“Do people love me because I’m pretty?”

She’s four. FOUR. She goes to church, and to the babysitter, and to violin lessons, and only watches parentally-approved g-rated kid media. She’s not even in school yet. And she already knows what people value her for: she’s pretty.

I blame the you-know-what.

http://community.livejournal.com/parenting101/481687.html

Mothers, generally, (and fathers too) want to raise good sons and daughters. But we don’t all have the exact same person in mind when we think of this “good” person. Nor do we all have the same methodology in mind. Nor can we expect our goals for our sons and daughters will be their goals. You simply cannot assume some mother failed because her son became a rapist, or her daughter a Dole.

I can’t think where exactly to put this but here seems as good a place as any. Pardon if you know of this already. I found it last night and I was overjoyed to see it online: all the books, articles and feminist thinking of *my* feminist youth. I hope some of you may find this worthy.

Deja vu:
http://www.cwluherstory.com/CWLUArchive/classic.html

patriarcy-blaming, as i understand it, is about exposing the ways that patriarchal entitlement hurts women and diminishes humanity. it targets acts and effects; it only blames individuals when they are worthy of blame. in other words, patriarchy-blamers do not amount to the “i hate boys club.”

some of the comments in this thread are disturbingly patriarchal in nature, if not content. i don’t believe for a minute that all men are hard-wired to be rapists, any more than i believe that women must be virgins or whores, or that women are suited only to be mothers, secretaries, or teachers, and incapable of being carpenters, lawyers, doctors, business owners, etc.

even more disturbing is the extra layer of contempt for mothers who try to raise boys to not feel entitled. blaming mothers is a page torn straight from the patriarchal handbook. it’s mama’s fault if she does not sacrifice all for junior; it’s her fault if she is over-protective; it’s her fault if he is lazy or delinquent, if he has birth defects or is a sissy.

some men undeniably turn out to be rapists. why is a good question. a good number of them may have been sexually abused themselves [numbers are hard to come by, because the patriarchy decrees that boys can’t be raped or else they will be queer]. some or maybe most rapists act on a sense of entitlement, often while they are high. some mothers of rapists may well have contributed to whatever went wrong with that particular son — there are certainly some rich mamas who try to fix every mistake of junior and never want him to suffer consequences; and there are certainly other mamas who don’t protect and nurture their sons, perhaps even bringing into the home the neanderthal who decides to introduce junior to sex.

it doesn’t follow that all boys are born rapists and all mothers of boys are repugnant.

i frankly think it is wrong to assume that all generations of parents have had the same goals. someone else has pointed out that social progress happens over time in part because parents have different ideas than their parents did, and their children embrace and build on those.

my parents, for example, talked about racial equality [although that didn’t stop my dad from making racist jokes sometimes]; this was a huge shift from the open and broad racial hostility of my grandparents.

certainly, i can’t speak for my whole generation, but many parents i know, schools, and the media speak more now to gender inequality, fighting homophobia, and basic human rights. this is not to say that racism has died out; just that the discussions with our children are far broader than the ones we had with our parents. much has happened during my lifetime to advance the options and protections available to women — i can recall when there were different minimum wages for men and women, to name one small example — and much remains.

if anyone thinks feminism is the “i hate boys club,” well, everybody’s entitled to an opinion, but please don’t bludgeon me with it. i think feminism is about advancing human rights and human dignity, and i try to do that, in the ways i have available — personally, professionally, as a mother.

No parents ever thought this prior to your generation.

I meant, of course, every generation of parents has had the same goals. Mai Lai gave us Abu Ghraib.

“(I am now getting too angry so I’m just gonna hit “blame,” which is oddly apt right now.)”

So now you’re blaming other women for our perception of how the patriarchy works.

There’s a whole huge area of privilege accorded to mothers of sons in the patriarchy. I see shining examples of this in so many of the posts in this thread. Oh, what would we ever do without all these Saviour Sons? Hail Mary full of grace!

I guess *all* of the rapists who have ever lived and live now had mothers who just didn’t compose the right inspirational lectures for their boys.

Ahh! Someone to blame other than those nasty female skeptics who question the sanctity of the words of Mothers of Princes.

While we’re all shovelling the blame around onto other females I might as well hit the button ….

M.S.

No parents ever thought this prior to your generation.

You’re not serious right? Because how can you possibly say that when new generations of people, especially those margininalized, have been popping up since the beginning of time to make the world a better place for all of us? How would you explain the progress we as a society has made if it weren’t for parents teaching their kids that a better life was possible?

And how can you honestly make such a blanket statement as that?

I think what pissed me off most about your argument is how you assume we moms of sons can’t possibly teach them anything worthy of being human. You think our sons won’t listen to us but, like someone else said earlier, you know they’re listening when they repeat what you have told them a hundred times to someone else all of their own volition.

Yeah, how about that mom-hatred huh? Way to minimize the hard work I really put into trying to raise a feminist son against all the odds people like you stack against him.

It’s people like you who make my job that much harder, writing my son off (who is only 6) before he even gets started.

I’m also pissed because I can’t believe you had the audicity to make such a comment to several of us who have sons and love them just like any other. Should we love them any less because, after all, they’re only boys and Lord knows they’ll just end up raping or killing some woman somewhere right? That is their fate because they have penises instead of vaginas?

And just how, exactly, does this help the supposed solidarity of the feminist movement any?

(I am now getting too angry so I’m just gonna hit “blame,” which is oddly apt right now.)

flea’s post gives me hope, and i’m always grateful for hope. thanks for the push to read it.

combine that inspired and moving post with your later post about the traffic in women and girls which is being arranged to make some bunch of patriarchs and their lackeys a significant pile of money; is the word irony big enough?

be well
cypress