to assert strength is to encounter self-betrayal.

Hard truths – spoken and written by kind, generous, and bold women. They have been betrayed. I have been betrayed. And all of us have betrayed each other as well as ourselves. Perhaps the undoing of betrayal begins (and continues) when we are open to conversation, to difference, to perspective, to one another. If tonight is any indication, I would say, “Indeed,” and “I want more!”

Thanks Hillary, Mara, Karen, Nikola, Gwen, Jen, Susan, and Stephanie. Beautiful, powerful, and undoing betrayal – past, present, and future – with your very being.