The Most Common Fears of Women

Women are afraid of different things and are afraid of men. The difference may be the result of different stories of the two genders. Women have always been portrayed in literature and even in mythology as subjective and passive – women were considered only joining men. History surrounds women’s personality and this creates a female unconscious.

However, even if there place in history had so many effects on fears, personal experience should also be considered. An abused woman in marriage will develop a fear of marriage (or even issues associated with wedding, rings, dress). A woman who was kidnapped can develop fear of narrow alleys and dark places. Other terrible experiences, unique for each person, may have different effects on different women.

Another issue is the difference between fear and phobia. According to Reader’s Digest, fear is more a reaction to a threat. It also specifies that “fear can work even as a shield”. When a woman sees things happen around her she can model information in her advantage. For example, she hears that most of rape victims were assaulted in narrow alleys, so she can avoid this kind of paths as a mean of protection in her behavior.

Phobia is “a fear that has gone bad, which deprives a person of reason”. When she can’t go on because of fear, this turns into an irrational phobia. For example, she will refuse to go to work because she is afraid of narrow alleys and she could be kidnapped. The worst of phobia is that the person is aware of her fears that are irrational and sometimes even silly, and yet she continues to fear.

The most common fears of women

As mentioned earlier, these fears are more common and widespread in female unconscious. In most cases, they don’t know clearly, because women have changed recently. In extreme cases, these fears dominate the women’s emotions and get right to control their lives.

Fear of Success

Women still have traditional view that success is a man’s merit. The explanation? It was long believed that women are forced to live in a “man’s world”, so some women get afraid of becoming successful women. In patriarchal societies that existed before, girls have been taught that knowledge is important but they were not encouraged to study more than high school because they should marry and the responsibility to work is for man.

The achievements of women were not measured in field work (having a good job or career), but in the social area – how well they do their duties in various stages of maturity – as a child, sister, wife and mother.

Once those girls begin to realize their role in a culture dominated by men, they also begin to be afraid of a higher education than men. As a result, fear of success prevents a woman’s opportunity to develop skills. It blocks her freedom and to do things she wants.

Fear of Rape

Women’s fear of rape is a feeling that must be constantly on guard and alert, a feeling that leads to anxiety, especially when someone goes too close behind, in the dark. Another product of patriarchal society, the fear of rape brings paranoia. Since woman was considered as “weak gender”, she was labeled according to what men want from her.

This fear of rape doesn’t refer to physical and sexual ways as we all know. It includes also other circumstances when men dominate women and use sex as an advantage for them. Another example is the fear of losing job because a man with the same qualification can replace her – just because he is a man and supposedly he knows better. Also the fear of divorce finds places over here. Wives were modeled to depend on their husbands though they can lose they source of living.

Fear of Death

Although fear of death is considered an universal human feeling, women see it the same as rape. Women say that the worst aspect of rape is the possibility to be killed or if surviving, humiliated and stigmatized. Death scares them because it will prove tat they are indeed weak and unable to defeat the disease (if death occurs because of health problems) or situation (if death would occur from unexpected events).

Death scares them because they break targets. When women give birth, they is the rick to not succeed further, or the baby will die and women believe that like this they will fail to carry out the duty to give birth, to give chance for the future baby.