Don’t Tell Me What to Do: Our Quest for Autonomy
One of the hallmarks of women “of a certain age” is a great need for autonomy. After a lifetime of catering to others’ needs in the realms of family and work, some women would fight to the death to preserve their autonomy when those yokes are removed. Women in decades long marriages have been known to divorce their spouses. Dieting, hair coloring, relentless social obligations, and other people-pleasing pursuits are often gleefully shed.
The Birth of Autonomy
Oddly enough, this pursuit of autonomy is the second time in life it takes center stage. The last time was between the ages of 18 months and 3 years. Erik Erikson, a venerable developmental psychologist, edited Freud’s concept of a series of psychosexual stages all humans pass through in a lifetime. Erikson’s idea was that humans pass through 8 psychosocial stages in a lifetime, because we are primarily social beings.
Young toddlers pass through Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt, and if successful, develop a strong sense of self-confidence and a command of both the mind and body. If not, shame and doubt dodge the individual throughout the lifetime.
Effective parents offer their young children choices of toys, foods, and clothing, respect their opinions, and label and value feelings. As a parent, it might feel like a struggle, but it is a necessary developmental milestone.
What Is Autonomy?
Autonomy is the ability to make and carry out decisions about how, when, where and with whom to spend one’s time. Key concepts include control, freedom, personal agency and individualism.
Not surprisingly, the Age to Autonomy Hypothesis finds that people gain autonomy as they age. Older people feel less regulated by age related norms (hopefully, not comparing themselves minute by minute on Tik Tok).
Life circumstances allow elders to make their own decisions, pursue goals, and come up with their own ideas because of the freedom from so many external obligations. Unfortunately, later in life, physical impairments may greatly restrict such desired autonomy, even though personal needs are still great. Again, this is a fertile field for family struggles.
Maturity Does Not Guarantee Autonomy
Bridget Sleat writing on Helpage.org finds that elders struggle all over the world with this issue. Surveying 450 individuals in 24 countries, there were many who were denied personal decision making, including bodily and financial issues, due to the prevailing attitudes of government and family members.
Autonomy is a cross-cultural need which promotes higher levels of psychological health and social functioning. A lack of autonomy can cause tremendous suffering later in life, but lack of successful progress early in life might produce a “rebel” personality (ongoing oppositional behavior to authority) or people-pleasing behavior, a hallmark of low self-esteem.
Women and Autonomy – A Global Issue
The reversal of Roe v. Wade has thrown the spotlight on women and reproductive freedom. However, in 2017 the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner created a resolution concerning the discrimination against women and girls in additional domains. Key ideas include bodily autonomy, legal status equal to men, freedom from violence, participation in decision making, and access to resources such as income, property, and culture, without patriarchal patterns. Unfortunately, such is not the norm globally.
The Feminist Movement Really Gets It
Another cultural institution to weigh in on autonomy is the feminist movement. Although our foremothers worked hard to educate modern western society about women’s needs to act on “motives, reasons or values that are one’s own,” the movement switched gears to accept that women are not living in a vacuum. We are not people living off the grid who can follow every whim. Rather, all humans, including women, live in a social context. We are interconnected!
Currently, the feminist movement embraces the concept of “relational autonomy.”
This is the capacity to make decisions, not as a solitary, self-sufficient person, but as an individual embedded in social relationships.” This philosophy is prevalent in the world of bioethics and end of life care. It redefines individual autonomy by considering the myriad social concerns and relationships that exist in one’s life.
A Healthy View of Autonomy for Mature Women
It is easy to be conflicted about how far one’s wishes and desires should go later in life. After all, it is a time for rediscovering one’s individuality. But, after so many years of dreams being put on hold, it doesn’t have to be a time to choose between the self and others in our orbit.
The concept of relational autonomy can promote sober judgments about respecting and honoring oneself, but legitimately honoring the people in our circle: a very healthy balance of power.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
How has your autonomy changed as you’ve gotten older? What now interferes with your autonomy that you have control over? What steps have you taken to exercise your autonomy?
Tags Empowerment
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be completely autonomous. I’m an only child and lost my parents when I was pretty young (17 and 25) and even now find myself so incredibly lonely even though my oldest daughter lives with me. My best friends live 1000 miles away and most of the rest of my family is gone. I hunger to be with people more, not less. To me life has been a very long, lonely journey.
Kathy, do you think this might have to do with vacating yourself? I think so many people have done this through people pleasing. I’ve been on a couple of Buddhist retreats and they helped enormously by encouraging us to go within.It has been said, ‘you are the one you’ve been waiting for.’ Also the name of a phenomenal book.
I’m not sure what you mean by “vacating” myself.
I think they are suggesting you can learn to be happier alone, but I don’t get the feeling that is what you were saying even though it might help somewhat. I have 3 friends who also live quite a distance away now so I haven’t seen any of them for at least 7 1/2 years. I don’t drive either, so that doesn’t help. I find when I go to get groceries, I end up talking to the cashier more than I should. If you are a “people person”, you need to be with people or at least have the choice.
I agree w/what you said about if your a people person. This is me, I like being around people, even though I’m kind of shy & not super outgoing..
I was happily surprised to see this topic in my email inbox. I’ve been struggling with this with my female friendships for a few years now. People who wanted to put me on their calendar for weekly get-togethers, or who berated me for not attending some event — even when I hadn’t said I would be there. I’ve had to push back, and we’ve had long periods of not speaking in three cases. One is still going on now.
This person I considered a friend for 20 years began to be really controlling and possessive. She started with some gaslighting behavior — “we never see you anymore!” — even though I was showing up to all of the commitments I always had: monthly book club, birthdays, holidays. At one point, it was a friend’s birthday celebration, and this woman called and said, “I’ll pick you up at 6:30.” I said, “No, that’s okay, I’ll see you there.” I sometimes got a ride with her, but more typically I drove my own car.
When I arrived at the dinner, she was livid and could practically not look at me. She wanted an explanation. “Oh, were you in the city today, then?” I said no, I was working from home. Then she asked about my recent vacation with my adult children, but she didn’t ask a general question like, how was it? She asked, “Did you fight with your kids?” My kids and I rarely fight.
I felt all of this as an effort to pull me into her orbit of control — a sort of girl gang in our 60s and 70s. The kind where we always show up together and are always seen together and nobody else is allowed, especially not my children. I sent her an email after several months of this. I said, I helped raise my 6 younger siblings, I’m done raising my children, and I’m going to use my time now to do things I’ve put off.
I’m pleased that this essay makes me feel less alone in that sentiment. I’ve been a people-pleaser most of my life, and breaking with that trait has been really, really difficult for me. I still resent this woman for pushing so hard, and it’s been 2 years.
It seems girls/ women are held to such standards of pleasing people. I don’t think men have this problem. Women do this to each other at all ages. When we get to our senior years, we finally get it. We must break that mold.
Thank you. I’ve had a hard time getting anyone to take this seriously. She seems sweet and harmless from a little distance. I felt like she had been waiting for her moment to move in, which creeps me out. It also felt like bullying and abuse, intentionally trying to cut me off from other friends and family.
Roe V Wade was not reversed. It was handed back to the states where it had always belonged. Please get your facts straight.
I think Joyce brings up something very interesting. As a highly sensitive and empathic woman I wanted to be very connected. But I also had a fierce drive for independence. That along with the “be a good girl” training I received growing up in the patriarchal puritanical early 1950s made finding my autonomy quite a challenge.
This article is excellent, except it misses one point. That “independent leaning” and “individualism” are part of one’s DNA. I can remember as far back as 5 years old, walking home alone from school not waiting for my mother or playing alone on the side of the house where no one could find me. Of course, this created some frantic moments in our household when Joyce appeared to be missing! Looking back now, and being in my 70’s, I am so grateful that I did not depend on others for my sense of self, or other physical needs, and that I can function as an independent single woman. Of course, I take nothing for granted as situations can change in a heartbeat, but I appreciate every moment of freedom and independence.
The independence you were seeking at age 5 was totally covered by the psychologist Erik Erikson, who discovered that this need surfaced in toddlerhood! You were just exercising the same need at age 5.