Woman; 124; Corporate Wives

Nothing. Women and in the book the regime of the world the women today with great help and welcome to woman the corporate system places unique and heavy stresses on the wives and children of executives as well as the executives themselves. Tonight we will examine some of the demands made by the corporate structure and the effects of these demands. My guests this evening are Dr. Robert Seidenberg author of Corporate wives and corporate casualties. Dr. Seidenberg is a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in Syracuse New York and a clinical professor of psychiatry at up state medical center State University of New York. Dr. Seidenberg is also a member of the National Organization for Women. And Robert oh so men former vice president owner and founder of a

corporation Mr. so many is currently retired and writing a natural food ice cream cookbook. Welcome to both of you. I was thrilled. I'd like to get right into this. Dr. Seidenberg would you list some of the pressures on the corporate wife. Besides the traditional pressures of keeping the hearth of being a wife and being a mother to children the pressures entailed responsibilities for moving and uprooting this may happen that just once or twice but in some instances up to 34 times during one career and the corporate wife has been very cooperative in this because she knows that your husband's fate determines the fate of her family and therefore she wants him to make the most of himself at the same time. These moves mean that she has to renounce a great deal of gratifications that come from living in a community.

Many of the gratifications which come of having certain work in the can and in the area that she may have developed which would be under the title of identity very often these frustrations and these renunciation she has to internalize she has to deny their existence and renounce those things which human beings really need and so that in the third or fourth decade she may become depressed apathetic that want to go out of the house very often and may lead to drinking problems or use of tranquilizers which I am appalled by. As you may know twice as many women as men are on psychotropic drugs today I think a lot of it is due to the pressures of renunciation of renunciation of self of ego and of those things that the human beings need in this world. I'm interested to know what what some of the symptoms are that some of the women

cantin exhibit. I know in the book you tell the story of a woman who had difficulty with time and dates. Yes that's sort of a disorientation when you move around a great deal. I use the example of the irony of tourists in Europe where they said well this must be Belgium it's Tuesday. And although it doesn't happen quite that way. When you when you don't have a chance to to plant roots you take on a nomadic existence and dates and places just don't mean the same they don't have the intensity of meeting they don't have the emotion and some of this tradition is permanently lost and the women are very upset and distraught as they indicated one person forgot your child's birthday when that came about she said something horribly is wrong something's going on that I just don't like. And.

As I indicated in the book there's an enormous amount of self blame because it seems as though the move is the same for the husband as for her and because he goes into a new job and he doesn't have any difficulty he has new challenges there are difficulties. That's an exaggeration of course but if he's presented with new new challenges he very often meets the same people he knew in the corporation so he doesn't have to worry about making new friends. Whereas for the woman she has to relinquish all her friends or confidants which is very valuable for a woman to have somebody in a community that you can tell her internal secrets to. And very often because people assume that the move is the same for everyone she feels she sees an adequate and takes the blame and says Why am I such an inferior person. And as I indicated in the case history in the book even her own parents blamed their Why can't you do this John did it and so she doesn't make the connection

between these moves and she feels it is due to her inferiority or her inadequacy. What are some other symptoms. There are psychosomatic symptoms very often there are headaches there are many layes a feeling of not wanting to go out of the house and that want to take part in activities and you can understand that because there is there is a feeling of not wanting to to unpack psychically because you've done it so many times you just don't want to go through the trouble of meeting new people gaining status again. Because when a woman moves she has to start usually at the bottom again. She can't take her status as an officer or as a person who has achieved something in one organization into the next community because they already have their leadership. So if she has just started to the bottom and very often being a human being she just doesn't like being diminished. She likes credits the way we all do

and when she doesn't attain them she. Withdraws and become very often bitter and doesn't want to leave the house literally she very often. There are many instances where they would just stay indoors as if to say if this were I'm supposed to be if I am a housewife you know I will be indistinguishable from the house. And also when she was moved into the suburbs there is a sort of a sensory deprivation in itself where you don't see people the people you see around the tube and it's really an insulated isolated existence and of course the corporate wife moves from one suburb of one city to another. And this is another difficulty I think that the people are deprived of those stimulus stimuli which a city and very often a city alone can give. Let's get the reaction your family was under certain

social pressures when you were vice president of the corporation. Well yes I am. I don't see it in the same sense as the mobility. I see that my family was programmed into the corporation that the corporation really took priority as the first marriage and that. My wife saw this and I really explained it to the family that that I would better living had a lot to do with my devotion to to this business. It's a whole area when I leave in the morning. I go into another thing. The desk has been dusted off the the someone comes in to empty the ashtrays or the hole or the waste paper basket somebody

cleans up. If I wanted it my secretary would bring me coffee at a certain time and it's a whole other area that a man can go into and a woman in the same thing is left with management problems and. I see it as as an end golfing thing in which the family gets put in and I did this with my family not to anywhere near the kind of results that we're having. We're talking about. But I I did see it. My time was there my energy was there. This was my life. I I felt in a way caught up in this and in a certain way the family felt protected by the whole aura of the corporation. Therefore it became another

life. I can remember many times being late to anniversaries to birthday parties because something occurred at the plant and I lost my feeling of home. My first feeling was let me hear out this man let me get that order out and the people waiting at the at the dinner table and I would call and say well I'm late I was having a conference or for whatever reason but being there and being in this environment the first thing that came was the corporation. Do you feel that the corporation as Big Brother strengthens or weakens the family structure. This may sound paradoxical but it very often strengthens it. People are amazed when I say that because they see well the corporate First of all as you know I don't think the villain I don't think they were all caught up in this without the

corporation we wouldn't have as Bob indicates the good life that accrue to so many so that the there are no villains and as I indicated before the company does not like misery the company doesn't want to inflict any hardships on people but very often because of these moves because of the uprooting and for bad reasons really because the community gratification is cut off families tend to cling to one another. The members get the temps that meet their needs within the family group and very often this is brings them closer together that may lead to a certain nagging. In other words they are seeking their pleasures and their gratifications in a concentrated way when in fact it should be out there it should be out in the community and maybe jobs and other things that human beings need to fulfill themselves. Did your company scream before you hired

a man. No we didn't screen wives we started as a small company and we tried to keep to keep the feeling of it being more of a small company than perhaps would have been greatly business like. We didn't have the feeling of let's bring the wife in to see how she fits because we weren't a Harvard school graduates or we weren't. I shouldn't say anything against them but we weren't of that type that feels that this is the way to do it. We came with our own hands and built it as we as we went along. What were some of the social pressures that you felt you know you talked about. Just you know anniversaries bar mitzvahs and this kind of thing that you had to go to in that you resented the amount of time spent.

Well if someone had a wedding someone had any event it would take away from our time. We would go. It would not be the most elevating thing in the world but we would go. Now it wasn't a complete a complete loss. It was we'd have some fun but perhaps we'd rather have been someplace else but it was an important thing to be a going away party or some function of the company. Do you feel that the level that the husband's out in the corporation makes a difference to the life. Yes I think so. First of all as many corporate wise fully know and recognize and admit that they are accepted and perhaps invited into directorships of various agencies and various drives and so forth because of their husband's identity and what these

drs and agencies expect from the corporation so that the higher the husband is in corporate structure the higher she is apt to be and the less difficulty she's apt to have in the community but what I find which to me is sad that they're even at the highest levels even where the return monetary and social why and society is great there is. Deprivation as far as being able to speak out on things. Yes I know that because we tried very hard to find a corporate life for this show and when able to finally yes we seem to forget we talk about democracy we talk about First Amendment the freedom of speech but that so often these people I don't know if it's really because the corporations actually restrict them which may be true in many instances or whether it's just the the fear that there may be representations but holy

they are very timid as far as speaking out on some of the passions of our day and. And when you ask them about the certain relevant things that they were all interested in they just won't speak ecology for example they were very timid about this they're afraid well or corporation might be criticized. The abortion issue of Lee might in tagon eyes a whole group of people so that successively very sort of cut out even you know the feminist movement where many corporate wives are in it. But I know of instances where they they are very active and do a lot of work but don't want their names in the paper which is a sad thing there is another deprivation another you know the diminution of identity so that we do talk about democracy we talk about freedom of expression but it really is hasn't permeated the corporate structure I was personally amazed by that.

I sort of was lucky in being able to be outspoken in the areas of life that I'm in but it isn't for everyone and we should understand that. What does it do to what form does her rebellion take if she does rebel. Well very often she will say I'm not interested. She will say well I don't care about equal rights and I don't care about the abortion issue I don't care about this is that and it's sort of a denial Well I always paraphrase Justice Holmes when he said that it is certainly possible to eliminate from your life The Passion of the times but history will ask whether you would really been alive. And that's sad you know because you can go through life neutral and neuter and but that's what living is all about to take part to have some passion to take part in controversy

to to picket if necessary to go to the streets if you feel strongly and corporate people husbands too are successively unable to take part in these things and it does affect the soul of it. They don't think that there isn't a price to pay and I think that's why perhaps they are given and demand such exorbitant sums of money which they really can't use and probably most of it goes to the government anyway but you know they have to ask for six hundred thousand and seven hundred thousand eight hundred thousand words. It really is silly on the face of it may be because we're nowhere near that it's exorbitant just the really can't use and most of it goes to the government but I think they need this is an eagle building thing because of the deprivations they've suffered in the sense of giving up passion during their lifetime. Your wife wrote a very outspoken book what would have happened if she'd written that book while you were still

with your corporation. Well this book that my wife wrote I would have not I would have sat on the book if I may mention it is called Let's stop destroying our children and goes a step beyond or in front of what the doctor has written because what my wife is trying to do is say let's look at the issue where we start with the children and let's begin to protect the children. All sorts of ways. And. If if I'd have been in one of the big corporations I'd have been afraid of the ramifications that would have come about. This way my wife could be more outspoken as the doctor's saying she's not going on the streets but she is. She's crying and crying out about some of the problems in our society and I would have

tried to keep a much lower profile and would have would have prevented that. How how how would she have been able to save her identity if he had done that to her. I mean you know where are ways that that corporate wives are able to save their identity as they indicated before by denial by suddenly saying I really don't care. And it isn't true you see that when you make it if there's something positive they can do. Well I can that you know is always the doll's house is always Noro which most them don't do that the most corporate wives are very cooperative and they internalize it which is bad you see that by denying it. And it's and making as if they are not interested OK so I would NOT incident writing the book My family comes first my husband comes first it has to go somewhere and it comes out in a certain bitterness. It may take a form of perhaps negative children or may take

psychosomatic forms of running to the doctors with with the with things that he doesn't understand because he doesn't know the deprivation that she suffered because she will deny a connection she won't say well I'm this way because my husband won't let me write this book. But tell me one thing our corporate life can do to protect yourself. It's volunteer work dance they're becoming terribly busy. I think Volunteer work is very important. You know I think that if there isn't one answer you want one answer and one of the answers is really is Peter Drucker's indicated in his new book management which I highly recommend. He said that everybody asked for answers everybody asked for solutions that's natural. But he said. The solution isn't defining the problem in knowing what the problem is and focusing in on that then the answers will come. And I think the problem here is that from now on we have to deal with two full

people that it no longer will the wife be dealt with as baggage as just a helpmate the net from now on. Increasingly so because women are becoming more educated because they have several degrees or skill in so many things and because their consciousness is being raised that in making moves their needs will have to be looked after too. And some moves will not be made. I see this amongst young people who are husband will not make a move because. In this new place if the wife for example is interested has a dancing school might and has invested a tremendous amount of energy and he won't move and they'll say well have to fold forego it because her needs are important too. This is a very hopeful sign. But where is the real responsibility with the corporation to do something about this when it's at various levels. Sure the corporation has to have an agonizing reappraisal and indeed and realize that part

of what David Rockefeller calls it social audit is that in making profits which they should make and we want them to they have to also know and have as an input at what social costs these profits are being made and if they are in order that they better they better look they have a second look and see if they're making these profits they're making these profit this progress at a human cost is intolerable. And so that is and I think it can be done without destroying the free enterprise system I think there's enough latitude and a man such as David Rockefeller has indicated that in the future corporations will be making social audit of what they're doing to their employees and to the communities that they're living in. I think everyone will be better off as a result. Before I mention something that fits in with this I mention the name of a famous school saying we didn't have the

sophistication of that school and therefore I was using this in it as a generic term saying we therefore didn't do that kind of screening of people. But from my reading and from the knowledge of these people who are coming out of the schools now I don't think that they are doing that much screening of the wives I think that there is a much more liberal attitude First of all I think that the young people going in have a much different and more enlightened attitude. And I think that those graduates of business school are seeing things a lot different than they did years ago when. I feel that some of the things that are talked about in in the book on corporate wives I think we've passed some of those things I think that we're not doing as much. Haud screening as we walk before I don't I've never experience the the the screening of the

wife we take a man and that's it. And oh we took a man when I was a corporation and I think that more of that is going on I think that that the younger generation is seeing things I think we're passing on to understanding these things perhaps more slowly than a lot of people would want. We are making great strides. I'd like to point out something if I may. That wasn't brought up. Again. I think that the stresses on the wives women in general are tremendous and in these moves that are made my wife brings out something in the book telling about being careful about new homes. Now let's assume that somebody moves. And they get into a new home and the man goes to work. And the roof begins to leak and the wife calls and says the roof is leaking

and he says to her Get up. Get a man. Get somebody. Well she's new in the community and they didn't know that maybe all the rules or three of the rules in that tract or the same man lete and she wasn't quite prepared for the management which she must do on a new level. As was mentioned here. The man has a lot of supports. The woman does not have those supports she is left in a new community. She doesn't know about the Plumber whether he's reliable or not. She doesn't know about all of these these. Situations that occur in a in a completely new area. And. My wife's book begins. A whole area of looking into things like how are the playgrounds how. How is this and how is that starting on the children's level and that whole thing is a new

research job. For for a wife. Whereas the husband goes into a more set environment. So. I think we're making progress because more people or. More people are aware of these things. I think that it's filtering down. I think that husbands are coming home. Discussing things with their wives. Seidenberg Do you agree with that we have about 1 1/2 minutes left. Well I think it's a little overoptimistic because the the screening is not as overt and as gross as it used to be but it's a little more subtle. It takes place in medical examinations and the medical has many meaning wives or ex-player in medical examinations. Well in a sense that very often the instead of asking whether your wife was a alcoholic or whether she's. Has any social problems they will ask

for a medical history where these questions very often are asked and then she's. She brings it into the medical department of a big corporation and also do the same things. There is an increase in this which is subtle. But. Very often many corporations realize that when you hire a person a person I thank you both very much. Next week.