The Woman in the Story by Helen Jacey

Author:Helen Jacey [Jacey, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781932907797
Publisher: Michael Wiese Productions
Published: 2011-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE RELATING PHASES

The Relating phases relate to your heroine’s actions, attitudes, needs, and emotions about her relationships. They show how other people influence her sense of identity and the reasons behind her relationship choices. The Relating Phases are Self-Relegation, Desire for Union, Loving Too Much, and Retreat:

The Self-Relegation phase reflects your heroine putting other people’s needs second to her own.

The Desire for Union phase reflects your heroine’s need for intimacy and emotional support, whether platonic, romantic, or sexual.

Loving Too Much is the phase in your story in which your heroine’s love of another has an overwhelming impact on her identity and decisions.

Retreat is the phase in your story in which your heroine needs to hunker down into herself and only relate to herself

Self-Relegation

A major part of feminine identity is the requirement for a woman to put her needs second to those she loves, as well as people she doesn’t know so well. Men can do this too in relationships, but it isn’t such a cultural expectation. That’s why we are fascinated and appalled by tough women who defy this and tread on everyone’s feelings, like Margaret in The Proposal. Being horrible isn’t desirable but neither is putting everyone else first — for men or women. With loved ones, the need to Self-Relegate usually is because women are conditioned to be nurturers, a lesson that can be passed on from mother to daughter. Young women in many cultures might feel strong and empowered. Feminism made a great deal of progress for girls who aren’t even aware of how things could be different. Sometimes it’s not until women become mothers and age that they begin to question the double standard.

Try to work out how your heroine experiences this expectation of women to Self-Relegate. In an ideal world, a girl needs parents who are attune to this expectation of women and will help her build up a strong sense of identity. But in many parts of the world, the wider culture can remind women of their second-class status as citizens.

This need to Self-Relegate one’s own needs to be better able to look after other people can pose major internal Conflicts for many women, who can feel split between wanting to do things for themselves (while fearing to be seen as selfish) and wanting to be reliable.

Self-Relegation can be quite paralyzing for a girl or woman. It reflects loss of self-esteem for a whole range of reasons. Women who have been married for many years can sometimes develop a huge dependency on their husband for certain tasks, like driving or handling money. This can be disempowering for a woman, and she might not even recognize it until the marriage ends or her husband dies. Then the world can seem like a frightening place for your heroine. A young girl might self-relegate because she is being emotionally or physically abused.

Being at the center of family life because she is the nurturer can lead a woman to overcontrol. When the children don’t need her any more it can be a major loss to a woman’s identity.

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