Women and Codependency

       As mentioned in previous posts, women are frequently over-labelled with the term codependency despite its gender neutral nature. Unfortunately, this is often because of societal pressures for women to hold a more "submissive script." This often occurs in cultures that promote the inequality of men and women as it forces women to be oppressed. In turn this causes them to develop different ways of maintaining relationships and balance in their lives. Often times these characteristics are used to define codependency. In American culture men are encouraged to act out against women despite a historical economic dependence that women have had on men. While this mentality may be changing the characteristics have become innate. In many ways women have been shaped to maintain relationships that may not be healthy and empowering for reasons of survival.
       Oftentimes, this is not considered and individuals do not realize that codependent behaviors are coping techniques. Some researchers even argue that codependency can be defined to illustrate resiliency and hardiness in women. In general women value connectedness and relationships, while men value autonomy. Because of these values women more frequently meet the criteria for codependency as they may continue to try and maintain, repair, and perpetuate relationships with individuals. This has lead to the development of the self-in-relation theory which illustrates the value women have in terms of connectedness. In many ways individuals can see how this re-works the concept of codependency and depicts it as a difference in values system than pathology.
       Unfortunately, in American society, there is not a strong history of women's values being the normative value force of the society as a whole. In many ways this indicates why codependency has become such a popular topic and label among modern society. Because, generally speaking, women are in fact different from men, and because men seem to be the ones that hold the power, codependency is a term used to pathologize the foundations of being a woman, and a toll to maintain oppression, and therefore the status quo.