Maslow said that women have to put their families first to talk about self-actualization, so can his book still be read?

It is said that many masters in the history of psychology are straight men and have many views that discriminate against women.

That Maslow as one of the uncles, his book is still suitable for girls to read?

My opinion is that, of course, it is appropriate, you just need to change his theory according to your actual situation.

We are all familiar with Maslow's diagram, where self-actualization is the highest level of human need.

But Maslow, like Freud, believed that biological sex was destiny, and important personality traits would vary depending on gender. In his private diary, he wrote that women's self-actualization does not require women to choose between career and family, but must put family first.

Women's self-actualization does not mean making either-or choices between family and career. Housework, family work, etc. are more basic, more important, more dominant, and must always be the foundation for higher development in other aspects. If you put them aside... Well, the so-called "higher" things, occupations, etc., I am empty and meaningless. Women have to be truly self-fulfilling... The need to accept the family is the first priority.

Abraham Maslow – (Lowry, 1979, Vol.2, p.1139)

Because of this, Maslow was bought by many female scholars.

I think Maslow should be, but should I throw away Maslow's book and never read it again?

You don't have to.

Our generation of women is actually very fortunate to receive an equal education for men and women as soon as they are born. This kind of education is so successful and so deeply rooted in people's hearts that we often overlook this detail:

In human history, women have had equal rights to education, property and voting for more than a hundred years.

Although this hundred years in all walks of life many women have achieved achievements that are not inferior to men. But from the perspective of thousands of years of human history, this time is still too short, and the total amount accumulated is still too small.

There is a best-selling book called "When the Stars Of Mankind Shine", in a sense, in the history of mankind, the male stars shine, and the female stars shine in the biographical footnotes and wild history gossip of these male stars.

I think the brilliance of these men is also based on the sacrifice and dedication of women. So I often scold these men for being too straight and too bad, and at the same time reading their books and saying that they are really fragrant and really talented.

If you're not as intimidating as I am, very principled, and have a particularly low tolerance for these sexisms, there's one way you can try:

That is to treat the doctrine of these male stars as a husband and wife work.

For example, Maslow's theory of needs, you can rename "Maslow-Goodman" theory of needs. Maslow was in poor health, so he did not have the strength to find a lover, and he died young, so he did not divorce. We are not wrong to say that his doctrine is half credited to his wife, Bertha Goodman.

Next, let's talk about the value of Maslow's book to women.

1. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, while written against the benchmark of an ideal man, also applies to women who want to pursue self-actualization outside the family.

At the time of Maslow's rise to fame, the second wave of feminism had begun, Beauvoir's Second Sex had been published, Betty's The Mystery of Women had also been launched, and equal pay for equal work had become one of the core demands of feminism.

As a person who firmly believes that people have the potential for self-realization, Maslow cannot openly deny the demands of these female pioneers. So this led him to only dare to say in a private diary that women's self-actualization needed to put the family first, and in public publications, he did not exclude women from the door of self-actualization.

As long as a woman values her professional status as much or even more important as her family status, Maslow's theory applies. On the road of self-realization, there is no distinction between men and women, only people. Different people have completely different versions of self-actualization.

On the road to women's self-realization, they have to overcome a demon: that is, whether I can do it or not.

Men, too, can be self-doubting and have no confidence. But human society has a lot of collective subconscious and social mechanisms that encourage men's self-realization, such as men are ambitious, don't indulge in small love, such as big husbands and wives, and when you have a career, what kind of women can't find. For example, the prodigal son did not change his gold, and twenty years later I was a good man again.

Human society does not have a collective subconscious and social mechanism that encourages women to achieve self-actualization outside the home. When women want to be in all directions, the mainstream culture will say that girls who marry far away are the most bitter. When women want to focus on their careers and marry late and have children later, the mainstream culture will say that they are "old women", "leftover women", "exterminating masters". When women want to take risks, mainstream culture will say that "a woman's youth is precious and cannot be taken wrong." ”

Whenever you have self-doubt and gain and loss, first look at Maslow's "Motivation and Personality", focusing on the content of the chapter on "Self-Realization", and imagine what the ideal self looks like.

Then find a psychological counselor who has received humanistic therapy, and let him use the humanistic way to give you unconditional positive attention, so that you can gain strength and improve yourself.

(Mindfulness can also cure self-doubt and gain and loss, but mindfulness takes the opposite route, emphasizing letting go of attachment to the self, believing that the "self" is not important at all, and discouraging self-improvement by reinforcing the self or rewriting personal narratives to alleviate pain.) For mindfulness holds that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of suffering are the root causes of human suffering. ）

2. Women can use Maslow's diagram to cure the "love brain"

The love brain is to use love as the driving force of life. After learning Maslow's needs chart, girls who love brains can choose to put "self-realization" as the biggest and highest level of driving force in life. The need for love and belonging is important, but it comes in third place.

Of course, the difficulty here is how to persuade the love brain to accept that "self-realization is the highest level of pursuit in life". My articles and videos are meant to discuss this.

3. Maslow's hierarchy of needs can help married women break the "attachment curse".

Adult attachment theory holds that both parties in an intimate relationship can be a safe base for each other, and both parties can be held and healed in the relationship, thus gaining a deep sense of security.

I think this emphasis on attachment is a curse on women's self-actualization outside the family.

Whether it is created by innate biological causes or acquired cultural construction, the degree of desire and demand for attachment relationships between men and women is different.

Convincing women to accept attachment theories is easy, convincing men is hard.

When a man doesn't want something and a woman wants it, a woman has to spend a lot of time and energy convincing a man.

People have limited time and energy, and the more time a woman spends convincing her husband, the less time and energy she spends on self-actualization outside the family.

If we recognize women's subjectivity and non-dependence, the game strategy that is more in line with the interests of married women is not to rely on men and marriage to build a safe base.

How to build, Maslow's hierarchy of needs diagram can help.

Physiological needs, can be understood as sexual needs, whether it is appearance, weight, or age, women can get out of the male gaze, unconditional love and respect for themselves.

After this article is completed. Work hard, be financially independent, and gain a sense of security from yourself and your work.

When you don't need love and marriage to meet your basic physical needs and security needs, your game in intimate relationships has more confidence and bargaining chips.

In this way, women change from "passive and receiver of love" to "active and givers of love".

Women are no longer looking for safe bases, they are building safe bases. When a woman's own safety base is large and strong enough, she can be a safe base for lovers, children, and parents. In this way, women's self-esteem and sense of self-worth will also be stronger, and it is easier to achieve the realm of "self-realization".

The above is my rigid, idealized use of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and for everyone, the order and importance of low-level needs and high-level needs may be different. Stay-at-home mothers, especially stay-at-home mothers in powerful families, will have different levels of need and ideal standards of self-actualization.

But it doesn't matter, Maslow's value is in telling us two things

1. Needs are hierarchical, and when low-level needs are not met, high-level needs are not enough to be met even if we have them.

2. The highest and most satisfying need is self-actualization, not marriage and love.

You can draw a self-demand hierarchy chart according to your own preferences, and this hierarchy of needs can be updated and changed at any time according to your understanding of life and the challenges that life gives you.

But no matter how you change it, your highest needs can not be marriage and love.

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