In this podcast (episode #593) and blog, I consult with bestselling creator and podcast host Elise Loehnen about being a lady in today’s world, the value we as women pay to be “good” and “on our greatest behavior,” how this impacts our mental wellbeing, and so far more!
Elise is the host of Pulling the Thread, a podcast focused on pulling apart the stories we tell about who we’re—after which putting those threads back together. She is a seeker and synthesizer, braiding together wisdom traditions, cultural history, and a deep knowledge of healing modalities to unlock latest ways to contextualize who we’re and why we’re here.
She’s also the creator of the New York Times bestseller On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good. This incredible book explores how male-dominated cultures impact women and are embedded in our consciousness, resulting in our own self-policing behavior. It is in regards to the way we as women are programmed by society to stick to certain ideas about “goodness”. In some ways, we’re directed from youth to be on our greatest behavior, while men are directed to be powerful, which affects all parts of a lady’s life.
The idea of a lady’s goodness as external and judged by society is different to the goodness that belongs to all of us, as human beings, intuitively. This external sense of “being good” is commonly compelled and performative in nature, and this happens unconsciously—it’s a script that we as women didn’t necessarily select however it is foisted upon us from birth. It is fed to us as a map to morality, belonging and approval, often suppressing and repressing what it truly means to be authentic to ourselves as women.
In some ways, this “script” is predicated on social notions of the seven deadly sins present in Christianity: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. For example, Elise points out in her book that seeing sloth as sinful leads women to disclaim themselves rest, a fear of gluttony drives them to disregard their appetites, and an aversion to greed prevents them from negotiating for themselves and contributes to the 55 percent gender wealth gap we see in our world today. Elise shows how we, as women, have been “programmed to obey the foundations represented by these sins and the way doing so qualifies us as ‘good’” and determines our price in society. From youth, we’re taught to internalize this fashion of considering and acting, often unwittingly reinforcing it through our own selections and behavior: woman is rarely drained, puts other people’s needs first, doesn’t need attention or praise, has no appetite and is on the small side, is desirable but not desiring or sexual, doesn’t discuss money or understand it thoroughly (although her job is to support the economy), and he or she never complains about any of this.
Of course, this concept of “goodness” and “being in your best behavior” is just not so simple as men versus women. In some ways, we unconsciously police ourselves and other women based on these standards, which suggests that we’ve got to work too deliberately to interrupt down these ways of considering to alter them. We must unsubscribe from these unconscious patterns and ways of being if we would like to alter the world for the higher and help women be more authentic to themselves and their intuitive sense of what it means to be “good”. The more we’re aware of this and might observe it in ourselves and others, the more we will challenge and alter the narrative—we will tell different stories about ourselves and other women, rejoice the “feminine”, and lay the groundwork for empowering women in the longer term.
For more on being a women in today’s world, take heed to my podcast with Elise (episode #593) and take a look at her incredible work and her book On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good. If you enjoy listening to my podcast, please consider leaving a 5-star review and subscribing. And keep sharing episodes with family and friends and on social media. (Don’t forget to tag me so I can see your posts!).
Originally published by Dr. Caroline Leaf. Used with permission.
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