Mumsnet FWR Guide to De-Programming Yourself From Self-Harming Kindness

[arranfan]

Vipers - start writing.

I'm more convinced than ever that we need A Mumsnet FWR Guide to De-Programming Yourself From Self-Harming Kindness

Helen Saxby says, Women are socialised to be kind so it makes it difficult for us when standing up for our rights is painted as being 'unkind'. We should just feel 'entitled' instead, like men do

I think it goes beyond that to the point where we self-harm or we're implicitly being coerced into causing harm to other women.

De-programming suggestions?

Beryl runs my life but I’m taking baby steps away from her, thanks to this board.

I refuse to martyr myself to others and this makes me unpopular with those that would like me to! Which I suppose is two advantages in itself.

I’ve noticed in life that if someone wants to think badly of you, they will, regardless of what you do for them. This works the other way around too - we all know a lazy arse who is waited on hand and foot and yet can do no wrong. On a personal level I do enough so I don’t feel guilty where I feel obligated and save my energy and kindness for where it’s reciprocated or where I feel the need is stronger than the ability to reciprocate.

If people were to react with shock to that relatively small but important action, then that would be very telling.

It wasn't so much about other people's reactions, it was about my inner-Beryl's reaction to me putting myself first.

I have a Beryl too. She is backed up solidly by Mary Martyr. The deprogramming is very tough - I had a double whammy of societal gender expectations and religious ones.
Saying no is an interesting one. It’s been useful as an indicator for me of men I don’t want near me. It’s shocked me quite how many really can’t handle a woman saying a straight ‘no’.

What a great thread! I think that to an extent all of MN FWR is the Guide to de-programming yourself from self-harming kindness.

I think what Lang said about an all woman discussion is really key too. It has taught me so much to see so many of the intelligent women on here pushing back against the entitled males that venture on, assuming we should all fawn over them, bow down to their wisdom and justify ourselves to them.

I thought I was doing ok until I had kids then suddenly it hit - Beryl reared her ugly head!

We actually had a discussion once where DH claimed he couldn't tell the dirty from the clean laundry baskets (we have both, the latter is for washed but as yet unsorted laundry). He did this with a straight face - this is why he couldn't help with the laundry (or even get dirty clothes in the basket), and I got so far as saying I'd MAKE A BLOODY SIGN for the laundry baskets before I checked myself. FFS. DH has a PhD but apparently can't tell clean from dirty laundry? Bloody Beryl. What the hell was wrong with me?!

I tend to ask myself these days if what I'm being asked to take responsibility for is reasonable and to clearly state that I don't think it's my responsibility if it's not - I still get caught out though.

I'm also trying to get DD to think of herself a bit more. Boys are constantly being unkind to her without consequence, but girls seem to be held to a higher standard. I'm trying to be very aware of this and not reinforce it. I've started telling her I don't think she should be kind to people who aren't kind to her. I think it's important to make the distinction that not being kind (at a personal sacrifice) doesn't automatically mean being unkind.

I'm amused by the food suggestion - it is really good and definitely worth trying; I remember growing up wondering why my dad and grandads got the best chunks of everything. Ironically I married a man with gastro issues who has to eat small meals, so I genuinely do get the larger portion and my girls aren't getting the programming I had.

Scabby bits get shared out between us all, mind

Juells
Yes, Sisters of (no) Mercy for me as well!

I’ve noticed in life that if someone wants to think badly of you, they will, regardless of what you do for them.

Effectively, it wouldn't matter how harmless life you lead, your mere existence can be an affront to some.

I know men who expect to speak genuinely sexist/racist/homophobic or even general tripe completely unchallenged and that it very aggressive even to demur. I've not had my disagreements with one of them go at all well despite my (unwarranted) respectful approach. They know that men speak, women listen and that for a woman to disagree is an egregious social offence for which the woman should be ostracised.

DH claimed he couldn't tell the dirty from the clean laundry baskets

Machines! Machines are manly! You ladies couldn’t possibly understand! Except the washing machine, that one is an impenetrable mystery....

DH claimed he couldn't tell the dirty from the clean laundry baskets

I've seen grown men with professional jobs state that they can't tell if food is OK (we're talking about tomato sauce (not ketchup, the sort of sauce that goes on pasta) that has mould growing on it).

And that they have no idea that if you fold damp things on themselves they will not only be unlikely to dry, they may also get mouldy.

That if you walk into a room and it's buzzing with flies, that's a clue that something, somewhere is going bad.

That if you step over something 6 times a day, it's not reasonable for you to state that you didn't notice it.

Now, I know that they say this to elicit indulgent smiles and be enabled in their strategic incompetence. That it is, for some people, unkind to call this out as strategic incompetence. But, they're still off-loading a task onto someone else and attempting to establish that they shouldn't be asked to perform such basic functions.

Thank you for this thread OP, it's fascinating.

The hardest thing for me is just being aware enough to notice when I'm being overly kind at the time so I can stop it!
I had been making some progress but find I regress when stressed or tired -it's like doormat is the default position when I don't have the strength to be mindful of it.

Years of dealing with responsibilities as a carer, an insecure job and health issues have left little energy for personal growth.

I'm sure many women are dealing with similar situations and it's brilliant to read how others handle these things.

I love that Beryl has a name now!

Here's my thing I'm trying: I'm calling out really clearly at work where someone else hasn't done their thing. There was traditionally a really fluffy and personal work culture where certain people were "in" and it was really "not done" to point out things left undone. Now we are professionalising and certain people (me) are under a lot of pressure. I have not caught up with this till now, in pointing out where people just haven't done their bit and I'm not equipped to do mine.

No more. People can just get on with it or have it exposed to the world that they couldn't be arsed.

NotANotMan and OP

I am loving this thread.

It is true that kindness shouldn’t be coercedor deserved. I stand corrected.

But I do feel like running a world full of entitled people means there is no hope but for it to become a jungle where people endlessly fight to draw territorial boundaries and push each other out of the way.

I do think men as in the sexist egoistic men would’nt have been able to coexist together if it wasn’t for the compassionate kind gluing humanity together.

I do think though that it’s not fair for us to be self sacrificial to take it upon ourselves to rescue the compassion in this world in a wider sense.

However I’m just trying to give some meaning to our compassionate tendencies and how it makes this world a better place. And I feel like our standards of how to be or not to be should be based around such morals of humanity and not on perception by the opposite gender.

So it’s not like kindness is deserved or reserved. More like, shouldn’t we be celebrating compassion anyway as humans.. the type of kindness which makes us feel good afterwards.

And those who have been programmed to take advantage of us to be exceptionally excluded from our formula - guilty until proven innocent kind of thing ?

I probably don’t make sense.

Like for me , something like, unless a man shows signs of kindness then I wouldn’t want to be my compassionate self with them and I’ll just be friends with a bloke mentality.

But in my day to day relations I’m my compassionate me.

I’m just exploring . This is a topic dear to me

I notice this so much in dramatisations. I find myself being annoyed over depictions that are staged to show the woman/female partner as demanding and unreasonable - but merely show her failing to conform to the unreasonable things that are implicitly demanded of her.

Only part way through the thread, but oh, god, this, so much!!!!

Poor DS was witness to a huge rant from me over an episode of the teen programme "The Next Step" over this. Boy has had crush on girl for ages. Boy asks girl out, very, very publicly, in the sort of cringe making scenario where your choices are acquiesce or look like a shit. Girl actually musters the courage to say "actually, no thanks, don't think of you that way." She is then ostracised by the rest of the dance troop - and (the killer) the show makes it quite clear that they and the boy are meant to be right and she is meant to be wrong.

Boy oh boy did I rant about boundaries and emotional coercion still being coercion and "no means no" over that one.

Compassion is a good word, ILoveHumanity. I like the Buddhist take on it- compassion doesn’t mean doing exactly what someone else wants and self-compassion is essential.

bluetits I will look into the budhist take on this for sure !

I agree about self compassion. I also have been told that the difference between being “too nice” and “kind” is that the first one is not a choice and the second one is.

I certainly feel that- most kindness- should be a choice.

However, I do think if there is a way to have certain traits be expected from society as a whole .. men and women, then it’s jjst a nicer world to be in. Not everything. Not doormatting anyone. Just certain things ..

Like how we are expected to get up and let a pregnant woman sit on the tube. It’s expected because it should be.

So I would say I would like to choose whether I’m kind or not, unless the greater good in a fair system dictates that it’s necessady then I don’t mind not having a choice because I won’t be taken advantage of , I would expect something in return.

In the olden days (the 80's) assertiveness training for women was very much a 'thing' and I bought an excellent book about it called A Woman In Your Own Right by Anne Dickson. I see that the 30th anniversary (!) edition is now available - I strongly recommend it!

Love this thread so much. I just wrote on a thread about finding and holding the difficult middle ground, then found this thread. Reading and thinking. Thank you all :)

Cruel to be kind. YES!
Pathological altruism. NO! We can be kind without being stupid. Discerning.

Absolutely angry at those TV set ups where women are framed to be seen as shouty or demanding when they are actually being reasonable and not self harming, or wanting standards to rise.

I saw a classic Coronation Street the other day and there was a scene in a amusement arcade type shop where Deirdre was trying to get the manager to stop letting kids in to gamble away their money. He was a childish, selfish, scrote obviously, and after she was quite rightly standing up to him and not being cowed, he made some comment about pitying her husband or something like that.

That episode was 30 years ago.

The problem with us talking in public about this (:)) is that we in a completely different place from certain other people who will take this "empowering" language on to be even more selfish dickheads.

I do feel like running a world full of entitled people means there is no hope but for it to become a jungle where people endlessly fight to draw territorial boundaries and push each other out of the way.

I think its more about the western world having become a more equal, more compassionate and entitled, misogynist behaviours being very much less acceptable.

The narrative is:

Whole lot of stuff about inclusion and equality and intersectionality (but working only one way because reasons)

Whole lot of stuff about the need for love and tolerance
(but working only one way because reasons)

Whole lot of stuff about high, rigid, policed expectations around safety, inclusion, kindness that severely restrict everyone else to a code of positive behaviour
(but working only one way because reasons)

Basically it boils down to a whole lot of recognition of high expected behaviour and standards, and therefore there is a lot of careful explanation as to why they are a special exception and don't have to follow them or feel bad about not following them. But why they should definitely apply to everyone else. It's a brilliant reason not to take responsibility for own behaviour, and to separate the world into providers/nurturers and recipients. (Mostly them, and some friends.)

It's the same as an abusive man who could explain very articulately and pleasantly why he keeps his wife on 20p a day per head to feed her and the children and refuses her all other money (and why this is all her fault and she drove him to it and it's perfectly reasonable and rational anyway), but comes home with an expensive takeaway, sits at the table and eats it himself while they eat beans on toast. And sees that as wholly justified

Lundy Bancroft has written books about the entitlement and distorted perceptions of abusive men that allow them to rationalise why they should be treated to the high standards to which they feel they deserve, while not extending those standards to others. It's emotionally stuck somewhere around two and a half in terms of development. Bancroft often challenges these men on their many, many reasons they use to deflect taking responsibility or admitting they do it because they plain want to and like what they get out of it.

I did assertiveness training many years ago for work and it was actually really useful at the time. I remember very little of it other than when you say no, think of it as saying yes to the other thing. So 'no i cant make the teas for the meeting' is 'yes i can focus on what im paid to do' it helps me a lot.

The other stuff was around playing a role so if someone is agressive they put you in the role of victim so you need to put yourself in the role of calm parent with a naughty child. It was very work based but it did help me manage a few colleagues.

I'm getting better in my personal life at being more assertive but obviously there are real risks for women and some of this conditioning is a bit of self preservation to as lots of people don't like it of you stand up for yourself.

I have just rtft - such a great one- and when PackingSoap introduced the idea of naming the inner self-sacrificing character in order to help to disassociate from her - I thought 'what a great idea! I'm going to do that'. Then I thought - shit Beryl is such a good name I think I can't top that.

So glad to see others gave also adopted the name Beryl - I am totally nicking it. PackingSoap

Seriously Beryl needs to fuck off.

I am now starting to think of what Beryl has done to me and I don't know if I can stand the fury it gives me.

Seriously Beryl needs to fuck off

And the chapter headings begin to emerge...