Feminism and mothers of sons

Having a son and a daughter informs my feminism. I once saw a poster that said:

"Do you want to prepare your daughter for life in the working world?"

The punchline was "Pay her less pocket money than her brother"

I can teach my son to be a good man. I can teach my daughter how to be assertive, independent and more.

Feminists should bring up men who make a difference in the world.

I am not sure I understand your question OP. I will say that there was precisely one imstance, where I was made to feel that being the mother of a boy and being a feminist was in conflict (yes, this is a tangent):

Julie Bindel (I believe) wrote a very informative article about a village in Africa, where only women are allowed - a shelter for women who had often lived through abhorrent war-related male violence - an impressive project. The article stated that women could live there with their children, but males over 12 had to leave. Which made absolute sense. I praised the project in my comment and inquired, what the typical solution for those male children was (relatives?, or are boys self reliant early in this culture?). I figured, this might be Important for the mothers‘ peace of mind.

My comment (and I was not alone) got censored, because I was ‚centering males‘. I was bummed. And as the mother of a son I, frankly, to this day cannot see, how you can divorce that question from the peace of mind mothers of sons have in these communities.

But why would mothers of sons deny biological reality or deny sex based oppression, which is what the ‚TERF!‘ finger pointing boils down to?

I think it has more to do with their parents than their children.
Unpacking the conditioning is a job of work that a lot of people prefer not to do.

I do love the men in my life but not in that fierce maternal way

My only child is a son. I really don't know what you mean by "fierce maternal way"

I don't imagine for one minute his father loves him in a "fierce paternal way"

I think a lot of parents struggle to acknowledge their DC for who they are; flaws and all. I think for many they're of the 'sun shines out their nethers' sort who won't acknowledge the possibility of their DC being wrong or making shitty choices, and once those protective 'not my child' behaviours become ingrained it's so hard to let them go even when they're adults.

No idea if I'm right (and I love my boys without a moments doubt - they are incredible) but they are flawed, they are human and they fuck up. So rather than always leap to their defence and attack anyone nearby, I try very hard to be rational and help them learn from and acknowledge their mistakes rather than pretend they've not happened.

So far (and DS1 is 14 - which could be a difficult time) they're good kids. They are honest, they are decent and they challenge other people's nonsense. They're not interested in 'x is for girls' so far and I think that's because DH and I work hard to challenge that in our own lives. They're also honest about their mistakes and own themselves fully, which makes me happier than if they lied to hide their mistakes.

You haven't lost friends - you've lost people that weren't worth holding on to. It feels awful, and it is awful to be attacked in that way, but not everyone loves their children to the point of absolute madness, not everyone is unreasonable because they have boys. You've just come across crappy people who want to make you feel bad about your views because you don't agree with theirs.

It's an interesting starting point OP, I get what you're saying, although I can't say I've experienced anything similar.

I have an older sister and I'm my mother's favourite, not fair but true, sadly. It damaged our relationship until recently. Our father treated us equally but my sister held our parents at a distance and so I've grown up closer to my parents, to the point that my sister wouldn't spend family holidays with us in her mid-teens.

I have one son, he will be an only child. He is being raised to view men and women as equal partners who both work and share in running the home and we each spend equal time with him playing, if anything his Dad is more involved at the moment as our son isn't in child care.

I challenge every tiny little bit of gender stereotyping that pops up, he has recently rejected playing with his friends who are girls but we go on play dates with them anyway. I don't think I ask him to talk about his feelings any more than I would a daughter but I hope to maintain a strong, close relationship with him as he grows into a man, which is a long way off tbf.

It's probably a coincidence that the friends who have rejected you might be mothers of boys and so come from a different perspective 'my son is lovely, not all men are rapists' or something like that (on the false accusations point) but it's become confused with something around wanting to protect daughters from men. I make no excuses for them, they don't sound like very nice people to have dropped you for holding that view.

I hope this helps, you sound like you have a lot going on in your head so hopefully this is helping to clear it a bit xx

My sister's sister in law proudly announces that she is now a terf (so nya nya nya), She is a nurse, so kinda knows about biology and stuff...

If anyone calls you the slur 'TERF', it shows they're a belligerent, nasty piece of work who wants to tear real, biological women (who were BORN women) down (I refuse to use the label cis) in order to give bio males even more rights than bio women. There's nothing equal or feminist about it. Though it may hurt at the moment, you are absolutely better off without these morons.

AnneShirley, you are spot on! Thanks for helping unscramble my head.

Glad to help
I have both sons and a daughter and do my best to bring them all up with a feminist viewpoint. They're teens now and my boys, so far, have shown a respectful attitude towards females.

@Clymene I would class some of them as feminist if not all its just that their life experience is offering them a different point of view.

Saying your son is at university and calls you to say hes been accused of sexually assaulting a women and he denies it, its a he said she said case. Your point of view up until now is that he's a decent person and this would be out of character. So wouldnt you believe your son over a stranger? That's what I think my friends feel.

I trying to think that maybe if I had a son, I might have been one of those women who pop on a rape thread and bang on about false accusations. Or maybe I’d insist that my 10 year old should be allowed in the women’s changing room or whatever

Actually, I hate to say this, but there may be something in this. But I don't think it's universal by any means. I'm not sure if it starts from sexism originally. Is it actually at least partially about how overprotective of children we've become, preventing them from growing up?

So a woman like this, who happens to have sons, is outraged that her 8 year old needs to use the men's bathroom or changing room and immediately goes into defensive mode, "my darling DS would never look at women in the changing room/ my darling DS needs to be protected too, why does no one care about him?" And perhaps over time this goes further and becomes so ingrained that the idea that boys and men need to actually take responsibility for things disappears and there's this new concept of boys being unfairly discriminated against blah blah blah.

Certainly, I believe strongly that we're doing our children no favours by not encouraging independence. And it does seem to be the boys in particular, so to go against my original point in that case, there IS sexism. Girls seem to be encouraged from a young age to be "helpers" in the home, to learn to help make food/clean etc. But boys aren't encouraged to do these things neither are they encouraged to be independent in other ways in case some harm comes to them.

I got into an awkward conversation with another mum a few months ago. We were talking about the challenges of deciding when to let your children walk home from school etc. Her 10 year old was starting to do it. And I made a comment about how it's terrifying but actually, I do worry more about the girls because they face the outright predators but also the day to day misogyny and ingrained sexism that means they're as likely to experience harassment from other teenagers/ men or boys who are technically "nice guys". I could tell she was very upset that I was daring to suggest that her son was safer walking home than a girl would be.

I trying to think that maybe if I had a son, I might have been one of those women who pop on a rape thread and bang on about false accusations. Or maybe I’d insist that my 10 year old should be allowed in the women’s changing room or whatever

I have sons and certainly don't think or feel like that.

I don’t understand why and wondered if it is because they have sons

There could be something in that...but equally it could just be that they are more sheep like than you.

I think real feminism means it doesn't matter whether you have a boy or girl?

In my experience it’s the mothers of daughters who are least feminist and more likely to propagate outdated stereotypes or get angry when the girls don’t live up to some kind of feminine ideal. The mothers of sons just get on with things and most of them have raised lovely boys / men

That's a rather sweeping generalisation.....I have a daughter and two sons, and now a granddaughter......They are all individuals and really quite different from each other.......my relationship with each is different, because each child is different.

I do agree some women like the idea of having a daughter - because they imagine a 'girls together' relationship......remaining emotionally close, and doing girly things together.......but there are as many women who are not particularly 'girly' who just seek to value their child for their own uniqueness.

Out of my three children - all now adult.......the girl was actually the wildest and most 'difficult' to handle...whereas the boys were really very easy. My granddaughter is really quite 'easy' too......and has experimented with 'girliness' ( she's 5), but a month or so ago she asked to have her hair cut short.......it really suits her personality.....She's definitely exploring and experimenting with wider social ideas around gender at present.......and I'm happy for her to explore the full range if she feels moved to.

I'm sorry your friends aren't feminist @LouHotel but I can assure you that I have never thought that. Nor have I changed my mind since having sons.

I'm probably being a bit cranky but I really object to lazy stereotypes like that. Just as you'd probably object if I said that all mothers live to see their daughters married off to a nice man who will take care of them.

I’ve been having a touch time and it’s making me wonder whether feminism or equality will never be possible because women give birth to boys whom they obviously love and these boys become men

Equal civil & legal rights have already been achieved...beyond that equality does not have to mean sameness or equality of outcome

Men & women, girls and boys do have differences, as well as similarities, and anyone who has children of both sexes knows this to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the individual child.

Feminism, for me, doesn't mean pretending there are no differences between the sexes at all...it means enabling girls to be and express their full range of potential - and giving them the opportunity to express their talents and skills, which for some girls ( & some boys) are by nature very nurturing, and focused on relationships....while others are more solitary, independent and cerebral, for example.

And it doesn't make anyone less of a feminist because we're not defined by men in our lives.

I think I also get where OP is coming from. I have three girls and when speaking to friends with children who are boys about for example a rape trial in the media, the mothers of boys tend to have a different scope to me.

For example '' if the girls didn't want sex why did she go back to the hotel room''

They will naturally put their child in that position and then have a need to defend it, we know this happens as families stick by defendants.

It's easy to say your raising allies but if stastically all women are sexually assaulted in some way in their lifetime then the likelihood is that there will be a proportion of women on this feminist board who no fault of their own are raising men who will assault. So in a sense we birth our oppressors.

All anyone can do is there best.

OP, I’m tired and probably haven’t read the thread properly.

But I wonder if what you’re taking about is something not dissimilar from the way heterosexual women sometimes have to make slightly uneasy compromises/concessions when forming relationships with men as partners?

I’ve found the parenting realm quite conformist. Not everyone is into kicking against conformity and I think this can set up a tension between what would be more progressive and the way parenting of boys is happening in the real world, now. Perhaps it puts people on the defensive.

I’ll now reread the thread and realise I’ve completely misunderstood what you wrote, and expressed my reply very poorly.

Then I will have the nap I should’ve had an hour ago