Aspirations Quote by Colette Dowling
““(...) psychiatrists today recognize the contortionist's act that was required of women in an age when they were expected to stifle their own healthiest impulses. (...) "To be able to renounce your own achievements without feeling that you were sacrificing requires constant effort. To be lovely and unaggressive, a woman spends a lifetime keeping hostile or resentful impulses down. Even healthy self-assertion is often sacrificed since it may be mistaken by hostility. Therefore, [women] often repress their initiative, give up their aspirations, and unfortunately end up excessively dependent with a deep sense of insecurity and uncertainty about their abilities and their worth.””
About This Quote
Source Book: The Myths of Motherhood, Colette Dowling, 1995
Women are socially conditioned to suppress assertiveness, leading to insecurity and dependency
In simple terms: Women are taught to hide ambition, causing self‑doubt
Key Takeaway
Encourage authentic self‑expression and challenge limiting norms
Themes
gender expectations
self‑esteem
social conditioning
Mood
empathetic
critical
Type
inspirational
reflective
When to use this quote
- career counseling
- women’s support groups
- personal therapy
Key Concepts
Psychology
feminist theory
Questions to Reflect On
- How can women safely assert themselves?
- What structures support healthy self‑assertion?
A Different Perspective
Cultural change is slow and may meet resistance
![“(...) performance anxiety [in the worplace] is connected to other, more general fears which have to do with feeling inadequate and defenseless in the world: the fear of retaliation from someone with whom one disagrees; the fear of being critisized for doing something wrong; the fear of saying…” quote by Colette Dowling](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/59c/colette-dowling-45069_anxiety_performance-anxiety-in-the-worplace-is-c_2472026.jpg)
