This post continues the paper I began to serialize in an earlier posting on my blog. And this part of PRAISE AND APPROVAL‑‑IS THERE ANYTHING A WOMAN WANTS MORE? is about the American author Louisa May Alcott, her novel Little Women, and how Aesthetic Realism consultations answer the deepest questions of women now.
II. What Little Women Shows about Praise
One of the things I loved since I was a girl, as thousands of girls since 1868‑‑is Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women. I would vow to be like the heroine Jo March, who doesn't care about clothes, or boys' admiring her, or vanity, but says she will go out into the world and "do something very splendid." Throughout the novel, Jo asks for criticism‑‑of her anger, her impatience, her irascibility‑‑and I believe girls have loved her because they wanted criticism too, and saw our struggle in hers. I respect Louisa May Alcott for showing that women are desperate to hear what will have us true to ourselves and fairer to people.
For example, the novel opens with the four March sisters of Concord, Mass.‑‑Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy‑‑complaining about all they don't have‑‑nice dresses, a big house, jewels. Their father is a minister, now a chaplain in the Union Army during the Civil War, and they are rather poor. Then their mother comes home with a letter from him, and they all look at each other guiltily, as he writes of his daughters:
"I know they will...be loving children to you, fight their bosom enemies bravely, and conquer themselves so beautifully that when I come back to them, I may be fonder and prouder than ever of my little women."
Amy sobbed out, 'I am a selfish girl! But I'll truly try to be better!' 'We all will,' cried Meg. 'I think too much of my looks...but won't any more if I can help it!'"
I didn't know when I first read this, that the greatest 'bosom enemy' is contempt. That is what has us feel we are the most important thing in the world: we don't have to think about what another person deserves as long as we shine, even out‑shine someone else. And it is the thing that makes us ashamed, even if we get the praise we are desperate for.
For instance, Meg goes to a dance at a rich girlfriend's house, and Alcott writes:
"They crimped and curled her hair,...polished her neck and arms with fragrant powder....They laced her into a dress which was so tight she could hardly breathe and so low in the neck that modest Meg blushed at herself in the mirror....Meg...felt as if her 'fun' had really begun at last, for the mirror had plainly told her that she was a 'little beauty.' "
But even as she affects the men present, she is ashamed when a family friend, Theodore Lawrence, sees her. "Don't you like me so?," Meg asks him. "No, I don't," was the blunt reply, "I don't like all the fuss and feathers." Meg is embarrassed, as women have been, even as she bursts out later to her mother: "But it is nice to be praised and admired!" Mr. Siegel wrote about a young woman in his essay The Everlasting Dilemma of a Girl:
"Doris is vexed....When she seems to be affecting gentlemen, when there is admiration in their eyes, the victory is not entire. Because Doris has come to ask, perhaps more than other girls, "Is it I that is doing these things, or perhaps just someone standing for me?"....A girl...has found it most difficult to be effective as a beautiful feminine being and yet, honestly, to go after being thought of beautifully. First, she had to se her own intention as beautiful. That wasn't easy."
What is in these sentences, The Three Persons spoke about to Dee Simmonds, as she had her first consultations.
III. What She Learned about Praise
I am very grateful to be able to teach women Aesthetic Realism. Every woman who sits down at a consultation table knows we will not flatter, won't kid her along or give her phony bucking up statements, but will try to have her see both what she hopes for most deeply and what is in her that is against her own hopes. Such a woman is Dee Simmonds [her name has been changed], a lively computer analyst. She told us she was seeing a man who was separated from his wife, and said that though they would have a good time, later she she'd be confused, distressed, feeling distrustful of him and herself.
Cons. What has he said he cares for in you?
DS. He's said I'm more understanding than his wife.
Cons. That's flattering, but do you think he's using you against his wife, and not trying to understand her?
DS. Oh‑‑yes.
Cons. Do you feel he is kinder to everyone, including his wife, because of you?
DS. I didn't think about this before, but I don't think so.
Cons. Does that matter to you?
DS. Yes, it does.
Cons. Do you think you are going after what you really hope for from yourself? Or do you think, in not being passionately interested in this man's being fair to his wife, you are being unjust and hurting yourself?
DS. Yes, I'm hurting my esteem of myself.
Mr. Siegel wrote in an essay titled "The Problem about Approval," that what a woman wants to hear is that both she and the world can look good at the same time: we want to hear "that the like for oneself and the greater approval of the universe are simultaneous." This is what we were asking Ms. Simmonds:
Cons. What do you think is the most important thing in life, having a man approve of you, or having a beautiful attitude to the world?
DS. Oh! Having a beautiful attitude to the world.
Cons. If that's what you're honestly going after, then you'll respect yourself‑‑and a man can!
[to be continued]
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