WP3: Shake What Your Momma Gave You

My mother was predominantly abused by her stepfather both physically and mentally. The generational trauma that was handed down to my mother was not necessarily directly passed down to her from her stepfather. Instead, it was handed to her in the form of her mother’s complicity in her stepfather’s abusive actions. Her mother welcomed in a man, a stranger, that beat on children who were not his own. This is not to say that if he was her biological father, he should have been allowed to abuse her. Abuse is still abuse regardless of who is doing it and receiving it.

I bring this up to make the point that my grandmother sought out a relationship that modeled one of her parents since she was also abused by her father. My step-grandfather embodied the figure of a male abuser that my grandmother was taught to normalize. Because of this, my grandmother re-welcomed the male abuser into her life, allowing him to penetrate the lives of her children. My grandmother’s compliance to male domination via my grandfather’s abuse of my mother is a direct manifestation of the intergenerational trauma in which my grandmother was both a victim and perpetrator. Inevitably, this trauma was passed down from my mother to my sister and I, just as it had been from generations of grandmothers to mothers to daughters hundreds of years before us.

Through examining colonialism, the nuclear family model, and motherhood, I will demonstrate how patriarchal systems exert power on and within feminine bodies and establish the connection between colonization and generational trauma in mother/daughter relationships. Generational trauma in mother-daughter relationships stems from the mother’s position as both traumatized and traumatizing. The mother, whose mind was colonized, colonizes the mind of her daughter. The contribution I will make to this discourse space is that the colonization that produced docile feminine subjects operates in mother/daughter relationships through the mother’s colonization of her daughter’s mind, which reinforces the cycle of generational trauma.

Throughout history, women’s access to power was determined by their allegiance to white patriarchal heteronormativity and domination. During colonialism, this exercise of power became increasingly tied to white settlement. In the colonial state, white women’s participation was measured through their support of white male settlers’ endeavors, specifically in their adherence to the white nuclear family model. This model was organized around the cult of domesticity, the idea that a woman’s role is “overlaid with piety and purity, and crowned with subservience” (Smith-Rosenberg, 13). A mother’s ability to train her daughter to conform to these standards determines her effectiveness as the moral keeper of the household. This can be seen in the distinctions between the mothering of a boy versus the mothering of a girl. If the child is a boy, motherhood is meant to affirm his existence as a powerful, superior enforcer of masculinity and dominance. If the child is a girl, motherhood is meant to show her how to embody the ideals of respectability and fragility. The practices of sexual subordination and enforcement of gender roles within colonial societies produced feminine subjectivity, and the inferiority of women that we still observe today.

​​The re-emphasis of the nuclear family model during colonization is a crucial aspect to consider in understanding how women were constantly pressured to conform to the expectations and judgments of the white male order. In a white, monoracial, patriarchal, heteronormative, settler society, women were trapped under the lens of the male gaze and forced to become “object and prey” for the man, as Simone de Beauvoir argues in The Second Sex. Women internalized the patriarchal standards of femininity, conforming to prescribed gender norms to gain acceptance and survive in their society. Women’s constant bargain with the patriarchy came at the expense of their humanity, with their gender and sexual expression being confined to a submissive feminine nature.

This bargain was not only forced upon women but also learned and passed down from generation to generation, with young girls expected to be obedient and restrained from a young age. In this sense, embracing femininity was both a survival tactic and a masquerade “a mode of enacting and reenacting received gender norms” imposed through male domination (Butler). The operation of patriarchy both within and outside the household had a significant impact on women’s lives, limiting their agency and constraining their ability to express themselves as individuals.

During colonialism, education was one of the tools of patriarchal oppression that exacerbated the inequalities between men and women. According to Paulo Freire in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the banking education model, which relies on a power imbalance between the oppressed and the oppressors, treats students as passive recipients of knowledge, who are expected to memorize and regurgitate information without engaging in critical thinking or active participation. In this sense, education can serve as a tool of social control, reinforcing dominant norms and values and producing subjects who are obedient to authority. Applied to the construction of feminine subjectivity, the banking model of education can contribute to women’s inferior roles, as students are socialized to comply with gender norms and expectations. Within this system, it is taught that women should be passive, obedient, and nurturing, and their intellectual and creative potential is discouraged or overlooked.

This operation of power on typical feminine bodies lays the grounds for how power is manifested within the framework of motherhood. Motherhood as both an experience of nurturing and raising a child and an institution under patriarchy, perpetuates gender inequality. Like any institution under the patriarchy that controls bodies and behaviors, motherhood molds women into obedient, docile, feminine subjects. Within various institutions like schools, prisons, and the military, “discipline produces subjected and practiced bodies, ‘docile bodies’”(Foucault 138–139). This concept of docile bodies can be applied to motherhood, as mothers utilize forms of discipline to monitor their daughters’ behaviors and enforce compliance, which is necessary to ensure their safety under patriarchy. For example, my mother taught me to cross my legs when sitting, avoid wearing revealing clothing, be polite, always smile, never question authority, and never walk alone on the street.

The overt monitoring of behaviors that have been described, exemplifies a handful of the many preventative measures required by motherhood to protect young girls. Throughout history, women have been subjected to various societal disciplinary practices such as beauty standards, gender roles, and reproductive norms. When motherhood is forced to embody a regime of power that requires women to adhere to these standards, it models how feminine bodies are regulated and expected to exist in society for young girls.

Colonialism, the nuclear family model, and the concept of motherhood have all been used as forms of oppression to alienate women from their own bodies. Relationships between women have always been threatening to the “natural order.” As Suzanna Walters notes in her book Lives Together/Worlds Apart, this is extended to the mother/daughter relationship, as it is to every relationship between women under patriarchy (Walters, 145). Lesbian relationships, for instance, are not accepted within patriarchal systems, because the nuclear family model dictates that a women’s role in life is to be the compliant companion of men. Any solidarity between mothers and daughters is also looked down upon. The penetrative force of white patriarchal heterosexuality marks a woman’s body as the site of male domination. She is expected to marry a man, bear his children, and raise them to uphold the same standards of sexual subordination that bind her and all women to their inferior roles. The forces that prevent women from forming collaborative and mutually beneficial relationships thwart any possibilities for the questioning of feminine subjectivity, allowing its unchallenged passive transmission from one generation to the next.

The societal and cultural forces previously mentioned contribute to unstable mother/daughter relationships that perpetuate a loss of identity and a sense of powerlessness between mothers and daughters. The relationship between a mother and daughter is forged by their commonality as feminine subjects and sites for the dispersion of patriarchal power. As Jessica Benjamin argues in her book, The Bonds of Love, “The girl’s relationship to the mother, emphasizing merging and continuity at the expense of individuality and independence, provides fertile ground for submission” (Benjamin, 78–79). A daughter’s existence in society is in relation to her mother, she is merely an extension of the idea of womanhood and is stripped of her power to shape who she is.

As a daughter, my identity is in continuation with my mother, whose identity is in continuation with all the women before her, an identity tainted with the ancient wound of femininity that has been branded into our flesh by the patriarchy. Womanhood requires us to give up our individuality; any behavior that does not seek to maintain the rules of femininity is dismissed. From young ages, we are taught to expect perfection, yet we are diminished for our achievements. For example, my mother would yell at me if I performed poorly at school but never once in my life told me she was proud of me when I did well. My mother does to me the same that patriarchy does to all women. She has brutalized me, insulted me, scrutinized my accomplishments, eroded my confidence, limited my freedoms, silenced my voice, and deprived me of my humanity. As daughters, mothers, and women within a world that seeks to deny us, our loss of identity is our identity.

This loss of identity in mother/daughter relationships can also be seen as a form of trauma, both for the mother and for the daughter who inherits the legacy of that trauma. When raising a girl, the trauma embedded in a mother’s adherence to femininity gets passed to her daughter. The pressure to live up to idealized images of womanhood can lead to feelings of guilt and inadequacy for both mothers and daughters while they strive to meet unattainable standards. The projection of a mother’s trauma onto her daughter opens a site for the mother to colonize her daughter’s mind. By evacuating unresolved issues and unprocessed trauma that have been transmitted from previous generations of women, a mother deprives the daughter of the space to develop her own psyche and examine her subjectivity. This intrusion of the mind redirects the daughter’s thoughts, feelings, needs, and identity to comply with the mother, the colonizer, and the patriarchy.

The transmission of generational trauma in mother/daughter relationships reflects the double bind mothers and daughters live through under patriarchy. Motherhood has long depended on the idea that women must be self-sacrificing, putting their own needs and desires aside to serve the initiatives of men. This leaks into mother/daughter relationships as mothers exhibit restraint in meeting their daughter’s needs. While my mother has provided me with material support through the basics of food, shelter, clothing, etc., she has never provided me with emotional support. Mothers have inherited this practice of sacrificing their daughter’s emotional well-being and identity in order to cultivate behaviors that conform to feminine standards of conduct. Within the socially constructed and unattainable idea of proper motherhood, “A mother’s victimization does not merely humiliate her, it mutilates the daughter who watches her for clues as to what it means to be a woman… The mother’s self-hatred and low expectations are the binding rags for the psyche of the daughter” (Rich, 243). Under patriarchy, motherhood is a form of oppression that leads to a sense of isolation and loss for the mother, which in turn impacts the daughter’s sense of self and place in the world.

I look at my own mother. I have a love/hate relationship with her. I resent her because she passively accepted her fate as a woman and taught me to do the same, passing on a tradition that I am still struggling to unburden myself from. My mother has been conditioned to view herself as weak and defenseless, only having power in the feeling of being needed, and only knowing how to survive by acting subservient to men. Because of this, she does not believe in me for the same reasons she does not believe in herself. She has provided the framework of womanhood that I have internalized. All the parts of myself that I hate I have learned from her: my lack of self-regard, my helplessness, my feelings of inferiority, and my self-hatred. I hate my mother because I hate myself and I hate myself because I hate my mother. What I really hate is what it means to be a woman and all the pain and trauma that comes with it.

In the past, feminist theorists have engaged in similar work that looks at mother/daughter relationships and the conflicts that arise out of them. However, much of this work tries to pathologize motherhood and explain how mothers contribute to their daughters’ identity. Although this is important to understand, it fails to take into account the ways that patriarchal systems influence the dynamics of mother/daughter relationships. Instead of critically looking at how institutions invade relationships between women, a lot of work just critiques the ways mothers engage with their femininity and pass behaviors onto their daughters. Without dissecting the constructions of gender roles and stratification that arose out of colonialism, theorists fail to hold institutions of power accountable for their contribution to the composition of mother/daughter relationships as a site of trauma transmission.

I believe that the institutions under patriarchy have heavily informed the basis of mother/daughter relationships and that in order to understand generational trauma and heal from it, the impact of colonization must be looked at. In order to decolonize our beliefs about gender and femininity, we must challenge the frameworks they were built on by refusing to accept and follow centuries-old practices meant to reinforce patriarchal power structures. Instead of blaming mothers for passing their victimization onto their daughters, we must combat the systemic forces at play that created and reinforced the fissures between them in the first place. By contextualizing the roots of these relationships, it is possible to forgive and heal, breaking the cycle of damage done to women by other women. As the saying goes, empowered women empower other women.

Works Cited

Benjamin, Jessica. The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism and the Problem of Domination. Pantheon Books. 2006.

Butler, Judith. Embodied identity in de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. Paper Presented at the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, March 22, 1985.

de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Bantam Books. 1968.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage. 1979.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Bloomsbury Academic. 2020.

Rich, Adrienne. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. W.W. Norton & Company. 2021.

Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America. Oxford UP. 1985.

Walters, Suzanna. Lives Together/Worlds Apart: Mothers and Daughters in Popular Culture. University of California Press. 1992.