4 Quotes by Linda Schierse Leonard

The father-daughter wound is not only an event happening in the lives of individual women. It is a condition of our culture as well.² Whenever there is a patriarchal authoritarian attitude which devalues the feminine by reducing it to a number of roles or qualities which come, not from woman’s own experience, but from an abstract view of her—there one finds the collective father overpowering the daughter, not allowing her to grow creatively from her own essence.

Whatever the case may be, if the father is not there for his daughter in a committed and responsible way, encouraging the development of her intellectual, professional, and spiritual side and valuing the uniqueness of her femininity, there results an injury to the daughter’s feminine spirit.

The healing for women is not to be found in the quicksand of blame. The attitude of blame might lock us forever into the roles of passive prisoners, victims who have not assumed responsibility for our own lives.

For many of these women, the root of their injury stems from a damaged relation with the father. They may have been wounded by a bad relation to their personal father, or wounded by the patriarchal society which itself functions like a poor father, culturally devaluing the worth of women.