Often father and daughter look down on mother together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate. Radical Feminist Therapy, Bonnie Burstow (1992)
A couple of days ago, I was scrolling down my Twitter feed, when I saw this quote in a tweet. It came up on my feed because my mum had favourited it. I felt an immediate blow to my stomach. Did she relate? Had I behaved this way towards her? As I scrolled down the replies to the tweet I found many girls realising and admitting that in their years growing up, they had often sided with their more fun-loving ‘good cop’ father, to patronise the more worried ‘bad cop’ mother. On the other hand, there were a few replies to the tweet opposing this outlook and explaining that their mother wore the pants in the relationship and that often the daughter and mother would laugh at the father together.
I showed the tweet to my friend. She immediately related. She explained how her stepfather has always tried to create a dynamic where her and him are in on some private joke about her mother’s stupidity. She said she felt that the difference between a mother and daughter making fun of a father was that it normally came from a place of good humour, whereas a father and daughter making fun of a mother was normally more subtle and at its core genuinely disrespectful and rooted in misogyny.
I find it interesting that I saw this tweet when I did. My older sister has just had a baby at age 29. I am watching- first-hand, her transformation from young woman to mother. I can see that she is more attached to the baby than her husband. I can see that she is more changed than he is. She has been through nine months of hormonal change where I have witnessed her gradual emotional shift. Now that she has had the baby, she spends more time with it than her husband does, because no matter how equal their relationship is, she is the one with breasts and she has to have the baby on her chest every day for multiple hours, and she intends on doing this for at least a year. It only makes sense for her to feel more of a sense of responsibility. She’s more cautious about things she used to be lax about, she’s more tired, she’s more serious.
Her husband, on the other hand, is very much the same as before. He hasn’t been through any hormonal changes. He misses his freedom. He misses partying. He tells this to me over dinner when I come round to visit them. Whilst I’m there, there are a couple of moments where my sister expresses worry or caution about the baby. When she does this, he catches eyes with me, as if to raise eyebrows at her overreactions. I realise that he does this because I am still more in the daughter category than the mother category.
I am learning how because they often feel more a sense of responsibility, it’s more common for mothers to become the ‘bad cop’ parent and consequently ostracised in the family. The father can be more removed, and so he becomes the good cop parent. He is often still more childlike in his mindset, and so as the baby grows into a child, he creates an alliance between them, and a running joke against the ‘irrationally’ worried mother. We learn to expect everything from our mothers and nothing from our fathers. And so in a moment where the father does take on more responsibility, or perform an act of care, he is applauded and viewed a hero for doing something that the mother does all of the time.
I’ve always called myself a feminist since the age of 12 when I learnt what the term meant. But as I have turned from a girl into a woman, I’m realising how as a young girl, you don’t face all of the repercussions of sexism in the way a slightly older woman or mother does. As a young girl, you’re more androgynous, and removed from the female identity. You have the power of youth. You view the idea of a woman as something separate to yourself. You romanticise the idea of being ‘grown up’, meaning being 18. But a woman past 40 you don’t form an opinion of. It’s not something to be respected. Unless she’s still beautiful in the eyes of a society, an ‘older’ woman is not paid attention to, or worse she’s made a joke out of. As much as it pains me to admit it now, I felt an underlying shame of my mother. I wanted her to be beautiful, because I thought that then people would respect her. She was the breadwinner of the family and a total powerhouse, and yet whenever my dad found a way to make her look stupid or overdramatic for being a caring parent, he would, and he would try and make me and my sister laugh at her too. And it wasn’t only my mother who I disrespected. I laughed along with the boys in school when they made fun of the older female teacher’s appearances, I didn’t respect older women the way I respected older men. Misogyny was ingrained in my outlook from a young age and yet I didn’t really notice because I didn’t feel like a victim myself. I felt a false sense of empowerment because I was receiving male attention and approval.
The oppression of women has created a breach among us, especially between mothers and daughters. Women cannot respect their mothers in a society which degrades them; women cannot respect themselves. Adrienne Rich
As the quote states, the daughter will not be saved from the mother’s fate. One day I will be a mother, and if I’m no longer beautiful in the eyes of society, and I’m no longer childlike and carefree, because I have had the life of another human in my hands and have been forced into maturity, I will probably feel the impact of sexism more than ever before. Just as I now can’t stand the thought that I once disrespected my own mother so much, I can’t stand the thought of my future children growing up to do the same to me. I hope by then we have managed to make some progress as a society and treat the older woman with the respect she truly deserves.
Iso
Iso is a writer and filmmaker based in East London. She is passionate about all things erotic and leads a sexy, shame-free life in hope that she can inspire others to do the same. Originally from a Northern seaside town, she is naturally drawn to the best things in life: candyfloss, trashy karaoke bars and heart-shaped sunglasses.
