Feminism and our mothers' reactions

[JessinAvalon]

Hi all

I get a very hostile reaction to my feminist campaigning from my mum. She takes every opportunity to be disparaging and to say "what about men?"

I have 2 brothers so I don't know if she feels the need to protect men's rights and, in agreeing with me, somehow thinks she might be setting herself in opposition to them.
-Or if it's an innate need to protect me from the kind of abuse that feminists get.
-Or if she doesn't want to question inequality because it will lead her to question many things about her own life.

For example, when my brothers went to a strip club, she defended their choice to go over my arguments as to why they shouldn't. When I started campaigning for the SEV legislation, and appeared on the local BBC news being interviewed, she was horrified.

I have my parents staying and, this morning, I was explaining to my Dad that I couldn't get a tyre pressure pump working for my car and that a friend's husband had tried as well. His response was: "G...(the husband) couldn't get it working? ". I said, "no. Why would he have more success than me? I was the one reading the instruction manual!" And my Dad looked sheepish and said, "err....because he's a man!" (Not specifically an example about feminism but it does show the innate sexism that my parents have.)

Then my Mum asked if I wanted her to pick up anything for tea from Marks and Spencer whilst they're out shopping today...err...no thanks Mum. I said I'm not shopping there at the moment. She sighed as if to say, "another one of your idiotic feminist things, I suppose."

I made the decision a long time ago to hide that part of my life from them completely to preserve my sanity, although it does upset me. I wondered if others had the same problem and, if so, how do you deal with it?

dittany, that is, very unintentionally, absolutely hilarious.

My mum is 62. If I ever said I wasn't a feminist I think she would hunt me down* and kill me. You've all done very well in the face of parental opposition/misunderstanding.

My mum's mum, on the other hand, is in the same camp as dittany's mum. She genuinely thinks my life is harder than hers because I have to go out to work (chronically ill husband) whereas she had two children straight after the war, rationing, husband with seasonal work who did nothing at home when unemployed and no inside loo. Yeah you're right, there's no comparison Nana!

She once told me she'd seen a documentary about a lifeboat "and you'll never guess, the captain was a woman!". I asked why that was so surprising and she conceded that whilst it might be acceptable for a woman to work on a lifeboat surely men could not be expected to take orders from her.

O-kay.

• obviously she knows where I live so the hunting would not be a big exertion for her

And Blair, so very sorry to read of your experience.

My mum is a feminist.

My MIL did the face when I said DH had sewn on one of DS's cub badges...

My mum was one of the original feminists, and knew all the famous 60s and 70s feminist campaigners and thinkers (still knows some of them). She's great and I count myself lucky.
We have some great discussions about feminism, and I rely on her heavily for a sympathetic ear re: issues in the workplace. She was a senior manager for a big organisation before retiring, and has some horror stories about the way women were treated (this is in the 80s and 90s, so not too long ago). Nothing much seems to have changed, depressingly.

Thinking about it some more, for me, growing up with my dad has been more influential on me. He was a single parent and did all the housework and cooking until we could help (me more than my brother, but that was because my brother was a weaseller-outer). I remember him thinking out loud once that if we lived with my mother, she'd be able to claim maintenance, but because she was a woman, he couldn't claim maintenance from her. I still don't understand why that is (presumably) still so.

My parents completely ignore the fact i'm a feminist. My dad is sexist and my mum is a domestic slave so my views make them very uncomfortable.

Tribpot I think i'd be the same with my dd as your mum is with you. I buy her children feminist books, she's coming to Reclaim the Night with me and most of all she see dh and my relationship, which is completely equal, he does as much around the house/childcare as I do. I'd be gutted if she wasn't a feminist when she's older

My mother (under sixty) says that women can't have it all and that if she owned a business she would want to know who was going to time off to have a baby!!

Reclaim the night, dittany hilarious,

Gosh dittany your mum's comment is hilarious. Mind you it's the sort of thing my mum might have said! She was dreadful - she really thought that women shouldn't work and that our sole aim in life should be to get married as quickly as possible and have babies.

I remember her berating my sister for having the temerity to still be unmarried at 24!!

She waited on my brother hand and foot as boys shouldn't have to do anything around the house but my sister and I had to! some more.....

She couldn't understand any of my views at all but she's dead now so at least I don't have to listen to her madness any more.

My mother is a fucking lunatic catholic martyr enabler toxic nutter... my father was abusive gambling drunk.

So she has no idea WTF feminism is and I don't bother to discuss it with her. Or indeed, anything else that matters to me. I didn't bother telling her that I was going to the conference on Saturday, for example. I'm not interested in being told I'm wasting my time, or it's not fair on the kiddies being dragged along to something like that, or some other bunch of crap...

Jess it sounds like the issue with your mum isn't feminism per se, it's her undermining attitude to you. Everything I do, for example Gingerbread media interviews, or work stuff, gets a muttering under the breath and / or disapproval, which sounds as if it's the same same as you. I wouldn't bother expecting your mother to respect your activism as her lack of respect for that will be merely an extension of her lack of respect for everything else about you. If you were into quilt-making, or paganism, or tory activism, she'd undermine you about that too

That's my impression from your posts, anyway.

My mum is a bit of a paradox. On the one hand she works while my dad is at home and my mum does very little round the house. She brought me and my brothers up equally, we all had the same chores and the same toys (communally, because she believed it would promote a sense of sharing). She never shaved her legs on principle and used to complain that women should not pander to men in this way.

On the other hand she does not like to talk about feminism at all. She is contemptuous of the use of 'Ms' and will refer to herself as Mrs DhName DhSurname. And she says (frequently) that it's ridiculous for women to be priests and that there are jobs that are more suited to men. She also says that there can be no rape within marriage...

We don't talk much about feminism. It's like religion, it's become a taboo subject, but I know she thinks that I take it too far. But at least she has stopped referring to me with my DH's surname...

My mother used to say things like "no man will want shop-soiled goods" and "there's nothing worse than a woman drunk".

I think I have her to thank for being a feminist.

Speaking of "shop soiled goods", I'm sure my Nana would be horrified if she knew my step-dad used to list my mum as head of household on the census (I don't think they do that any more, do they? Been a blardy long time since the last one). My step-dad's reasoning was simple. The household was me, my bro, my mum and him. (Whilst of course his children visited every other weekend). He felt it was important that we were listed not as sort of marital add-ons to his household but an essential part of my mother's. He was the marital add-on.

Of course this was entirely theoretical since in fact my mum and step-dad have never once in 30 years of marriage made a distinction between her children and his, but he felt it was an important point to make on principle.

As to "women can't have it all" - people can't have it all. Everything requires a degree of compromise, the question is why it should be women doing the compromising. It isn't always so - when I was in Sweden I remember someone saying "Mikael's off on paternity leave" and replying "bloody hell, his wife's surely not had another baby already?". Of course she hadn't. She'd done her stint on parental leave and now he was doing his. Never made that mistake again!

My mum introduced me to feminism. She used to bring home copies of Spare Rib (remember that, anyone?!) for me to read.

Most MNetters are, I guess, of an age that their mothers would have been young during the feminist resurgence of the 70s.

My mum was part of the women's movement, I grew up surrounded by women. In fact we lived in a house populated entirely by women, no men allowed!

Some of the women were lesbians, some became lesbians "politically", and some of them gathered nightly in the kitchen to smoke spliffs and eat fried banana sandwiches and plan the counter-revolution!

My mum feels that feminism has failed or lost its way, and that part of the problem is rampant capitalism.

The effect that my upbringing had was that when I first encountered proper men free and unfettered and wandering around at university I was totally knocked for six at the fact they they actually took themselves seriously when the poor pricks were so obviously inferior to women...

Caused me no end of problems. (They fuck you up, your mum and dad, they may not mean to but they do...)

I think my mum would advocate some kind of middle way nowadays.

God that sounds fab Wildstrawberryplace. I would so love to live in a feminist commune. But I would like men there, particularly ones with pecs. And I don't think I could countenance smoking in the kitchen, spliffs or otherwise.

(Actually I did live in a commune once, it was fab. People had jobs and worked and stuff, but there were just lots of people there. It was v. practical and affordable - but it wasn't a feminist one. (People would walk in on you when you were in the loo, in my new updated commune, I would vote for locks on the bathroom doors. )

Oh and also, I would want to establish a foolproof system for not running out of milk, loo roll or toothpaste.

HerBea - off topic I know but I went to a gay bar by accident (honest) earlier and the barmen were all absolutely gorgeous, pecs and all.

So perhaps a commune with a gay bar might be nice?

"I think that my Mum, if forced, would say that she agrees with me but it's as if she has to distance herself from feminism and from my campaigning. I have never been able to pinpoint why.

It would be lovely if my Mum could, from time to time, say that she's proud of what I do."

Jess, I think your mum is secretly proud of what you do and secretly agress with many of your views. But I think the reason that so many mums are like this is due to their concern. They think that getting into feminism will lead to harming the relationship with your DH and family and men in general. So they try to discourage you from doing it. They think feminism is dangerous, a bit like joining a sect, because it might end up harming your family life.

If you were campaigning for the Conservative Party or the Labour Party or for the Taxpayers' Alliance, then your mum would openly say that she was proud of you. But I think that feminism worries her and she tries to discourage you (even though she secretly admires you).

I think UmYeahLikeTotally's mum is a bit similar.

"but when I told her about a feminist book I was reading a few months ago, all she had to say was "turning into a lefty lesbian now are you?!"It was said in a jokey way, but I know that even saying "feminism" made her very uncomfortable."

I think it is a very common reaction, because she is worried that UmYeah might turn into a loony "leftie lesbian" and that these ideas might harm her relationship in the future.

activists can be wearing though

anyone proselytising on any cause is wearing

hence the way the majority of people used to turn their backs on the ardent socialist worker students when at university

activate is right. It is always said that the British people are pragmatists and not idealists. They distrust idealists and ideologues, that's why communism and fascism have never taken root here. They worry about anyone who is too ardent about any type of politics. They are worried about people being swept away by abstract ideas, they are pragmatists with their feet firmly on the ground.

You may be right claig - about the concern for the future thing. My mother (extremely bolshy herself) used to warn me as a teenager that boys don't like girls who are cleverer than them or who have strong opinions. God knows what I was supposed to do with that information, and I think she'd have been horrified if I'd started a simpering and giggling habit, but I think she felt it was her duty to warn me. Also for her generation growing up in the 60s they were dealing with male contemporaries who really did have a more dark ages mentality - they assume we'll be dealing with the same and we are hopefully aren't.

Nice, well i'm new to the feminist 'scene' and this was the first time I had mentioned anything remotely activist to my mum. I don't think she reacted the way she did because i'd been harping on about equality.