Mothers and Daughters Continued, The Feminism vs Social Mobility Model

A few more words re: Mothers and black daughters
 

Failure to settle down

One other reason for problematic relationships with black mothers and daughters can be down to mothers not settling down/moving into the next phase of life with regards finding a mate or partner.

Put it like this, If a forty plus year old woman is still pursuing her relationship goals at the same time as is her twenty year old daughter, there is a high possibility that mother and daughter could clash in a more competitive way because of this 'shared' ambition. As women (black women in particular) have most of their children outside wedlock and remain in the market for a relationship into their forties and fifties when their daughters are also looking to date and settle down, it can and does cause resentment in some mothers who have to confront the fact that that the youth of their daughters gives them an advantage in the dating arena as opposed to how hard it becomes for them as more mature women. If a mother is dating she also is aware that a young nubile woman in the vicinity of her relationship could lead down the all too familiar path of infidelity/sexual abuse between her boyfriend and her daughter which leads to internal anxities. You can imagine the complications that can arise from all these tensions and hidden anxieties.

Indeed restructuring of the traditional family set up does have many repercussions some of which we are only just discovering as the reality plays out in front of our eyes!

When a mother's mind has been colonised by race-hierarchy notions

In my last post, I didn't want to go into detail about how racism in white mothers (whether vestiges of it or the full blown variety) can damage mixed race daughters, because that would require a whole book in itself. BWE writers have also written about this issue in the past, especially about how the self esteem of daughters with father's who idolize white women can take a trouncing. A commenter on my last blog post however drew attention to a slightly different angle on the subject of colorism and race hierarchy with mothers and daughters.

She wrote

I was going on a date with this guy I met online and had figured I'd show my mother a video of him doing a sport that he does well in, when she asked me if I was sure that he wouldn't want to date a popular young white girl instead of me since he seemed popular himself.

I told her to not reflect her insecurities on me; which also brought me to sometimes question who needs enemies when I could just have a mother like mine. She is much lighter than me with long hair which has caused a lot of black men to fetishize her in the past. And although I'm her daughter I have always made better choices than her even when I made mistakes. I know that apart of her can't understand why my dark nappy headed self is living a better life than her and how on earth do I find white men that like to date me. She will sometimes convince herself it's because of my "smaller lips" or some other preconceived "white feature" when I in reality have typical African features.

Clearly this shows the kind of battle that many black girls who have mothers who have essentially internalized their oppression or who accept and revel or trade in the idolization of their 'whitish' features, by the black social structure and black men and thus become threatened when there is an 'order change.' From a young age, these black girls have to understand and recognize the disease that is in the mind of their mothers/fathers or the parental structure around them. They are also going to have to find a way to cultivate a real solid self esteem which they themselves are convinced about (not just lip service about loving their lips and hips and all that). This is going to be very hard project because you don’t have the family structure on which to build and reinforce this self esteem, however it does help if the daughter understands and feels that her mother is 'off' when she comes up with her colorist ideas and notions. That feeling will guard this young women until she can get a better understanding of how colorism has infected and damaged her mothers thinking as well as formulate her own solution for cultivating and encouraging her own healthy self esteem.



Congrats to the newly engaged couple Mellody and George!



Until I am convinced otherwise I belive at this stage in our society, the social mobility model has better gains than the modern feminist one

Last week in a guardian newspaper article http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/25/joanna-lumley-foolish-rape-drunken-feet a staff writer took umbrage at suggestions from a well known British Actress that young ladies should behave with decorum and particularly with their safety in mind when out on the town. That bit of advice was just a small part of an interview the actress granted a newspaper but this writer took the small bit and built a whole case against the actress, accusing her of blaming women for rape etc

Now look at the suggestion made by the actress:

"Don't look like trash, don't get drunk, don't be sick down your front, don't break your heels and stagger about in the wrong clothes at midnight," she says. "Don't be sick in the gutter … in a silly dress with no money to get a taxi home, because somebody will take advantage of you, either they'll rape you, or they'll knock you on the head or they'll rob you."

Now I believe to fellow BWE (and any one with two brain cells in their heads) the suggestions above are not offensive in fact they are just common sense, however it appears that there is a branch of modern feminism (a strong and very vocal one at that) that disallows this kind of common sense talking to women (and it has even begun to affect many men who now feel they have to prove their 'progressive credentials' by touting louder than others, the various trendy feminist tropes and notions!). The net effect is that our daughters are now existing in vacuums where every bit of functional and common sense advice is gradually being sucked out because women and girls...what’s the current intellectual parlance they use...ah yes 'should not have their behaviour 'policed'', or we should not 'victim blame'. They have to be left alone to be and do whatever they want (at the same time government and tax payers must gladly foot the bill to repair them after any and every misadventure).

A commenter to the article had this to say:

Tanya would not be at all concerned about her own daughter's safety in this scenario, and would privilege her daughter's freedom to make bad choices above advising her against such stupidity, then she would be a pretty crap parent. Hence I presume she has no daughters.

If you ask me, modern feminism has begun to founder on the principles of 'women should not be judged', don’t shame or criticise a woman which is deemed 'policing' women, which ends up simply being 'do not say anything about how a woman chooses to be'. This is a strange place for feminism to be because everyone, every structure, every society needs a bit of criticism to make for more effectiveness (and I think living effectively should be a key goal for women). For instance even though it could be said that men retain the social privilege to 'whore around' they are mocked and criticized for chasing woman after woman, after woman and never settling down. Men are criticised for consuming pornography, testosterone fuelled antics including war, aggression, exploitation of the earth’s resources etc etc. How is it then, that women's behaviour and activities are disallowed any scrutiny? Why should women not be pulled up on their actions and activities especially when we can see that certain actions are to their detriment. Are we going to continue with this binary framing of women are victims (so must never be criticised or held responsible for anything) and men are the victimizers (so we can aim as many and as much criticism their way).

As far as I am concerned there should be space given in society for criticising personal choices especially if and when these impact on others. A woman who has children she cannot take care of or brings children into an insecure domestic situation needs to be asked to take a look at the likely outcomes of her choices.

No one is born with all the knowledge they will need to successfully live out the whole of their lives and that is why there is need for criticism which to be simply put, means showing how certain choices and options can be detrimental or ineffective protocols for running ones life.

I believe the feminist model comes into its own when addressing the most basic and fundamental rights of women including combating misogyny, the right of women to control reproduction, equal payment for equal jobs. Feminism is good in doing the ground work for women's progress, but beyond the fight for the basic rights and equality for women, I am now scratching my head as to what use it is beyond that, especially when I am constantly coming across overreactions like the above article. This is why I am in firm support for feminism in developing areas of the world where women don’t even own their own bodies. I think there is a threshold beyond which feminism in the west becomes all about picking fights and offence vigilance.

Social Mobility Model contd

 

Next blog post available from 16th Feb

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