When your mother blames the woman...

[anxietyaunt]

My mother is... something else. She’s never been much of an advocate for women’s rights. I’ve always known this so I shouldn’t be affected by some of her comments, but I am.

Despite being a smart woman and (allegedly) knowing the statistics around domestic violence against women, she can’t help herself. She thinks courts are unfairly biased towards women. That women should “stop carrying on” and sort things out themselves. “Deal with it.” “Stop making things up and ruining lives.”

This woman raised me. Sorry, not sure what my AIBU is, but I’m so incredible saddened by it all.

My mums the same which really shocks me as she was a career woman and has only just retired last year ( she's 70 ) , maybe it's something inground from her own parents?
She's always gossiping about sil because dB is the one that does the chores and cooking, she's absolutely scandalised. Sil works long hours as an out of hours solicitor but obviously that's not enough.
My ex dp is a total waste of space and he and his new fiancee have a very messy house , and even though she knows how lazy my ex is she's always saying his new gf is terrible for not tidying up, but what about him ???
She even thinks dads shouldn't have to pay their way after a divorce if it " wasn't their fault "
I absolutely despair and I could not have more different opinions.

I assume that a lot of it is “well I thought it was okay and so should you”. A lot of it comes from bitterness I think - if you have children who are challenging you, you stick to what you’ve always known. I wouldn’t bother challenging it - you would be trying to persuade them in effect that they had lived their lives in the wrong way.

My mil is the same she constantly comments on women’s appearance and makes comments such as how mums don’t make any effort at the school gates. My ex’s mum was worse though, when her husband went into hospital she complained at how ugly the nurses were and how they should have more young pretty nurses to cheer up the old men .

CaptainCorelli

Christ, sounds like my mother.
I work hard to keep fit, and live in baggy clothes, t shirts and jogging trousers.
My mother often tells me I should wear tighter sexy clothing so I can "show the men"- she is in her 80s!!

A different generation maybe ……… “ The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there “

We have to also remember that people have different levels of critical thinking skills.

Another woman bashing thread on MN

If you're brought up to believe things it can be very difficult to reframe your thoughts. I'm 51 and my supposedly liberal parents said ridiculous things to me - women don't get bored like men so they should do all the housework and dreary tasks, men have bigger brains and are more intelligent, if a woman gets hysterical (or frustrated at being dismissed!) a slap will calm her down, women can't be funny, etc. Because I was a child I took a lot of these beliefs on until my late teens/twenties, and sometimes I still have to stop myself from victim blaming.

My mum was constantly worrying about 'what will the neighbours say'and being judged so perhaps some of it is insecurity.

I think what I'm saying is that progress is slow but each generation is, on the whole, better. The fact they brought you up able to have different attitudes suggests deep down they are more aware of the issues but can't break through their own upbringing and 100s of years of prejudices passed down.

My mum too.
My ex and I are divorced now, I divorced him due to affairs, lies, selfishness, no support.
'Well, you're not exactly perfect. You didn't always have dinner ready for him.' She said.

Constant daily mail rants about single mothers in council houses; The absent fathers are completely blameless.

I've found with this particular age of woman that they're often using this hard line stance to cover up their own feelings of inadequacy. My grandma, for example, believed a relative shouldn't have gone to the police over a sexual assault because she didn't make a big deal of it when it happened to her. My mum believes people should let their traumatic childhoods go instead of exploring them in therapy because she doesn't feel the need to go through her own past.

It says more about her than it does about you. I think there's a generational thing where women would sooner bury their heads in the sand than stand up for themselves because they've previously faced oppression.

My mum is very liberal in most ways and always encouraged me to get a decent job so I could earn well and not depend on a man. And there's no way she would have ever supported my husband over me if he'd hit me.

But I can relate to a couple of the comments above - she really worries about what the neighbours think and she makes comments about other peoples' weight and dress sense. Although I don't think the latter is completely aimed at women, she'd wrinkle her nose at a bloke showing off a hairy beer belly, too.

As for women bashing, well we won't get equality unless we stop attacking each other. Or maintaining male societal norms. Look at the discussion about WFH. It makes me so sad that so many women think it's a bad thing, when it is patently a good thing for many women and disabled people. Office working is a male construct - that doesn't mean it's a bad thing but it does mean that it shouldn't be maintained for the sake of it.

My mum doesn’t believe in sexism, because she managed to get a good job 🙄

She’s vile about women in general. It’s one of a million reasons I barely see her.

@Overdueanamechange

Its very common. I think some women are so shocked by rape, domestic violence etc that they could not accept that these things could happen to anyone. They cannot cope with the fact that they could be innocently dragged from the street, so they have to victim blame. It must have been what they were wearing, she must have led him on, she shouldn't have been out so late etc, etc. This way she has a sense of security that these crimes will never happen to her. Look at how many parent blamed the McCann parents for what happened to their daughter.

Very astute point.

I always think my mum resents how much 'help' I get from DH. Dh is better than most dads/husbands I think at doing his share at home, but my own dad doesn't lift a finger, like at all.

So instead of leaving things for him she just moans at me about it. Its very frustrating. She also holds my brother like a Saint because he does a lot of babysitting, ie when my SIL works. I correct her every time that you don't babysit your own kids, but it never sticks!

Well, patriarchy couldn't replicate itself without female adherents.

My mother is the same, unfortunately.

Yes, there has to be a villain.

Why the villain isnt the rapist i dont understand, but there has to be a bucket for the blame.

@AgnesNaismith

Same here, it’s always the woman. She also constantly comments on the appearance of women on tv.

I think internalised misogyny really hit that generation hard.

DM is similar. As a young woman in the 50s/ 60s, education was not valued and your worth was in being attractive. You'd work for a few years after leaving school at 15 (although she was 17) until you were married then pregnant.

I try to avoid any contemporary social topics with her, we disagree and it doesn't go anywhere, but she likes to raise issues. When #Metoo hit the headlines she couldn't understand the fuss. It was all flattering. In the 60s, she worked in nightclubs (more like casinos and live music than disco types) and if the male clients overstepped the mark, they pretty much had to fend for themselves, but also professional lines were more blurred and slapping a hand away and cutting comments back were acceptable than they would be now. General culture now is very much report to a third party.

I don't know if it's too big to see or too hard to accept the impact that it had on your whole sense of self and the boundaries that you were "allowed" to live within.

@AgnesNaismith

Same here, it’s always the woman. She also constantly comments on the appearance of women on tv.

I think internalised misogyny really hit that generation hard.

Ugh, same here. She loves to laugh about how “fat and ugly” some women apparently are. What a horrible way to view the world.

@Selkie1961

Why the villain isnt the rapist i dont understand, but there has to be a bucket for the blame.

It's a complex question to answer. Read Why Women Are Blamed For Everything by Dr Jessica Taylor, as it goes over all different facets.

I love my mum to bits, she has also said:

• H shouting at me isn't a big deal, all men shout
• he's just chatting to other women online out of boredom, it doesn't mean anything
• men expect a clean home, it's natural for men to do most of the housework even if the woman is working full time too

I challenge her at every turn and to be fair, I know she would do anything for me.

*for the woman to do most of the housework

An Irish friend of mine told me that it was once common for a woman who ever dared to complain to her priest about DV or any abuse, would be told that it must be her own fault for not being a good enough wife to her husband.

One would hope that such attitudes have now died out.

Same here. My DM went on and on about what "happened" to Oscar Pistorius and how dreadful it was that his life was ruined and didn't I feel sorry for him. I said yes but not as sorry as I feel for the woman he killed and her family. And she said, well, you don't know what went on in their relationship, what did she do to make him do it?