Fear of failure, like fear of success, is the legacy of nonassertiveness training. Fear of failure is the result of years of being shamed or teased by boys, brothers, fathers, mothers, or teachers whenever a public performance of athletic, mechanical, or combative prowess was attempted. Fear of success is the result of years of being warned against being "too smart" or "too strong" or "too independent." Where are the role models for strong, assertive women in our culture? Some can be found on the sports pages; there are a handful of world leaders to whom we can look; occasionally one hears about prominent business and professional women, or a barrier-smasher such as astronaut Sally Ride is thrust into public view. But these are the exceptions rather than the rule, and generally a major component of the message we get about them is how unusual they are�a mixed message indeed.

Need for achievement, however, is built into all of us. It is an extension of our earliest desires to explore, crawl, walk, and run. It is a reflection of our ability to process information, formulate plans, and solve problems. It is an adult expression of our need to gain some control over our environment and solve some of its problems.

It's not uncommon for women to feel a mixture of fear of failure and need for achievement. The head-on collision between the two is what aggravates the Female Stress Syndrome.

The need for achievement moves women toward their goals. Although this need was not explicit in female role expectations over the past few generations in this country, it existed nonetheless. Middle-class women exhibited it through volunteer and community organization work, through vicarious pride in children's achievements, and through identification with their husbands' careers. Working-class women exercised it through their pride in running their homes, in taking care of their families, and in holding jobs for less than equal pay in order to achieve a higher standard of living. Upper-class women expressed it through attempts to increase the power, prestige, and exclusiveness of the family by doing charity work, making large donations to various causes, and orchestrating social events.

The fear of failure, on the other hand, moves women away from their goals. This fear is fed by many stereotypic female role expectations and myths.

Women are the weaker sex.

Women are too emotional for the business world. Women will always leave their careers for a man. Women are less logical than men.

Fear of failure moves women away from their goals by involving them in excessive concern with the opinions of others. Failure then means shame, rather than just personal disappointment. Fear of failure requires constant collecting of excuses and a general defensiveness�both of which drain energy from directly pursuing goals!

The classic ring-toss game has been used to show how fear of failure operates. Subjects could stand anywhere they wanted while tossing the rings over the stake. Some walked right up to the stake. Others backed up to make the challenge more difficult. Researchers found that backing up was characteristic of people with high fear of failure. It was an attempt to provide an excuse in case of failure, under the guise of increasing the value of achievement.

Women with a high fear of failure will constantly handicap themselves and increase their own stress in order to defend themselves against failure with excuses. For example, they may schedule too many things at the same time. Or they may never start a task until the last minute.

Today more and more women are expressing their need for achievement. Unfortunately, their fear of failure hangs on from early childhood lessons. The vacillation between moving toward goals and backing off from situations involving the risk of failure creates a great deal of constant stress for the "new woman."

Polly wanted a career in real estate. She entered a training course but stopped short of taking her final exam. Too many demands at home made studying impossible, she said. She pursued her career nonetheless. She applied for jobs in real-estate offices but restricted herself to locations close to her home and to working hours that conformed to her teenaged children's school hours. She landed an apprenticeship, but found that family vacations, entertaining, doctors' appointments, and even volunteer activities interfered with her taking the broker's examination required for advancement. She stayed on, working on salary rather than receiving a broker's commission, talking incessantly about her career frustrations. Should she stay in real estate, handicapped as she thought she was, or move to another field? she asked constantly.

Sometimes women are not fully conscious of their ambivalence and the stress it imposes. Their nonassertiveness training has become so much a part of their way of being and their self-image that they don't even realize they are vacillating. At most, they may wonder why they feel so uncertain most of the time, or why they labor over making decisions.

*23\287\2*