This post is not an instance of jumping on a bandwagon or beating a nearly dead horse. I am doing what I’ve always wanted to do since gaining a modicum of stature from my writings: Trying to disabuse the public of misconceptions concerning how, psychologically speaking, people tick. I engage in this pursuit for a primarily for selfish reason: When half-truths and lies make their way into the mass media and, once there, metastasize like runaway cancers, my blood boils.

My current idée fixe is the trashing of Sarah Palin by pro-Democratic media outlets. I understand political agendas, how much The New York Times and NBC loathe the current president and anyone seen as continuing his policies, but, as they say, enough is too much. I cannot stomach the active distorting of the truth, and this vile behavior is casting Sarah Palin in an underserved negative light. In an attempt to help counteract this wrong, I will attempt to set the record straight about Ms. Palin’s inability to simultaneously be a wife, mother, and Vice President.

The one thing not in dispute about Alaska’s Republican governor is that she is an extremely successful woman. Since I have studied and worked with both successful men and women since 1981 –as a research scientist, psychotherapist, and executive coach— I feel more qualified to assess if, and how well, Ms. Palin will be able to cope with off-the-job exigencies that may affect her should she become vice president, than “political pundits” currently attacking her. Actually, I could address this issue from a number of angles, but let me hit it head-on by debunking the major myth about Ms. Palin –and other women— running for political office:

Sarah Palin’s history of career success and her potential to be catapulted into an extraordinarily taxing job, do not make her more vulnerable to suffering psychological distress or burnout than stay-at-home moms. On the contrary, career success inoculates women against these disorders.

Here’s why:

• Demographic studies of mental health conducted over the past 20 years reliably find that roughly 25% of women will experience diagnosable depression at some time in their lives, compared with approximately 10% percent of men. Explanations for this disproportionately high rate of depression among women can be found in both medical (e.g. post-partum reactions, menopause, etc.) and social-psychological models of gender differences. But since the “concerns” about Ms. Palin stem from a psychosocial issue (i.e. job responsibility) I will restrict my analysis to that.

The rap against women from a psychosocial perspective is that they are more likely to suffer from depression (and, in related ways, stress) because of their roles in society. This concern has become omnipresent since women have assumed their rightful position in the workplace. As a result, numerous studies have examined the hypothesis that employed, married women will, by dint of increased demands upon them (bread winner + parent + spouse + homemaker), be less mentally healthy than those who do not have careers out of the house.

As is so often the case when it comes to informally derived conceptions about human behavior, these studies give lie to commonsense reasoning: Empirical research shows a positive association between occupancy of several social roles and mental health. Specifically, women who are simultaneously a wife, mother, and professional, have reliably been found to have higher levels of self-esteem and, in turn, presumed better able to cope with life stressors, than women without professions.

• Since this blog is about “Success Without Distress,” permit me to tell you why Sarah Palin would, strictly from the vantage point of “capacity to cope with on-the-job-pressure,” be a better choice than Joe Biden for vice president: Attaining specialized professional success invariably affords a person both high status and material compensation, but often comes with the onus of low levels of challenge or vocational diversity. Consequently, the professional “specialist” can actually suffer a loss of potential sources of self-esteem augmentation relative to the generalist. Women with familial AND professional “demands,” on the other hand, are in a position to enjoy more experiences that will enhance their self-esteem than stay-at-home-women, because the more role responsibilities one has, the more social stimulation and opportunities for psychological rewards they will are exposed to on a day-to-day basis.

For those who say, “Whoa…what if a woman’s role as mother and/or spouse exposes her to stress? What if, for example, she must endure intense anxiety caused when a teenage daughter becomes pregnant prior to marriage? Wouldn’t mothers with jobs then cope less-well than men?” The answer is a resounding “NO.”

A number of scholars have examined this very issue and found that the key to understanding why problems stemming from intimate relationships are less likely to derail professional women than professional men –who should, by all rights, be upset if, for example, their daughters suffer “unwanted” outcomes— is rooted in a woman’s orientation toward intimate interpersonal relationships. The most prominent voice in this area of study, Dr. Jean Baker Miller, maintains:

[A] central feature [of women's development] is that women stay with, build on, and develop in a context of connections with others. Indeed, women's sense of self becomes very much organized around being able to make and then to maintain affiliations and relationships… for many women, the threat of disruption of connections is perceived not as just a loss of a relationship but as something closer to a total loss of self.

Research spawned by Dr. Miller’s seminal work demonstrates that while a man would likely cope with negative feelings derived from a daughter’s predicament in ways designed to externalize emotional pain (e.g. by acting-out or abusing drugs), women are socialized to not externalize emotional pain. Similarly, since women develop a far more nurturing nature than men as a result of their earliest socialization experiences, adult women fear separateness and broken ties with loved ones. Consequently, they make greater efforts to either sustain relationships or resurrect ones that appear threatened.

In the short-term, this orientation is likely to be a source of stress for women, particularly if they attribute “relational failures” to their powerlessness or helplessness. Ultimately, however, a woman’s "I should make this relationship work" attitude is far more likely to be rewarding than disruptive. It would take a dozen blog postings to list all of the reasons why this is so, but consider these salient ones:

• Women garner kudos merely for endeavoring to nurture others, irrespective of whether it succeeds or fails.

• If their nurturing efforts succeed, women enjoy significant self-esteem enhancement.

• If attempts to nurture a family member (for example) prove difficult, there is a high likelihood that without asking for help women will receive social support and assistance for others. This outcome –irrespective of whether-or-not their nurturing reverses a negative situation- is self-esteem enhancing (“look at how many people care about what I’m doing…”).

Do these facts –as opposed to the garbage being strewn about by journalists who support Barak Obama’s candidacy— prove that John McCain was wise to have chosen Sarah Palin to be his running mate? Hardly. I actually believe that Meg Whitman, former the president and chief executive officer of eBay, Inc., would have been a bolder and more unassailable choice. Ms. Whitman –a brilliant woman with Princeton and Harvard degrees, who married a neurosurgeon and has two college-age children— would have buttressed McCain’s far more than Palin. The fact that McCain is seen as being weak on economic issues would have been offset by Whitman’s success: She is an ex-Bain & Co. consultant (like Mitt Romney), who shepherded eBay to a position where it is now one of the internet’s most surprising success stories. Granted, Whitman became a billionaire thanks to her eBay stock and the Republicans are loathe to have another “rich person” atop their ticket, but that stigma could have been argued-away by raising the issue of how many Democratic standard-bearers such as Kennedy, Kerry, and even Clinton, are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Since no one in the McCain camp took the calls I made offering my advice, Palin is their choice. My fervent hope, now that the die is cast, is that she prevails or fails on the basis of authentic issues, not the manure being thrown at her by writers and talking heads with political axes to grind.

References:

1. Greenglass, E. R. (1995). "Gender, Work Stress, and Coping: Theoretical Implications," Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 10 (6): 121-134.
2. Miller, J. B. (1976). Toward a new psychology of women. Boston: Beacon Press, p. 83.
3. Abramson, L. Y., Metalsky, G. I. & Alloy, L. B. (1989). Hopelessness depression: A theory-based subtype of depression. Psychological Review, 96, 358-372.