The other day on my ride in to work I was listening to a local radio station. One of the female personalities was talking about and seeking commentary from listeners on the topic of female workplace relationships. The discussion was spawned by an MSNBC article published Monday entitled,
Women still reluctant to help each other. In the article, the author discusses the social, emotional and cultural reasons for and implications of women tearing one another down, instead of building each other up and supporting one another. While the article focuses on workplace behavior, which may be relevant to you readers, regardless of PPD, I believe it also speaks to both potential risk factors for and ability to heal from perinatal mood disorders.
I have had my fair share of tenuous relationships in the workplace. Incredibly, for me, it began even before paid work. When I was student teaching one of my advisory teachers and I had a disagreement a few weeks into the experience that resulted in her later apologizing and sharing her struggles with mental illness, which I now believe were first recognized in the postpartum period after she had her only child, later in life. I was an eager beaver over-achiever and she was barely keeping her head above water. One morning I asked one too many questions and she jumped down my throat, telling me that she didn't have the time or energy to field all my curiousness and that she preferred if I arrived and left just before and after the children, so she could have some time for herself. I totally get all the aspects of this now, both the mental illness and that need for some alone time that working moms crave, but then I was just hurt and ashamed. Thankfully, my observing supervisor noticed the teacher's issues and made an effort to support me, which helped us all to have a successful semester in the end.
The next year, in my first paid position, I got my first taste of a mostly female line of work, where even in a small office such as mine, our personalities could clash at times. Things peaked when one of the long time employees was fired and was angry at me because I wasn't. She probably knew that her being let go would result in my being promoted...and she was right; it did. Later, when the company was bought by a bigger franchise owner, a new general manager was hired and she started making immediate changes in the six stores that she managed, including mine. She hired a firecracker of a woman, who had an interesting past and who seemed to be struggling to make a life for her two children after fleeing from who she claimed was their abusive father. She constantly told tales of her life as a rich woman, living a glamorous existence. She was over-the-top friendly at first and wanted to spend lots of our off time with me, too. Having drinks, shopping, etc. Since she was my boss and I was really young and green at the time, I just figured appeasing her was the right thing to do. About a month into her position, she began modifying test scores and sales so that we would hit monthly goals. The monetary bonuses and small trinket gifts received at those staff meetings were like gold to her. A couple of months later, I noticed her jovial rapport with me shift to something that seemed off. Her light and exuberant way became more in my face and she started verbally harassing me a bit, using sarcasm as her tool. She would also jump down my throat over nothing...accusing me of "looking at her belly" (which was indeed very large and round, but which I had no desire to stare at). Then the signs started becoming more frequent and visible. She was trying to blackmail me. She invited me to purchase vending machines with her as a side business and was irate when I told her I didn't have the money (in reality, I didn't trust her to share the proceeds). She would nearly force me to sneak out of work to see movies during office hours, leaving the new employee, who reported to me, alone in the store for hours, which was a huge no-no. In fact, my boss had altered the number of clients to convince our general manager to hire this full-time staff person at all, which was not justifiable based upon our sales. Thank goodness, in the time prior to and in the midst of all of this nonsense, I had made a good friend in a colleague who had been promoted to be a manager at another franchise location. She and I were thick as thieves, and when she got wind of what was happening in the bigger picture, she warned me. To my face, my boss was acting like my biggest fan. But, behind my back, she had been trying to get me fired. Having made up stories (including that I had come to work drunk!), she was working a case for our general manager to get rid of me altogether. Knowing that she had no grounds to do so, the manager opted instead to transfer me to another store, which would eventually result in a woman there being let go, though not by my fault, as I mentored her as well as I could, but the management had planned to fire her all along; they just chose to drag it out. Gratefully, though this store was much further of a drive, I found female colleagues that I got along with and respected there. We enjoyed lunches together and when I decided to resign in order to move to be with M, they threw me a going away party that was a blast. It was my first taste of what a workplace should be, and though several of them had serious personal problems at home, and we had our fair share of drama, it was not with each other.
Since that first position, I have worked with many women. None were as downright sinister as that loony lying woman I worked with in the first store. But, even in environments where such behavior would seem taboo, competitive spirits and female drama abounds. It is not surprising that I have seemed to click with the men I work with overall much more than most of the women. Living in the South now, I have tried to become "softer" at my former boss' suggestion, and to anticipate possible problems by being overly and obviously polite to women I know who are especially sensitive. I hope it has helped, because at times it can be exhausting.
So, how does this relate to PPD, anyway? Well, the way I see it, women are a new mothers' support system. And, if we are competitive in the workplace and
competitive in our parenting, then what's to say we'll be helpful to one another in emotional matters or times of need? I don't think our generation is there for one another in the way perhaps women were in generations past. While I don't believe this is the sole cause of perinatal mood disorders, I do believe that it can exacerbate them and encourage symptoms such as feeling alone and inadequate, feeling as if you are being judged and are inferior. I also believe that some women may even feel a bit of pride if they don't suffer from PPD, like it makes them somehow a better mother or more meant to be a mother. Total B.S., but in my opinion a real assumption for some smug mothers.
And on that note, I will end with a quote from the article I linked to in the first paragraph:
“There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”
(I couldn't have said it better myself!)
What do you think??? ,
