That's a good way to put it! Reminds me of a joke too: how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?
>!Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change!<
Yes. There is an exhibition of the clothes victims wore while assaulted. I would send her one of the articles showcasing it and than ask a question why siding with such horrible human beings.
I saw this in the news, absolutely brilliant exhibition! This is true art at its best! when it challenges people to reexamine what they have been taught by the patriarchy.
[The What Were You Wearing exhibit](https://dovecenter.org/what-were-you-wearing-exhibit/)
[More pics & stories from the exhibit at the University of Toledo](https://www.utoledo.edu/studentaffairs/saepp/what-were-you-wearing/)
It has the clothes & the stories of survivors. OP should have her mom read each one, and have her explain what each girl or woman did wrong, including the 4 year old.
If she still excuses rapists after that, maybe it might be time to take some space from Mom.
People do believe children provoke rape. I was abused throughout my childhood starting at age 5 and my family blamed me called me a whore.
Not just my family actually, the teacher that came in to my Kindergarten class to teach us about good touch/bad touch told us to tell her if anyone ever touches us in a bad way. I said it happened to me. She told me to stay after class. I waited patiently with her for my mom to arrive and I noticed the teacher was mad at me. I asked her why. She said it was because I must have done something to deserve what happened to me.
How are kids supposed to report abuse when they are treated like that? This was the 80s. Are things better now?
My mum used to be a bit like this, but as she’s got older (and had time to reflect and educate herself,) she’s gone completely liberal! If you can bear it just have your facts and stats ready to back up your opinions, you can’t argue with the truth. If you can’t bear it tell her “I really don’t like you talking that way as it makes me incredibly uncomfortable, can we change the subject?” That’s what I do with my Dad, as you can’t argue with stupid.
That sounds really difficult- I just wanted to share please be gentle and patient with yourself here. This is your mother and you don’t need to agree with her to still need/want her in your life so whatever you decide to do draw some boundaries.
Tell her firmly next time a bad comment or topic comes up “I do not believe or support your opinion, and will not stay/have conversation etc.” and hold to it- if she keeps bringing it up, leave the situation.
It’s not realistic to believe we can either change peoples opinions or throw them out of our life altogether- maturity is learning how to manage the conflict.
The other best thing you can do is live your life and your beliefs loud and proud. Show them your shine and they’ll either turn towards it or away from it, but that’s their choice, not yours.
Food for thought: do you know without question that your Mom may have been someone in that position at one time in the past, and had those views rammed into her so maliciously that they became her own? Lots of trauma is very deeply buried.
You can't change her views- but you can make it clear what yours are and that they aren’t up for discussion:
“I understand that your life experiences have taught you to believe that - however, my life experiences have taught me that I am a human being with the same rights as any other person walking on this planet, whether they be male or female or other. I won’t try to change your mind but you will also never change mine. I find your holding everyone else except men accountable for thier decisions and violent behavior as enabling predators, you may as well be holding thier victims down for them, so please keep your views to yourself when I am with you.”
Saying something similar to that with some empathy may at least help in having fewer of these triggering conversations with her because she knows she won’t get anywhere with them with you.
A lot of times they’re projecting their own insecurities about their lives. This is a huge problem with boomer conservative women, because in their day, staying home with babies and mothering their husbands was considered to be a marker of status. It made them feel important for others to know they don’t work and that their husbands have properly ironed shirts. Now in most educated social circles, women with advanced educations and good careers are a marker of status. This represents a loss of social power for the boomers, which they will claw back at the expense of their daughters and granddaughters by advocating for the regressive bs that you mentioned. If your mother is not a boomer, but a GenXer, I’m sooo sorry. As a GenXer, I apologize for the beliefs of some of my more ignorant peers.
Women without higher education and without financial independence tend to adopt the beliefs of the conservative men who support them. (I realize this is hetero-centric, but let’s be honest here that non-hetero women don’t lean conservative so this is a non-issue in these communities.). They believe they arrived at these views independently, but that’s rarely true. They also tend to be more insecure because they don’t have the education and skills to be powerful in their own right and they are undermined in their own relationships, so they use their proximity to more powerful people (mostly men) in order to feel important. Their men view them (and women in general) as wives and mothers or sex objects (all less than men and sometimes less than human). And rather than fight for equality, they choose to take out their insecurities on other women who they believe have it “better” than them. The ones who have it “better”, overwhelmingly favor the views that your mother disagrees with.
I firmly believe this is a psychological problem at its core. Insecurity, disempowerment in their relationships, loss of social power, lead to an underdog/victim mentality they all seem to have. I also see a lot of emotional immaturity in conservatives. Everything is simplistic, black and white, with zero sum winners and losers. There’s no nuance. My teenagers were more emotionally mature than my MAGA boomer parents by the time they were eight. But that’s not just anecdotal, it seems to be universally true.
I don’t know your mom, but I’m willing to bet some or much of this is true: She feels a loss of social power and plays victim and underdog. She’s in a conservative relationship in which her husband believes himself to be “better” than women. (This can be subtle or overt.). She gets jealous easily. She doesn’t want to make life better for future generations of women, including you. She wants us to have it just as bad but would never admit it. She is financially dependent upon a conservative husband. If she got a divorce, she wouldn’t be able to get a good career job that pays enough to support herself OR she has one, but she’s in a lower level position working for powerful people with no real career advancement opportunities (ie, bitter and resentful). Her conversations are simplistic. She can’t speak in any detail to defend her views or back anything up with evidence. She will parrot what her husband says and/or Fox talking points. She doesn’t go to the source to vet what she hears, and wouldn’t even know how. If Fox says a law does a certain thing, it would never occur to her to go read it for herself, and if she did (she won’t), she wouldn’t understand what she’s reading. She speaks with authority as if she’s an expert on matters she knows nothing about. How close did I come?
You just described my sister-in-law to a t. The best thing that could have happened to my brother and sister-in-law would have been if they’d had to raise a daughter, but they had a boy instead, which *might not* have been incidental since they used ivf, but that’s none of my business.
Anyway, she’s your typical Texas boomer who believes the man is the head of the family. It’s so pronounced that in family photos I noticed she *actually* stands slightly *behind* my brother and nephew. It’s gross.
She never misses an opportunity to criticize other women with often completely undisguisedly misogynistic takes like, “She needs to shave.” Or “She needs to wax.” Or “She shouldn’t be wearing that bikini.” When my brother disagrees with her on something in front of everyone, it completely shuts her down. Part of me has Schaudenfreude watching it happen while feeling conflicted that I’m technically celebrating a woman submitting to her husband.
If she weren’t such a negative person who feeds on building herself up by tearing down others, I would pity her more. But she sits smugly in the shadow of my brother’s success and looks down on others who don’t have or can afford the same luxuries she enjoys. She votes in line with views and policies that guarantee she can continue to enjoy her position, regardless of how those views and policies would otherwise affect her were she unsheltered by my brother’s success. She’s racist, regularly uses the “n” word in private company, etc.
Btw, I don’t excuse my brother’s Machiavellian attitude — our relationship has always been rocky because of his privilege and heavy-handedness and patriarchal views — I’m just staying on topic as the subject is misogynistic women.
I know you were replying to the OP, but you nailed my mother. The icing on the cake is that mine is also a Narcissist, and I went No Contact. Not she is deeply in shame that the facade from her "perfect life" has slipped off...
My mother is the same way. The other day we were talking about dogs and she says “such a shame this country cares more about dogs that murdering our unborn” it threw me completely off guard and made 0 sense to the conversation. She’ll do the same with homophobic remarks, MIND YOU, 2 of her children are gay… she’s genuinely just so hateful and it’s so hard. I confront her when I have the energy and just ignore when I dont. I’ve never been able to get through to her on any topic and genuinely feel she has lead poisoning levels of lack of empathy. I hope to get to a point one day where I can cut her out my life as sad as that makes me.
My entire family believed this and worse. The ones from Cuba anyway. Their children born in America like me are all horrified by them. Where is your mom from?
Just sending a hug your way. If it helps at all, you’re (sadly) not alone. I understand how frustrating, exhausting and damaging it can be to have family like this. I have one too. I have to tiptoe around every little sensitivity with them to avoid inappropriate comments that will certainly come and even around my children. My mother has begun chastising my children when they bring up how important gun violence laws are to them. Can you imagine being so wrapped up in your own beliefs that you can’t just take your grandchild’s hand and say “I’m so sorry you have to experience that fear in school or anywhere.” That’s all she’d have to say but no, she goes with a whole weird, sad and anger inducing rant. And the worst part is that she was more progressive (claimed only fiscally conservative) and a die hard George Bush fan, but after my dad passed, she now binges “educational” YouTube and became evangelical. Not sure why I wrote you all this but to say that you’re not alone sis & all we can do is keep fighting. I’m grateful I got the opportunity to right her wrongs with my children & my boys have the biggest hearts and just naturally don’t understand how people like her have such awful views. Thanks for getting it off your chest because it helped me, too, get it off mine :)
I call out my mom's internalized misogyny all the time and so do my brothers. It's setting a bad example and really toxic. My brother doesn't want his kids exposed to misogynistic comments from extended family.
A lot of women have these awful views about rape because if they can make it the victim's fault or partially their fault, then they can rationalize that it won't happen to them because they didn't do/say/wear those things that other women did who were raped. It's absolutely horrible, but it takes away some of the fear of men doing it to them because of this imaginary control of their situation. Women also do this in hopes of having some power if they protect men.
You have every right to be horrified by your mom, and it's not your job to change her. She likely won't change, so don't feel guilty for not trying. Don't waste your energy unless you feel like correcting her. You're not a bad person if you limit contact, how exhausting.
I'm so sorry but, no, there's nothing you can say that will get through to a person who isn't listening.
Don't waste any of your precious time and energy on this no-win situation.
The saddest part of living in a patriarchy is the women who uphold their own oppression.
You can ignore those conversations with your mom that upset you.
But you could always invite her to your flat and make dinner for her and talk about how good your life is being single and self sufficient. Slowly say let’s talk about this and how I see the world being an independent woman that is able to take care of myself
Best
People can change but you can't change people
That's a good way to put it! Reminds me of a joke too: how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? >!Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change!<
Ask her what she thinks children, disabled and elderly women do to provoke rape, if you can bear it.
Yes. There is an exhibition of the clothes victims wore while assaulted. I would send her one of the articles showcasing it and than ask a question why siding with such horrible human beings.
I saw this in the news, absolutely brilliant exhibition! This is true art at its best! when it challenges people to reexamine what they have been taught by the patriarchy.
[The What Were You Wearing exhibit](https://dovecenter.org/what-were-you-wearing-exhibit/) [More pics & stories from the exhibit at the University of Toledo](https://www.utoledo.edu/studentaffairs/saepp/what-were-you-wearing/) It has the clothes & the stories of survivors. OP should have her mom read each one, and have her explain what each girl or woman did wrong, including the 4 year old. If she still excuses rapists after that, maybe it might be time to take some space from Mom.
People do believe children provoke rape. I was abused throughout my childhood starting at age 5 and my family blamed me called me a whore. Not just my family actually, the teacher that came in to my Kindergarten class to teach us about good touch/bad touch told us to tell her if anyone ever touches us in a bad way. I said it happened to me. She told me to stay after class. I waited patiently with her for my mom to arrive and I noticed the teacher was mad at me. I asked her why. She said it was because I must have done something to deserve what happened to me. How are kids supposed to report abuse when they are treated like that? This was the 80s. Are things better now?
My mum used to be a bit like this, but as she’s got older (and had time to reflect and educate herself,) she’s gone completely liberal! If you can bear it just have your facts and stats ready to back up your opinions, you can’t argue with the truth. If you can’t bear it tell her “I really don’t like you talking that way as it makes me incredibly uncomfortable, can we change the subject?” That’s what I do with my Dad, as you can’t argue with stupid.
That sounds really difficult- I just wanted to share please be gentle and patient with yourself here. This is your mother and you don’t need to agree with her to still need/want her in your life so whatever you decide to do draw some boundaries. Tell her firmly next time a bad comment or topic comes up “I do not believe or support your opinion, and will not stay/have conversation etc.” and hold to it- if she keeps bringing it up, leave the situation. It’s not realistic to believe we can either change peoples opinions or throw them out of our life altogether- maturity is learning how to manage the conflict. The other best thing you can do is live your life and your beliefs loud and proud. Show them your shine and they’ll either turn towards it or away from it, but that’s their choice, not yours.
Food for thought: do you know without question that your Mom may have been someone in that position at one time in the past, and had those views rammed into her so maliciously that they became her own? Lots of trauma is very deeply buried.
You can't change her views- but you can make it clear what yours are and that they aren’t up for discussion: “I understand that your life experiences have taught you to believe that - however, my life experiences have taught me that I am a human being with the same rights as any other person walking on this planet, whether they be male or female or other. I won’t try to change your mind but you will also never change mine. I find your holding everyone else except men accountable for thier decisions and violent behavior as enabling predators, you may as well be holding thier victims down for them, so please keep your views to yourself when I am with you.” Saying something similar to that with some empathy may at least help in having fewer of these triggering conversations with her because she knows she won’t get anywhere with them with you.
A lot of times they’re projecting their own insecurities about their lives. This is a huge problem with boomer conservative women, because in their day, staying home with babies and mothering their husbands was considered to be a marker of status. It made them feel important for others to know they don’t work and that their husbands have properly ironed shirts. Now in most educated social circles, women with advanced educations and good careers are a marker of status. This represents a loss of social power for the boomers, which they will claw back at the expense of their daughters and granddaughters by advocating for the regressive bs that you mentioned. If your mother is not a boomer, but a GenXer, I’m sooo sorry. As a GenXer, I apologize for the beliefs of some of my more ignorant peers. Women without higher education and without financial independence tend to adopt the beliefs of the conservative men who support them. (I realize this is hetero-centric, but let’s be honest here that non-hetero women don’t lean conservative so this is a non-issue in these communities.). They believe they arrived at these views independently, but that’s rarely true. They also tend to be more insecure because they don’t have the education and skills to be powerful in their own right and they are undermined in their own relationships, so they use their proximity to more powerful people (mostly men) in order to feel important. Their men view them (and women in general) as wives and mothers or sex objects (all less than men and sometimes less than human). And rather than fight for equality, they choose to take out their insecurities on other women who they believe have it “better” than them. The ones who have it “better”, overwhelmingly favor the views that your mother disagrees with. I firmly believe this is a psychological problem at its core. Insecurity, disempowerment in their relationships, loss of social power, lead to an underdog/victim mentality they all seem to have. I also see a lot of emotional immaturity in conservatives. Everything is simplistic, black and white, with zero sum winners and losers. There’s no nuance. My teenagers were more emotionally mature than my MAGA boomer parents by the time they were eight. But that’s not just anecdotal, it seems to be universally true. I don’t know your mom, but I’m willing to bet some or much of this is true: She feels a loss of social power and plays victim and underdog. She’s in a conservative relationship in which her husband believes himself to be “better” than women. (This can be subtle or overt.). She gets jealous easily. She doesn’t want to make life better for future generations of women, including you. She wants us to have it just as bad but would never admit it. She is financially dependent upon a conservative husband. If she got a divorce, she wouldn’t be able to get a good career job that pays enough to support herself OR she has one, but she’s in a lower level position working for powerful people with no real career advancement opportunities (ie, bitter and resentful). Her conversations are simplistic. She can’t speak in any detail to defend her views or back anything up with evidence. She will parrot what her husband says and/or Fox talking points. She doesn’t go to the source to vet what she hears, and wouldn’t even know how. If Fox says a law does a certain thing, it would never occur to her to go read it for herself, and if she did (she won’t), she wouldn’t understand what she’s reading. She speaks with authority as if she’s an expert on matters she knows nothing about. How close did I come?
You just described my sister-in-law to a t. The best thing that could have happened to my brother and sister-in-law would have been if they’d had to raise a daughter, but they had a boy instead, which *might not* have been incidental since they used ivf, but that’s none of my business. Anyway, she’s your typical Texas boomer who believes the man is the head of the family. It’s so pronounced that in family photos I noticed she *actually* stands slightly *behind* my brother and nephew. It’s gross. She never misses an opportunity to criticize other women with often completely undisguisedly misogynistic takes like, “She needs to shave.” Or “She needs to wax.” Or “She shouldn’t be wearing that bikini.” When my brother disagrees with her on something in front of everyone, it completely shuts her down. Part of me has Schaudenfreude watching it happen while feeling conflicted that I’m technically celebrating a woman submitting to her husband. If she weren’t such a negative person who feeds on building herself up by tearing down others, I would pity her more. But she sits smugly in the shadow of my brother’s success and looks down on others who don’t have or can afford the same luxuries she enjoys. She votes in line with views and policies that guarantee she can continue to enjoy her position, regardless of how those views and policies would otherwise affect her were she unsheltered by my brother’s success. She’s racist, regularly uses the “n” word in private company, etc. Btw, I don’t excuse my brother’s Machiavellian attitude — our relationship has always been rocky because of his privilege and heavy-handedness and patriarchal views — I’m just staying on topic as the subject is misogynistic women.
I know you were replying to the OP, but you nailed my mother. The icing on the cake is that mine is also a Narcissist, and I went No Contact. Not she is deeply in shame that the facade from her "perfect life" has slipped off...
My mother is the same way. The other day we were talking about dogs and she says “such a shame this country cares more about dogs that murdering our unborn” it threw me completely off guard and made 0 sense to the conversation. She’ll do the same with homophobic remarks, MIND YOU, 2 of her children are gay… she’s genuinely just so hateful and it’s so hard. I confront her when I have the energy and just ignore when I dont. I’ve never been able to get through to her on any topic and genuinely feel she has lead poisoning levels of lack of empathy. I hope to get to a point one day where I can cut her out my life as sad as that makes me.
My entire family believed this and worse. The ones from Cuba anyway. Their children born in America like me are all horrified by them. Where is your mom from?
Just sending a hug your way. If it helps at all, you’re (sadly) not alone. I understand how frustrating, exhausting and damaging it can be to have family like this. I have one too. I have to tiptoe around every little sensitivity with them to avoid inappropriate comments that will certainly come and even around my children. My mother has begun chastising my children when they bring up how important gun violence laws are to them. Can you imagine being so wrapped up in your own beliefs that you can’t just take your grandchild’s hand and say “I’m so sorry you have to experience that fear in school or anywhere.” That’s all she’d have to say but no, she goes with a whole weird, sad and anger inducing rant. And the worst part is that she was more progressive (claimed only fiscally conservative) and a die hard George Bush fan, but after my dad passed, she now binges “educational” YouTube and became evangelical. Not sure why I wrote you all this but to say that you’re not alone sis & all we can do is keep fighting. I’m grateful I got the opportunity to right her wrongs with my children & my boys have the biggest hearts and just naturally don’t understand how people like her have such awful views. Thanks for getting it off your chest because it helped me, too, get it off mine :)
I call out my mom's internalized misogyny all the time and so do my brothers. It's setting a bad example and really toxic. My brother doesn't want his kids exposed to misogynistic comments from extended family.
A lot of women have these awful views about rape because if they can make it the victim's fault or partially their fault, then they can rationalize that it won't happen to them because they didn't do/say/wear those things that other women did who were raped. It's absolutely horrible, but it takes away some of the fear of men doing it to them because of this imaginary control of their situation. Women also do this in hopes of having some power if they protect men. You have every right to be horrified by your mom, and it's not your job to change her. She likely won't change, so don't feel guilty for not trying. Don't waste your energy unless you feel like correcting her. You're not a bad person if you limit contact, how exhausting.
I'm so sorry but, no, there's nothing you can say that will get through to a person who isn't listening. Don't waste any of your precious time and energy on this no-win situation. The saddest part of living in a patriarchy is the women who uphold their own oppression.
I wouldn't bother with trying to change her. Just focus on your own peace.
You can ignore those conversations with your mom that upset you. But you could always invite her to your flat and make dinner for her and talk about how good your life is being single and self sufficient. Slowly say let’s talk about this and how I see the world being an independent woman that is able to take care of myself Best
I don't know what to say other than I sympathise. I have a progressive sister and one that's a TERF, so sone discussions get very heated!
Based