Behind the Mask: Destruction and Creativity in Women’s AggressionThis boldly original book explores the origins, meanings, and forms of women's aggression. Drawing from in-depth interviews with sixty women of different ages and ethnic and class backgrounds--police officers, attorneys, substance abusers, homemakers, artists--Dana Jack provides a rich account of how women explain (or explain away) their own hidden or actual acts of hurt to others. With sensitivity but without sentimentality, Jack gives readers a range of compelling stories of how women channel, either positively or destructively, their own powerful force and of how they resist and retaliate in the face of others' aggression in a society that expects women to be yielding, empathetic, and supportive. Arguing that aggression arises from failures in relationships, Jack portrays the many forms that women's aggression can take, from veiled approaches used to resist, control, and take vengeance on others, to aggression that reflects despair, to aggression that may be a hopeful sign of new strength. Throughout the book, Jack shows the positive sides of aggression as women struggle with internal and external demons, reconnect with others, and create the courage to stand their ground. This work broadens our understanding of aggression as an interpersonal phenomenon rooted in societal expectations, and offers exciting new approaches for exploring the variations of this vexing human experience. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 35
Page 3
... psychologists have thought and felt about aggression has been shaped by a male perspective. This means that we understand aggression from the point of view of those who have been dominant. It also ensures that men's fears of women's ag ...
... psychologists have thought and felt about aggression has been shaped by a male perspective. This means that we understand aggression from the point of view of those who have been dominant. It also ensures that men's fears of women's ag ...
Page 6
... psychological factors ( see , e.g. , Cicchetti and Carlson , 1989 ; Egami et al . , 1996 ; Milner and Chilamkurti , 1991 ; and Rodriguez and Green , 1997 ) . My goal is to delve into a largely unexplored area : the psy- chology of ...
... psychological factors ( see , e.g. , Cicchetti and Carlson , 1989 ; Egami et al . , 1996 ; Milner and Chilamkurti , 1991 ; and Rodriguez and Green , 1997 ) . My goal is to delve into a largely unexplored area : the psy- chology of ...
Page 7
... psychological definitions of aggression , carries a large measure of ambiguity . Why , then , should we trust what these women say about a subject that often brings social judgment and shame ? Psychology has a long history of bias ...
... psychological definitions of aggression , carries a large measure of ambiguity . Why , then , should we trust what these women say about a subject that often brings social judgment and shame ? Psychology has a long history of bias ...
Page 8
... psychological research ( Reid , 1993 ; Bing and Reid , 1996 ) . While lawyers and police officers reveal how women think about integrating socially sanctioned power into their aggression , women at the margins have fewer options for ...
... psychological research ( Reid , 1993 ; Bing and Reid , 1996 ) . While lawyers and police officers reveal how women think about integrating socially sanctioned power into their aggression , women at the margins have fewer options for ...
Page 18
... psychological treatment if they are " overaggres- sive ” ; use aggression only in defense of their children ; and are com- monly motivated to aggression by jealousy ( see Macaulay , 1985 ; White and Kowalski , 1994 ) . The popular idea ...
... psychological treatment if they are " overaggres- sive ” ; use aggression only in defense of their children ; and are com- monly motivated to aggression by jealousy ( see Macaulay , 1985 ; White and Kowalski , 1994 ) . The popular idea ...
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
2 Ways of Occupying Space | 52 |
3 Why Not Hurt Others? | 111 |
4 The Rage of Disconnection | 155 |
5 Masking Aggression | 188 |
6 Creating New Ground | 238 |
Notes | 285 |
References | 297 |
Acknowledgments | 311 |
Index | 313 |
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Common terms and phrases
abuse actions affect African American aggres aggressive acts aggressive fantasies anger angry avoid hurt Carol Gilligan Catherine Lutz child abuse Christopher Commission Chrystal conflict connection context create culture depression destructive aggression disconnection dominance drugs emotional empathy experience fear feel felt female femininity fight force gender girls going gonna gression harm hostile husband images indirect aggression interpersonal interviews intimate relationships Julia kids kind Latisha learned listening lives look male Mandy marriage mask mean Medusa metaphors Mexican American moral mother negative never nice pain passive-aggressive behavior patterns person physical aggression police positive aggression protect psychological racism rage relational relational aggression relational space relationship retaliation Rhonda role self-harm self-protection sense sexual shame silence social society someone space stand talk testosterone there's things thought threat trying unfamiliar territory victim violence voice Wendy Wendy's woman women women's aggression
Popular passages
Page 26 - An employer who objects to aggressiveness in women but whose positions require this trait places women in an intolerable and impermissible Catch 22: out of a job if they behave aggressively and out of a job if they do not. Title VII lifts women out of this bind.
Page 147 - THE ORDINARY RESPONSE TO ATROCITIES is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.
Page 214 - She jerks her coat closer to her. I look. I do not see whatever terrible thing she is seeing on the seat between us — probably a roach. But she has communicated her horror to me. It must be something very bad from the way she's looking, so I pull my snowsuit closer to me away from it, too. When I look up the woman is still staring at me, her nose holes and eyes huge. And suddenly I realize there is nothing crawling up the seat between us; it is me she doesn't want her coat to touch.
Page 31 - On the negative side, the mother archetype may connote anything secret, hidden, dark; the abyss, the world of the dead, anything that devours, seduces, and poisons, that is terrifying and inescapable like fate
Page 288 - ... response to revelations of wifely infidelity; women almost never respond similarly, though their mates are more often adulterous. The evidence is overwhelming that a large proportion of the spousekillings perpetrated by wives, but almost none of those perpetrated by husbands, are acts of self-defense. Unlike men, women kill male partners after years of suffering physical violence, after they have exhausted all available sources of assistance, when they feel trapped, and because they fear for...
Page 32 - I will do you reverence, and protect you, and yield you service, and you, for your part, will hold fast to an ideal of gentleness, of personal refinement, of modesty, of joyous maternity, and to who shall say what other graces and virtues that endear women to men', that is Chivalry.
Page 214 - I don't like to talk about hate. I don't like to remember the cancellation and hatred, heavy as my wished-for death, seen in the eyes of so many white people from the time I could see. It was echoed in newspapers and movies and holy pictures and comic books and Amos 'n
Page 288 - ... causes, two things are clear: First, people do not behave independently of the way they conceptualize their behavior. Second, an important task of psychology is to account for the origins and functions of the relevant conceptualizations. To summarize, the typical instigation to anger is a value judgment. More than anything else, anger is an attribution of blame. The attribution may not always be correct or free from self-serving biases, and it may be influenced by a host of factors (eg, frustration,...
Page 32 - ... that is chivalry." The historian Gail Bederman observes: "If either sex broke this compact, all bets were off. When a woman became violent, unrefined, ungrateful, or 'when she places a quite extravagantly high estimate upon her intellectual powers,
Page 214 - ... there is nothing crawling up the seat between us; it is me she doesn't want her coat to touch. The fur brushes past my face as she stands with a shudder and holds on to a strap in the speeding train. Born and bred a New York City child, I quickly slide over to make room for my mother to sit down. No word has been spoken. I'm afraid to say anything to my mother because I don't know what I have done.