Why Living Under Narcissistic Leadership Feels So Personal

The psychological toll politics is taking on women

Allow me to begin with a mini tangent.

Did you know the words ‘female’ and “women’ (but not ‘male’ or ‘men’) have been banned by the National Science Foundation for any incoming grant proposals? If these words—along with dozens of others such as ‘disability’ and ‘equality’¹—are present, the proposal will be flagged and assessed as to whether the word in question is related to a forbidden topic under the anti-DEI order.

Today’s piece isn’t about the NSF, but it does highlight a larger issue—cruel, power-hungry politicians and their impact on women, which is today’s focus.

This new government of giddy men and their over inflated egos is sending a strong message that they don’t have to play by the rules. With every action they take, they’re showing us they can run rough shod over everything—from longstanding norms of the Oval Office to basic human rights to the constitution. They can throw a sieg heil—the nazi salute meaning “hail victory”— and continue on with their day (as far as I can tell, there was a bigger outcry in Germany about it than in the US!).

Trump and his tech bros are deliberately flexing their power over vulnerable people. This is, apparently, real masculinity—not that woke shit that asks you to be kind to losers born lesser.

Sarcasm aside, this is what we mean when we say toxic masculinity.

For many women, this brazen power grab is deeply unsettling. We’re bracing for its impact on our country, our autonomy, and our most marginalized groups—trans people, disabled people, people of color, and so many others. But for some of my queer and female patients who have grown up under the thumb of emotionally callous, manipulative men like their domineering fathers, creepy uncles, and abusive clergy, it can be downright re-traumatizing. They know what it’s like to have their internal or actual freedoms curtailed. (Have I mentioned “victim” and ‘trauma’ are also banned words?)

These women watched their so-called upstanding fathers stitch up patients or bless parishioners while simultaneously breaking their daughters—emotionally, physically, or both. They were groomed by neighbors who kindly offered their parents a night out, then stripped them of their little-girl jammies and their sense of safety. They’ve heard these men blame them—too mouthy, too meek, too sexy, too tomboy. They’ve watched men lie effortlessly, twisting reality to mask their cruelty and to throw would-be protectors off the scent.

So when these women witness our leaders brazenly lie and exploit others without consequence, it feels disturbingly familiar.

“I freeze every time another executive order is announced,” one woman told me. “It’s like being a kid again who sees the craziness but can’t do anything about it. I feel so hopeless.” Another said, “It’s Trump’s demand for loyalty that gets me. I knew I was in deep shit if I ever disagreed. My father would punish me in a million invisible ways for weeks. I almost feel like cutting again.”

In a patriarchal culture, we often equate effective leadership with traditionally masculine traits like dominance, aggression, charisma, and risk-taking. We want our leaders to be forceful and confident, especially in times of turmoil. Unfortunately, a review of the literature on narcissism shows that what we think of as transformational leadership overlaps substantially with grandiose narcissism. What looks like confidence turns out to be arrogance, strength is entitlement, and the wish to lead is really a need for admiration.

It can be hard to distinguish between transformational leaders and narcissistic ones until they get into power. The difference is that good leaders see themselves as a means to the company’s—or country’s—end, while narcissistic leaders see the companies/countries as a means to their own ends—which is generally their own glorification. Studies show narcissistic leaders are more likely to act dishonestly to achieve their ends. They are manipulative and hostile, reward flattery, and silence dissent. Their unethical behavior at the top cascades down and becomes normalized. They exploit people's hopes and fears to gain and maintain power.

Sound familiar?

For many of my patients, the gaslighting they experienced growing up was the worst part—the relentless twisting of facts to fit a false narrative, the casual mockery of their pain, the insistence by their abusers that they alone define reality. Too many women have spent years trapped in confusion, self-doubt, and anxiety caused by men who have gotten away with abuse. They’ve lost confidence—not just in themselves, but in their own reality. My patients tell me through a watershed of tears that they know the type of men running our government and that they are never truly held accountable.

Here’s the thing though: You don’t have to be a survivor of abuse to feel deeply unnerved. Most women know what it’s like to face overconfident men who will apply intimidation and coercion to get their way or seem like an authority. All women know what it’s like to have their experiences dismissed, their feelings minimized, and their area of expertise (or say, how to use a cheese grater) being re-explained to them. They know what it’s like to live with the constant awareness that their safety and bodily autonomy could be taken from them at any moment—a calculation woven into every decision they make.

So while many men are concerned about what’s happening in our government, I don’t think they live with the same constant foreboding that plagues women. Women have honed those danger detectors over decades. They know in their bones when their wellbeing is under threat.

Even when something doesn’t directly threaten women, they’re attuned to its undercurrents. So when Trump’s Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, declared with a straight face, “It is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America. And I’m not sure why news outlets don’t want to call it that,” many women felt the icy chill of gaslighting run down their spines.

Leavitt doesn’t know? The body of water in question, stretching far beyond U.S. borders, has been called the Gulf of Mexico for over 400 years, and not a single other country recognizes Trump’s newly decreed name. It may be legal to rename an international body of water within the U.S., but pretending not to understand why The AP—whose Stylebook sets the standard for journalism—won’t do the same is gaslighting. Leavitt is the mother complicit in her daughter’s abuse — the daughter, in this case, is our country.

Watching a woman stand with men who have made their ideological misogyny clear is painful. She is a woman betraying all women—and ultimately herself. Oppression comes for all of us eventually. Leavitt is 27 years old, whip smart and clearly wants a big career. Can’t she see the irony? As press secretary, it won’t be long before she is parroting their male supremacist beliefs and gendered disinformation to the media which will spread like wildfire on social media. And we know from research— even before the push for more masculinity and fewer protections—that women bear the brunt of the most aggressive and violent language online. As these spaces grow even more toxic for women, they will stop posting and just like offline, their voices will be silenced. Which, I suppose, is the point.

Can you hear the drip drip drip of trickle-down misogyny?

My point isn’t to take down a woman (Leavitt) while letting the more culpable figures off the hook—that would be misogyny in action. My point is that the narcissism and toxic masculinity we’re witnessing are a rapidly growing infection. Women are stressed for good reason.

In her piece, The Misogyny Overlay,

Molly Dickens, PhD

and I explored the constant vigilance women endure for their safety, alongside the broader culture of overt misogyny. She writes, “It’s a constant background hum in our brain, a source of anticipatory stress that never shuts off…If we have daughters, we extend this anticipatory stress to fears for them as well.”

I want the women reading this—and their male partners, fathers, and friends who tell them they’re fear-mongering or overreacting—to understand why they feel the way they do. The intense backlash born from men insecure about women’s progress is pervading our lives and imaginations.

When women’s concerns are minimized, it is deeply disorienting. As I said in Beyond Abortion: When Even Progressive Men Don’t Understand the Stakes, “The blaring klaxon announcing our demise, or at least the wish for our demise, falls on deaf ears.”

“Stop the nonsense!” one woman’s husband demanded when she worried aloud the explicit actions being taken to curtail women’s bodily autonomy could lead to a Handmaid’s tale situation. “I don’t think you should worry so much babe,” said another’s boyfriend, barely glancing up from his video game (it really doesn’t get more cliche than that).

It’s bad enough dealing with a bunch of narcissistic blowhard politicians debating your destiny, but having your well-honed Spidey sense questioned and minimized is enraging. So if you’ve pissed off a women in this way recently, remember: her reaction isn’t random—it’s rooted in deep experience. Instead of assuming she’s being ‘crazy’ or ‘unreasonable,’ consider the more likely explanation—you’ve behaved badly.

“How did that feel?” I, the therapist, asked these women (talk about cliche!). “Horrible! I told him to go fuck himself” said the first. “Honestly it stunned me and I couldn’t speak to him all night. Are we even living in the same country?” said the second.

Women are angry—rightfully so. We cycle through panic, despair, and exhaustion, yet we push forward because there are children to raise, jobs to do, and battles to fight. Resistance takes many forms, both fierce and quiet. It’s in our unwavering eye contact, strong voices and unapologetic boundaries. It’s in the small rebellions like our unbridled laughter and claiming the armrest on the plane—taking up space where we’ve been told to shrink. It’s in our solidarity, our protests, and our willingness to challenge the deeply ingrained idea that leadership must look like dominance. Every act, no matter how small, chips away at the world as it is and helps build the one we want—for ourselves, for each other, and for the generations to come.

1. Among the words they’ve so cleverly tried to censor are terms like ‘bias’ and ‘excluded’. Who is going to tell them that words can have more than one meaning? That those particular words are also generic statistical terms found in the method and results section of nearly every empirical study regardless of topic. Bye bye research on testicular cancer and heart disease, I guess.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

I’m beyond thrilled to announce that Sexism & Sensibility has won the Mindvalley People’s Choice Awards! PLUS The Chicago Reader voted me Best Nonfiction Writer and Sexism & Sensibility was the First Runner Up 🤯! It is because of so many of you, dear subscribers, that word of this book continues to spread so THANK YOU!

Interested in discussing Sexism & Sensibility with others?

Amber Groomes,Ph.D. (she/her)

has organized a book club on March 13th from 6-7:30. I will be joining the discussion and everyone is welcome. Check out her reading guide!

Book Club Announcement: 'Sexism and Sensibility: Raising Empowered, Resilient Girls in a Modern World'