Lately, I'm seeing a pattern among the women clients that walk into my office. There's a lot of talk about "not being controlling."
"I'm trying not to be so controlling," these women are saying. "I'm trying to just let go, and not have to control everything."
I get the sense they think I'm going to nod along enthusiastically when they say this. After all, I'm in the personal growth world. I'm a "life coach." I believe in the power of surrendering to something larger than ourselves. So wouldn't I give them a big round of applause for their attempts to "let go"?
Nope.
Instead, when I hear them say this, I'm suspicious. I'm suspicious because these brilliant, powerful women are sitting across from me, telling me and themselves that they are being "controlling," but I don't see it.
I don't see high-strung women walking around the world trying to control it. I see intelligent women trying to have a voice in the world and take care of themselves. When they are met with disappointing results -- other people not listening to them or respecting their voices -- they are turning their disappointment inward, labeling themselves "controlling" and thinking they need to change.
It's in vogue "to just let go." But there's a thin line between letting go of an unhealthy desire to control and letting go of the healthy drive within all of us to be heard, to influence, to have impact.
I'm also suspicious because controlling is a term that's rarely applied to men. It used to be I mostly heard men referring to women as controlling, but now I hear more and more women applying the term to themselves, in "personal growth/self-awareness" guise.
Men who stand again and again for their own desires and needs aren't deemed controlling. They are called bold, persistent, committed, strong. I've yet to hear a man grapple with and be hard on himself for being "so controlling." I've yet to hear a man talk about "trying to just let go" at work.
I'm also suspicious because I hear the "I'm trying not to be controlling" line coming up in two contexts:
1) Romantic Situations
When he's not calling. When he's not acting caring or excited about her. When she's expressed something and is left feeling judged, dismissed or unheard. Next comes, "Well, I'm trying to not be so controlling, to not have to have everything go my way."
Two things are getting conflated here: letting go of unhelpful rules about how a relationship needs to go, and squashing one's own needs and voice.
2) At Work
The second scenario women are usually referring to when they talk about "not being so controlling" is work, but the underlying dynamics are the same. When they've expressed their voice and are left feeling disrespected, dismissed or not valued as much as their male colleagues, and they have to decide what to do next, up comes the "trying to not be controlling" thing.
Wanting to have a voice is not being controlling. Wanting to influence others, to be heard, to make an impact is not being controlling. "Letting go" isn't leaving your own side and settling for something that makes you feel bad. Letting go might mean letting that guy be himself and deciding he's not the right guy for you. Letting go is not letting him be himself, and staying around, even though you feel unloved, not cherished, not heard.
Here's my recommendation: strike the word "controlling" from your vocabulary. It's loaded, it's gendered and other stuff is hiding underneath it.
Take away the word, and look deeper: what's actually happening in the situation at hand? Are you actually trying to control things outside of your control, in a tight-fisted way? If so, that means you are afraid. Something about the situation has put you on alert. Maybe you are afraid of failing, or of being hurt, or of compromising yourself in some way, so you are trying to "control" to prevent that from happening. If that's the case, call yourself afraid, not controlling. It's kinder to yourself and more compassionate. It gets to the heart of the matter. From there you can start to explore what the fear is and what you need to do to soothe that fear and find safety for yourself.
If you look underneath the label of "controlling" and find not fear but simply a desire for agency, for expression, for your own needs to be met, if you find your voice and your heart, know that that's not something to let go of. It's something to cultivate. Agency is a gift, and it's something very different from control.
Tara Sophia Mohr is a writer, coach, and author of the blog Wise Living. She is also the creator of the 10 Rules for Brilliant Women workbook.
Follow Tara Sophia Mohr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/tarasophia
I live in a city where I see it all the time. I believe many men simply won't put up with some of the stuff written in the article...like it or not.
At the end of one's life, what is more important.....being fulfilled in marriage and parenthood...or having a career with nothing but a stack of paychecks to show for it.
It's your choice. Think about it very hard, because your actions will reap a harvest..bitter or sweet.
The most important qualification for an administrator is temperament.
I hear what you are saying --- and want to clarify on a few fronts. I see "turning disappointment inward" and "looking inward" as two different things. I'm 100% for looking inward to check in, explore our role in contributing to a situation, let go of limiting beliefs, assumptions, etc. But when we are disappointed by other people, and don't know how to deal with or are scared to voice/act on that disappointment, we can turn that disappointment in on ourselves, and just call ourselves "controlling" for wanting things to be different.
This is the pattern I was speaking about seeing in my coaching clients: women facing really tough outer stuff - and in the face of their desire to feel more heard, to be respected, labeling that "controlling" behavior in themselves, and assuming they need to "just let go" and deal with it.
I agree that whenever we are suffering, there is inner work to do to change our own attitudes and actions to deal with that suffering. Sometimes that work involves "letting go" - but I think "letting go" has gotten confused, for many people, with putting up with stuff whatever comes our way.
I think we want to let go of any desire to controlling others and the world, but we then also need to discern what we need to do to take care of ourselves - in the face of those external realities. That second step is getting lost.
Be independent and you have no need to control others in order to control your own world.
This is the issue in gender politics in relationships.
Is this woman kidding? That term is *constantly* being applied to men. Another example of the victim mythology that dominates contemporary feminism. This woman is either too ignorant or too intellectually dishonest (I'm guessing the latter) to be "treating" other people.
What puzzles me, and may make a good PHD thesis, is how does/did this female aggro manifest itself in traditional "male dominated societies".
My favorite analogy is the mother in the harold & maude movie, filling in the blind date application form for her son. Oh, goodness me no, you dont like big breasts.
Yes controlling guys exist, but do some background, and you may well find an influential mother figure prominent.
to me it seems common sense. Lack of muscle in the playground leads to Machiavellian scheming as a sub.
But to transfer that logic to a marriage is not good. Your husband is your husband presumably because he is a decent man. You cannot transfer your alleged anger about other men and previous generations to him. You are doomed to failure as a mother.
"Common sense" and "misogyny" are not synonyms.
Then you put words in my mouth. ""perfect?
Then you presume to give me an irrelevant vocabulary lesson.
Not hard to see why you are defensive. Some smarter women may be grateful for honest male opinions and act accordingly.
On balance, I was being constructive. Your post contributed nothing.
I am a woman in my late 50's and I see some women who are controlling in that self-destructive way -- its as if they don't have a filter for what's important, so everything is important. I have also seen men like that; they don't know what to concentrate on, so they just over-control everything.
and I agree with one of the other posters: there's a lot of unresolved conflict in MSroadkills612 post. a little more self reflection might be useful.
That's because it's not controlling someone else.
Do you NOT see the difference?
Nagging, hen-pecking, domineering, castrating behaviors are bullying of others.
Doesn't matter who does it, it's controlling.
I think women have missed part of the socialization that goes into making men leaders and followers. Team sports is a great place to learn these skills.
The worst women to work for are the ones who read books about how to be a great leader, and watch movies or tv shows, and then they act the way the media portrays male leaders - which is complete fiction.
The best administrator, male or female, is the one who really doesn't want power - but just deals with it.
Second, the problem with your logic is that all of those words you used to describe a "controlling" person are words used to describe women, not men (except for bullies). Then you claim that both men and women can be controlling, which is true. But do you not see a problem with this? You say both sexes can be controlling, but the way to describe a controlling person are negative traits overwhelmingly applied to women... the same actions done by a man are not given these negative names and are not perceived as being negative traits.
"Castrating behaviors"... that right there is extremely gendered and sexist. Women exerting themselves in society somehow takes away one's manhood? How? Oh that's right because it takes away the power hold that men have traditionally had (and for the most part still have) in our society. I definitely agree with CaWa, you don't get to the top of a company by being compliant, passive, and nice so that everyone will like you. The problem is that when women show agency, they're actions are perceived more negatively than when a man shows the exact same behavior. In fact, he's praised for it.
It is not sexist to describe the personality traits of certain kinds of women. It's sexist to assume an entire gender shares those traits.