The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

Gender Projection—Types
Although there are infinite variations, below you will find six of the
more common types of gender projections. You must use this
knowledge in three ways: First, you must recognize in yourself any
tendency toward one of these forms of projection. This will help you
understand something profound about your earliest years and make it
much easier for you to withdraw your projections on other people.
Second, you must use this as an invaluable tool for gaining access to
the unconscious of other people, to seeing their anima and animus in
action.
And finally, you must be attentive to how others will project onto
you their needs and fantasies. Keep in mind that when you are the
target of other people’s projections, the temptation is to want to live up

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to their idealization of you, to be their fantasy. You get caught up in
their excitement and you want to believe you are as great, strong, or
empathetic as they imagine. Without realizing it, you begin to play the
role they want you to play. You become the mother or father figure
they crave. Inevitably, however, you will come to resent this—you
cannot be yourself; you are not appreciated for your true qualities.
Better to be aware of this dynamic before it entraps you.
The Devilish Romantic:
For the woman in this scenario, the man who
fascinates her—often older and successful—might seem like a rake, the
type who cannot help but chase after young women. But he is also
romantic. When he’s in love, he showers the woman with attention.
She decides she will seduce him and become the target of his attention.
She will play to his fantasies. How can he not want to settle down with
her and reform himself? She will bask in his love. But somehow he is
not as strong, masculine, or romantic as she had imagined. He is a bit
self-absorbed. She does not get the desired attention, or it does not last
very long. He cannot be reformed, and leaves her.
This is often the projection of women who had rather intense, even
flirtatious relationships with the father. Such fathers often find their
wives boring, and the young daughter more charming and playful.
They turn to the daughter for inspiration; the daughter becomes
addicted to their attention and adept at playing the kind of girl that
daddy wants. It gives her a sense of power. It becomes her lifelong goal
to recapture this attention and the power that goes with it. Any
association with the father figure will spark the projecting mechanism,
and she will invent or exaggerate the man’s romantic nature.
A prime example of this type would be Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Jack Bouvier, her father, adored his two daughters, but Jacqueline was
his favorite. Jack was devilishly handsome and dashing. He was a
narcissist obsessed with his body and the fine clothes that he wore. He
considered himself macho, a real risk taker, but underneath the façade
he was in fact quite feminine in his tastes and totally immature. He
was also a notorious womanizer. He treated Jackie more like a
playmate and lover than a daughter. For Jackie, he could do no wrong.
She took perverse pride in his popularity with women. In the frequent
fights between her mother and father, she always took his side.
Compared to the fun-loving father, the mother was prudish and rigid.

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Spending so much time in his company, even after her parents
divorced, and thinking of him constantly, Jackie deeply absorbed his
energy and spirit. As a young woman, she turned all of her attention to
older, powerful, and unconventional men, with whom she could re-
create the role she had played with her father—always the little girl in
need of his love, but also quite flirtatious. And she was continually
disappointed in the men she had chosen. John F. Kennedy was the
closest to her ideal, for in so many ways he was just like her father in
looks and in spirit. Kennedy, however, would never give her the
attention she craved. He was too self-absorbed. He was too busy
having affairs with other women. He was not really the romantic type.
She was continually frustrated in this relationship, but she was trapped
in this pattern, later marrying Aristotle Onassis, an older,
unconventional man of great power who seemed so dashing and
romantic but who would treat her horribly and cheat on her
continually.
Women in this scenario have become trapped by the early attention
paid to them by the father. They have to be continually charming,
inspiring, and flirtatious to elicit that attention later on. Their animus
is seductive, but with an aggressive, masculine edge, having absorbed
so much of the father’s energy. But they are in a continual search for a
man who does not exist. If the man were completely attentive and
tirelessly romantic, they would grow bored with him. He would be seen
as too weak. They are secretly drawn to the devilish side of their
fantasy man and to the narcissism that comes with it. Women trapped
in this projection will grow resentful over the years about how much
energy they have to expend playing to men’s fantasies and how little
they get in return. The only way out of the trap for such women is to
see the pattern itself, to stop mythologizing the father, and to focus
instead on the damage he has caused by the inappropriate attention he
paid to them.