Some authors have emphasized the feminist angle of Elizabeth Holmes’ brief presence in Silicon Valley. I wonder whether the gender aspect of her fall for grace and of Theranos’ fiasco is overplayed. Pretend that Elizabeth Holmes was “Charles” Holmes for a second. My view is that Charlie would have acted almost exactly as she did -provided that he was, like Elizabeth, a narcissist. In fact, narcissism tends to be more prevalent among men, although it doesn’t spare women (particularly in the current age of rampant narcissism).
Elizabeth Holmes fits the bill: She is delusional, self-absorbed, has or had grandiose dreams, tolerates no doubt and no criticism, is manipulative, and she is insensitive to other people’s needs or suffering -as her reaction to the plight, and later death, of Ian Gibbons shows. At 19, she was already delusional enough to think that she didn’t need to have a science or engineering degree in order to found a health sciences research company. That tells us volumes about her state of mind. She was and is delusional, mainly in the-utterly-full of-herself version of magical thinking. That’s one of the main features of narcissism.
The causes of the rise in narcissism, as well as the prevalence of cheating, of uncivil and anti-social behavior, are hard to identify. Some factors include hyper-individualism and thus lack of concern with community life; bad socialization patterns, including bad parenting and worse schooling; an emphasis on image rather than substance, on material wealth rather than on kindness and good citizenship; an emphasis on self-esteem and self-admiration, and so on. Those cultural maladies affect everyone, irrespective of gender, and produce mild to full-blown narcissists in record numbers, also irrespective of gender.
Yes, American culture is characterized by double standards -on the basis, inter alia, of “race” and of gender. (To be sure, “race” is a very bad idea, as it is divorced from reality. But it still holds sway in the U.S., due to its long history and that of its offspring, racism). Men are given the benefit of the doubt over women. A “white” woman or man is given the benefit of the doubt over a “black” man and over a “black” woman. But I have misgivings about the role of gender in Holmes’ story, besides the likelihood that she used her gender to her advantage, by mirroring what others wanted to see.
Holmes was was not really an “innovator.” She had an idea, but had no way of knowing if it could be pulled off, and she lacked the knowledge to make it happen. It seems to me that she used the “break the glass ceiling” metaphor and her gender as just another tool out of her narcissistic toolkit. Why? Because it was available and suited her self-interest. Narcissists are interchangeable, regardless of their gender. The con man currently in the White House and Holmes are narcissists first and of a certain gender second.
Holmes did use her gender to her advantage. After all, the press and the glossy magazines prematurely lionized her, mostly because she was seen as a pioneer in male-dominated Silicon Valley. In other words, she capitalized on historical gender inequities, not because she is a woman or a feminist, but because she is a manipulator. But narcissists often have feet of clay because, in the end, they cannot deliver. Almost always, they are all hype and little substance. Mostly, the hype lives in their minds.
Holmes’ fear of not being believed is that of the narcissist, not of the woman who is denied credibility in a man’s world. It was not a woman’s dread of the prospect that others won’t believe that she was sexually assaulted. When someone is skeptical of a narcissist and of her grandiose goals -her dreams of glory- the response is narcissistic anger, not dismay or impotence. At the helm of Theranos, Holmes displayed that anger in spades. In any event, if we hesitate to call her a narcissist, we certainly can call her a run-of-the-mill con artist, and the same psychoanalysis applies.
