Problems of challenging the beliefs of older women

[CailinDana]

Both my DM and my MIL were brought up in deeply misogynistic environments, my mother in Catholic Ireland and my MIL as the daughter of a single mother in England. They both married men who hold blatantly sexist views. My father said when I was 12 that educating women is pointless as their place is in the home. He holds this view in spite of the fact that my mother is highly educated with a very responsible job and has been the breadwinner throughout their marriage while has barely worked at all. He still left almost all the domestic work and household organising to her and her life was far more difficult than it needed to be due to him.
FIL has similar views and is in general an insecure asshole who likes to big himself up at the expense of others.
Both women have the underlying belief that men are important, come first etc and have put up with treatment they shouldn't have due to this belief.
As an example when I moved in with dh

nice to hear from you grimbletart. Point taken!

Really thought provoking grimbletart Thank you.

Fwiw grimble I am always interested in the input of older people as I think time gives you such a different perspective on things.

I also agree that these attitudes are definitely not restricted to previous generations. I know a few women in their 20s/30s who not only accept being pushed around by men but expect it. Even friends who have pretty equal happy marriages still seem to slip into prioritising the man and ignoring their own dreams.

The She sat there when I said I'd been sexually abused

Sorry post went funny.

My mother was so steeped in misogyny growing up that it's in her bones. When I told her I was sexually abused as a child her main reactions were don't tell your father, get over it, stop making me feel guilty. No anger, no sadness, in fact other things she said implied that abuse was normal and to be expected so no need to be all silly and upset about it. She placed absolutely no value at all on my feelings, but warned me not to tell my dad as he would be upset. Only HIS feelings count. How fucked up is that?

Oof Cailin - that's so bad. :(
And yes, does just show how females are just not entitled to any level of empowerment in her world. :(

Sorry to hear that CailinD

Very interesting place, and I have Things to Say about my mum, as well as wanting to read it when I'm not half asleep. I shall return tomorrow.

place? I meant thread. See, this is why it needs to wait until tomorrow.

A really thought provoking thread.

I am constantly struck by how they have no conception of how some women were brought up to consider the complete erasure of themselves to be a virtuous life's work

I think that for some, this erasure of the self is associated with motherhood. Many women fail to protect themselves enough to ensure they can keep giving, keep supporting their children properly.

If a mother's needs are unimportant , how can her children's matter?

I have seen this self sacrifice in women of all ages - but in the older ones it is tainted with resentment as it has generally not been appreciated .

Some family tension at Christmas has its roots in the different cultural expectations around motherhood as martyrdom .

Sorry CailinDana, that is horrific.

Thinking about it all in the way laid out on this thread is so illuminating to me in the context of my own behaviours.
One of the awful insidious things is how (sometimes) the men involved have no idea that they basically have servants. (some men are well aware and like it like that) In those cases, even the job of keeping the staff in line has been taken away from them, they keep themselves in line.
I have had a lucky and happy childhood in many ways and have suffered no horrors, but I have carried with me into all relationships with men an inability to speak up for my needs; a desire to make looking after all of theirs appear effortless (I do not appear remotely servile); and a resentment against them for all this that they cannot have any possible understanding of as they never consciously did anything to bring any of this about; and depression and exhaustion

it is horrifically destructive

Thanks thumb caramel and mildred.

Thing is that seen from the outside my mum was an exemplary parent - organised, patient, efficient. Dinners cooked from scratch every single day without fail, always healthy food, always helped with homework, never drank or smoked and rarely went out, spent all her money on us etc etc. I think she really did her best. She was brought up with the undrrstanding that men make the decisions and women do the work and please men. It was as if the idea that we (her 3 girls) were actual people who expected to be treated as such was alien to her.

That's the really insidious evil of patriarchy - the oppressed pass on the oppression to the young.

Like I mentioned earlier I blamed my mother, unfairly, for all the failings of my childhood. It took me a long time to realise that she gave all she could while my dad gave as little as he could get away with.

Cailin, so sorry you were so badly let down. I really think you need to change your name to CailinMaith or CailinDeas.

Interesting thread! I was brought up by my maternal grandparents. My GM particularly impressed upon us growing up the importance of education, getting to university etc - she was very bitter that her life never met her expectations - she didn't get the career she wanted/get to travel etc. As I got older it became clear though, that what she saw as important was money - and that Uni was only a means to an end to meet "rich/richer" men and not for a career per se. She resents my (lovely) GF for not achieving more even though he has always pulled his weight round the house and doted on his children/GC - he is the one who always spent time with us. To this day, she is only interested in my dh/BILs careers, and though both my dsis and I have good ones of our own, she sticks to wondering how we get the washing and ironing done She is/was an intelligent woman, but certainly not a feminist.

How did you manage to get past your mother's minimising of what happened Callin? Did you have any subsequent conversations with her about it?

I talked to her about it twice and she said pretty much the same thing both times, as well as making it clear that she didn't want to hear about it again.

She did me a favour to be honest cunty. All my life I looked for emotional support and encouragement from her, I drove myself mad looking for it and hoping it would some day appear. The second time she fobbed me off wrt the abuse was the start of me realising how much time and energy I was wasting on trying to get a response from her. With the help of my psychiatric nurse (I was severely depressed at the time) I came to see that if she didn't respond to this she would never respond to anything. I moved country with my dh and did my best to detach from her. I don't consider her a mother really anymore just a nice lady who brought me up as best she could. She loves my dcs and is kind to them so I maintain her relationship with them. I tell her the barest details of my life. For example she doesn't know I had PND after dd was born.

It sucks but I'm a lot happier. My one worry is what would happen in the event something major like divorce happened in my life. Their obvious lack of concern would bother me and make things harder. I would haveto cut them off I think, at least temporarily.

agree with Molly on your name (although having been hurt and troubled by the epithet as a child have now reclaimed to myself the double meaning of "bold")

Others on

Oops others on MN have said the same about my name (which is an Irish phrase translated as "bold girl" which is how Irish people say "naughty girl") but it has no significance to me really other than something that used to appear in Irish readers. My parents rarely told us off and were very patient and I don't connect it with the abuse.

I do appreciate the kindness behind the suggestion to change it though

That's hard, Cailin. You are so strong, but I agree about the acceptance thing; we are a lot more "sane", when we can stop and think, " I'm the grown up here".

There wouldn't be any point in sending my Mum one of those, "Why Does He Do That?" books at this stage, would there? The simple answer to that question is because he's an appalling shit and he has been allowed to be.

My poor mother had a violent father, her mother died young, so she was left with him until she ran straight into the arms of dad. She would always say, "oh, if he ever lifted a finger to me, like my father, I'd be off". So with those words, she gave him carte Blanche to do everything but; nasty out bursts of temper, sulking, occasional pissed of of his skull drinking. That's all fine; he's great 90% of the time (hilarious, generous, sentimental, just lovely) but its ok to be scary and frighten her as it isn't physical.

I voiced all this a couple of years ago when he was being a shit and I said to mum in front of him, "you know this is abusive. Just because he isn't hitting you, doesn't mean it isn't abuse." He was going mad telling me to shut up and I carried on calmly saying I wouldn't shut up. Mum actually showed a bit of spark then and said she had a mouth of her own. She told him he was a big bully. He phoned to apologise and took mum on a weekend away, bought her some nice things - and so it continues. Except this time it's not ok.

What an interesting thread. I've always said this kind of enabling didnt happen in my life - I was brought up by a mother and grandmother who both worked outside the home, my GM in particular was a real trailblazer who always worked - although she was working class which did have a different expectation of working after marriage and children.

However, they both did this - its just that my DGD was a lovely man so there were no obvious issues. But this amazing, strong, smart woman still did everything in her power to make him the King of the home. Catholics too - quite old-style. The thing I heard most in my childhood was 'try to be like Our Lady'. Said with love, but still an insidious message.

My stepfather is a shit however, and of course my mother then went on to repeat her mother's behaviour. I just hadn't made that link before, because as I said in my grandmother's case my grandad was lovely. I think perhaps this thread has made me think more kindly of my mother, or at least given me a little bit more understanding of where she's coming from.

Hugs Cailin. I'm so sorry your mother reacted that way.

Thanks Cunty and Wilson.

I think it took a massive amount of courage and strength for you to stand up to your father that way cunty. And you did get through in some small way. I think it's very hard for someone whose spent so much of their life living one to admit it wasn't a good choice. I've had a few revealing conversations with my mother where it's clear she's aware of how useless my father is. When I've said leave or make him step up she's just laughed as if such things are impossible. When I was going through a tough time with my dh and I wanted to talk to her she basically said "do you want to divorce him?no, well put up with it then." She had absolutely no concept of talking about things and agreeing a compromise. In her mind the man can do whatever he likes and the woman has to work around that or leave - but with the extra kicker that leaving isn't actually a real option.

Your "be like Our Lady" memory sent shivers down my spine Wilson. It seems to me that the main message the Catholic church sends out is "women are subsevient vessels." The level of misogyny is really quite staggering. The vast majority of my mother's large family still live in Ireland and my cousins are bringing up their children Catholic because that's what yoy do. 92% of Irish school are Catholic. So it continues. At least one of my cousins is in a marriage where she is a meaningless drudge. No notice is taken of that, her mother simply facilitates by bringing up the shithead's children for him without any criticism. Again the men do as they please while the women struggle gratefully. Sad.

These women were raised to conform and they did their best to ensure their daughters also conformed. Knowing their place and gender role to serve the men in their lives.

It meant that abuse of all kinds went unchallenged. Ireland was behind the curve but the toleration of horrendous abuse was clearly happening in the UK in the 70s as well. That was the world our mothers knew.