Is there a place in feminism for girls who hate their mothers?

Mothers are almost universally portrayed as benign. They're protectors, providers, nurturers. They're also a child's first oppressor but this has hardly been acknowledged. Indeed, it is considered outrageous to say it, but almost certainly she was the first person to ever hit us. Feminism has long decried the "demonization" of mothers and never examined maternal authority over children as a form of oppression. This is not surprising since contemporary feminism is entirely adult-centric, girls are nothing more than tokens, many adolescent girls campaigned for women's right to vote in the suffragette movement, they knew they still wouldn't be allowed to vote but they thought they owed that to the women they were going to become while adult feminists never campaigned for lowering the voting age to honor the girls they were - Smart, bright girls who found themselves at the interception of adultism and misogyny and branded by the state as incompetent. It's hard to overstate the emptiness of "rebel girl" feminism. Rebel, girl, but only after you turn eighteen. Until then, remain submitted to the authority of your parents, they know what's best for you. You're way too emotional to decide for yourself, you'll put yourself at risk! Trust me sweetheart, I remember being your age. And don't you dare to criticize the school system! Don't you know there are countless girls around the world who can't access education? "Goodnight Stories For Rebel Girls" is about women. Adult feminism says women aren't children and this is why they deserve equal rights. Girls are children, their oppression is not problematic, since boys are treated similarly the principle of discrimination doesn't apply. A serious analysis of how girls' experiences of gendered oppression are exacerbated by their status as a "child" and of how mothers groom girls to be "good", feminine girls, as well as how mothers' violence towards their children reinforces understandings of love based on domination would undermine that reasoning. There have been less adultist years of the feminist movement, several second wave feminists attacked the family for the oppression not only of women but of children as well and didn't shy away from discussing the fact that women confined in the home in the role of carers of children unleashed their anger and frustrations on them, the child is after all the archetypal target of female violence, a violence that's legitimized and encouraged by the patriarchy rather than suppressed and deemed "unladylike". A pretty housewife with a child over her lap is spanking them. The unbridled rage doesn't make her masculine, paradoxically she's more feminine, while even hitting a pet would make her less so. She's a "good mom", who truly cares for her children, unlike those degenerate permissive sluts, after all, America's worst mom is a woman who let her child ride the subway alone, not a child abuser. These aren't these years. Contemporary feminists are actually more invested in increasing the surveillance that permeates girls' lives (attempts at restricting girls' access to media or the Internet are sometimes framed as feminist, as well as attempts to prevent their daughters from "sexualizing themselves" by telling them what to wear, pop feminism's attitude towards girls is purely maternalistic and the refusal to challenge maternal authority and older women's power over girls more generally helps to frame this as correct and necessary. I say "pop feminism" because academic feminism has some currents where this type of discourse isn't as universally accepted) than they are in promoting their rights. For them, it's okay for middle aged men who hold misogynistic views to be regarded as universally more competent than all teenage girls purely because they're older, the law says it. They tell us not to "mother shame" but I will never stop doing it. From the mom yelling at her child in the mall to the one telling her daughter "sit like a girl", from the mom who slaps her child to the one who forces her to change because she doesn't like how she's dressed: You don't need to be what society defines as "abusers" to be oppressors. My ability to see the extent of female abuse towards children as caused by the fact that women have to perform the bulk of domestic labor and child care doesn't mean they get to be justified. They're still afforded life and death power over children. Gendered socialization is violence and women perform it everyday because the patriarch assigned them the task to socialize the next generation of gendered adults, it is no less violent just because women are pressured to raise gender conforming children where the alternative is being branded as a bad mother. "Mother shaming" truly exists, but it should mean that mothers are pressured by society to micromanage every aspect of their children's lives and be always ready to correct them, not that it's wrong to call a mother who physically "disciplines" an abuser, because she is. Misogynists who shame mothers do not mean it that way. It's not a coincidence that at the same time when women with children had started to work outside the home moral panics about children's behavior surfaced. Mothers, by abandoning their natural role as caretakers and tyrants were raising delinquents and whores who would have grown up to be bad men and women. Today mothers who work, partly because they believe that's the right thing to do and partly because they risk criminalization sign their children up to do adult-led activities after a tiring schoolday rather than leaving them home alone or roaming the streets unsupervised. Children who today complain that their mothers are always working do not do so because it's actually good for children to spend most of their time with mom but because when mothers are home they get to rest. Working mothers allowed children to escape adults' prying gazes for a while, today female emancipation and adult control have been reconciled. For misogynists, "selfish" mothers are permissive mothers (is there a worst insult than "permissive" for a parent?). "You're so selfish, you'd rather place your child in front of the TV than actually giving them attention", it's highly likely the child would rather watch TV at the moment and wouldn't want to be bothered by an adult. The same applies for the internet for an older child or teen. When they will get tired they will turn it off. "Selfish mothers" are those who seek to maximize the freedom and independence of their children as much as possible in our misopedic society, not those who put their feelings above their child's, those who smack, those who force their child to conform to their expectations. Shulamith Firestone knew that the enforced social dependence of children entraps women too in a form of dependence. Yes, children are a burden to women and it's not adultist to say it if it's followed by saying that the role of "child" is first and foremost a burden to children, and it makes sense for children to hate their mothers a bit. They wouldn't be human if they didn't, mothers, in the eyes of a child are dictators. As an adult it's easier to contextualize the way women treat children, "failure to control a child" can be classed as neglect. The stress working both in your workplace and in your home with little assistance from your husband takes a toll on you, it gets very tempting to let it out on the dependent child you own. But I don't feel guilty for having hated my mother my whole childhood and adolescence, not because she was in any way exceptional. Because she was a mother. I hated her for all the slaps she gave me even though she stopped when I became a teen, I hated her for trying to make me conform to femininity at first with coercion and then, when I started imposing myself, with the promise of rewards. I hated her for dismissing me when I complained of chronic pain. But mostly I hated her because I couldn't leave her. And I know she must have hated me too, because I was a "bad" kid and if I was a "bad" kid that meant she was a bad mom, a bad woman. "Maternal authority" harms mothers and children alike but I don't want to hear "parenting is hard" from opposers of youth liberation. It's the consequence of naturalizing children's dependence and of viewing any form of noncompliance as a personal failure of the parent, the mother most of the times. You can't have your cake and eat it too. My confidence in the fact that maternal authority is necessary to uphold the gender binary is that a lot of gender socialization from mothers comes from a desire to quash the child's rebellion. "Boys don't cry" a mother will scream at her little boy just to make him stop crying even though deep down she knows that he won't listen and keep crying, because those tears express the pain of being a child. "Act like a lady", a mother will whisper at her little girl who is tired of acting like a doll for the pleasure of the adults around her when she is sick of living by others' rules. The rebellion of the child doesn't oppress the mother, patriarchal and adultist society which compels her to crush it so that she can be a good mother and her child a good child do. The rebellion of the child perhaps allows the mother to fantasize for a moment of a world where she won't have to do this, where her value wouldn't be based on how well she molded another human being into a good worker, even if this fantasy manifests as a fear. Rebellious children were thought to be under malignant influence once, even demonic possession, later it was the fault of the weakening of parental authority and "permissiveness", often misogynistically attributed either to the lack of a father in the home or to working mothers as I've mentioned, today the rebellion of children is medicalized. Oppositional Defiant Disorder. As a feminist I'm concerned that most of those diagnosed with it are boys. Why aren't girls rebelling? What does it tell us about mothers? That "maternal authority" is misogynistic. A little bit of misbehaving might be condoned for a boy as long as it doesn't get truly threatening for adult authority, it doesn't label you instantly as a "permissive" mother. Girls aren't allowed to even entertain rebellious thoughts. This is why they blossom less often in Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Or in "behavioral problems". Boys are right not to sit still at school, more girls should do it. Because I was seen as rebellious, I was told I hurt my mother. She told me "you're killing me" once, after I had again put up a fight because I didn't want to go to school to be bullied by classmates and humiliated by teachers. I wasn't. The designation of school as the child's place was. Because mothers are often some of the only adults in a child's life and way more present than fathers, for the child the mother is the embodiment of their oppression. She is the face of adult supremacy. They hate her and they should. They don't hate just her - they hate their father because when he is at home he's worse and they hate their teachers. But there is hardly anything more taboo than hating your mother. Or maybe not. There is one. Hating Mothers. I despise the social role of mother, that doesn't mean I despise all women who have children. Some are trying their best to minimize the damage of misopedic society. They're all oppressors, but most don't have any other choice since the alternative is being outcasted by society and imprisoned by the state, there are definitely moments of tenderness in parent-child relations in general and mother-child relations in particular that are genuine and loving. But it's likely that Roe v Wade will be overturned and it's the moment to question whether Mothers are necessary and beneficial rather than being a violent construct that constraints children and women. It's clear that Mothers are unpaid workers at the service of the state whose purpose is producing and refining obedient future citizens, no matter what it takes, no matter if they destroy themselves or abuse and kill a child or two in the process, and it's clear that very soon it will not even be longer a choice to become one. The romanticization of motherhood which conditions us to view it as entirely positive and to associate any type of negativity to it as a sort of blasphemy against Mary herself leads to the fact that there is an amazingly large number of people who don't think forced birth is inhumane. How could you not want to become a mother? How could you not like being a child? Is there anything more perfect and pure than mother-child unity, what do you mean you're both having a terrible time? The fact that the draft opinion to overturn Roe contains a reference to the "domestic supply of infants" tells us a lot about what Mothers and Children are. Slave labourers and objects. There shouldn't even be one feminist who opposes youth liberation and family abolition, but since there are so many, no, I don't think there is a place in feminism for girls who hate their mothers. Whether they were misogynistic, homophobic, controlling, violent doesn't matter. She's your mom, love her, and don't forget to act outraged when someone admits they don't love theirs. I don't think full on hatred of one's mother is common, but children who only love their mothers probably don't exist. Ambivalent feelings towards them are the most widespread. But we don't talk about it. We have to lie to others and ourselves that it was our "immaturity" who made us hate her when she hit us when it was the fact that she was causing us pain. A lot of us have to because if we'll become mothers, we will have to do it as well. Girls who hate their mothers make "bad" mothers. So what we do is point out finger at the girl we used to be and label her as a "brat". It wasn't so bad, after all. Society pushes us to placate our rage towards our parents because if none of us did adult supremacy would have already ended, but most of us learned misogynistic concepts of what a girl is from her, most of us learned that being big and strong means you get to subjugate someone who isn't from her, that to be hit can mean to be loved from her, that independence is always dangerous and dependence is always safe from her. It wasn't any more fair because she was our mother. There isn't anything sacred about motherhood. Not only it can, it should be questioned.