How The Patriarchy Strains Mother-Daughter Bonds
I’ve noticed something really interesting in my clinic. More and more, I am getting clients who have had really difficult relationships with their mothers.
What I’m seeing is a deep pain and frustration within them. A disconnection from Self when these dynamics play out. And a rupturing of what is meant to be one of the most meaningful and important relationships in our lives.
Women have endured a deeply wounding relationship with their mother. Often their father too. But whereas they seem to be more open to finding forgiveness for their male relative, the same latitude is not being offered when it comes to their maternal bond.
There is an important reason for this. The patriarchy.
The enduring power of patriarchy casts a long and often invisible shadow over this most intimate of female relationships. It’s a systemic framework of male dominance that creates fertile ground for conflict and emotional distance. And insidiously teaches women to blame other women for their perceived weaknesses and flaws. All with the blessing of a society that is rejecting this most crucial bond.
The Mother-Daughter Relationship Under Patriarchal Strain
We all live within and under patriarchy. Whether you are male, female, or gender neutral. Old, young, or somewhere in between. Married, single or polyamorous. We are all existing - and often struggling - within the confines of this ancient societal construct.
It could be argued that nowhere is the effects of patriarchy felt more than within the mother-daughter relationship. A dynamic that is fraught with a unique set of challenges, stemming from societal expectations and a legacy of female oppression.
You might hear this oppression termed as the "Mother Wound," a form of intergenerational trauma where a mother, having navigated a world that devalues her, may unconsciously pass on her own unhealed wounds to her daughter.
It is this that I am seeing show up time and again in my clinic. And we are working hard to unpick the dynamics of these relationships and understand how they’ve influenced the protective parts and exiled wounds that women are left with.
The dynamics I’m seeing include:
Internalised Misogyny and Projected Expectations: Mothers, conditioned by a lifetime of patriarchal messaging, often have internalised misogynistic beliefs which they then project onto their daughters. This can take the form of:
Enforcing rigid gender roles
Prioritising the needs of male family members
Teaching their daughters to be accommodating and self-sacrificing
The daughter's struggle for autonomy can then be perceived by the mother as a rejection of her values and sacrifices causing challenges and ruptures in the mother-daughter bond.
This can show up as mother’s unintentionally sabotaging their daughters, becoming jealous of them, and not being able to offer compassion or support to their daughters. In daughters, it can be seen as a push for nonconformity in relationships or careers, making excuses for poor male behaviour in relationships, or feeling perpetually exhausted and burnout from putting others’ before themselves.
Competition and Control: Our society has been pitting women against each other for male approval and limited resources for decades. Just look at how the media and popular culture portrays women. This creates a sense of competition between women which can easily bleed into the relationship between mother and daughter. A mother might feel threatened by her daughter's:
Youth and beauty standards
Opportunities for careers, raising families, educating children
Choices that deviated from her own, usually because her daughter has so many more options available to her
This can lead to controlling behaviours, criticism, jealousy, and a lack of genuine support for the daughter's individuality.
A daughter might feel stifled, unheard, unseen, or genuinely appreciated. A mother might try to live her life vicariously through her daughter, or interfere with her life, career, or family choices.
The ‘Culture of Female Servitude’: Patriarchy prescribes a ‘Culture of Female Servitude,’ where women are expected to be the primary emotional caretakers, sacrificing their own needs for the wellbeing of the family. The obvious impact of this are adult women who give up their careers entirely or progression within their chosen field to raise children.
But the less obvious impact is a dynamic where a daughter feels an immense pressure and obligation to be her mother's confidante and emotional support, blurring healthy boundaries. This can easily lead to resentment that often simmers under the surface. Conversely, a daughter may see her mother's sacrifices to ease the way for her male partner and feel a complex mix of pity and anger. This can lead to a complex and often conflicted relationship.
Breaking the Cycle: We talk a lot these days about being a cycle-breaker. Now we have more information available to us about patriarchy and the consequences it is having on our self-esteem, equality, and relationships we are able to make connections and challenge our conditioning in ways our mothers’ couldn't.
When a daughter begins to challenge these patriarchal norms, it can create significant friction and a further rupturing of the mother-daughter bond. Her pursuit of education, career, or a non-traditional lifestyle can be seen as a betrayal of the established order, leading to conflict and misunderstanding. Or if she chooses to speak up, attempting to put in place boundaries or challenge this status quo, she can be shot down, minimised, and even pushed out of the family.
Being a cycle-breaker is a hard and difficult place to be. We have to make choices about what, in practice, this really means for us. Do we want to change the nature of the relationship we have with our mothers? Do we need to examine our own internalised patriarchal norms? Can we hold compassion for our mother and all that she endured while acknowledging the damage to ourselves? How do we change the relationship we have with our own daughters so the patterns aren’t repeated?
These remain some of the biggest questions my clients ask themselves.
The Psychology of Blaming Women
The same patriarchal structures that strain the mother-daughter relationship also contribute to the societal tendency to blame women. This can be related to perceived weakness in relationships with dominant men. Or just being negative about women in ways we would never be with men.
First, let’s review how our double standards show up in society.
Leadership and Assertiveness
One of the most common areas for double standards is in professional settings. Assertive and direct behaviour is often viewed very differently between men and women.
A man who is direct, assertive, and speaks his mind is often seen as a strong leader, confident, and decisive. He's taking charge.
A woman exhibiting the same traits is frequently labelled as bossy, aggressive, abrasive, or difficult. She's seen as overstepping her role rather than leading effectively.
Emotional Expression
Society often has very different expectations for how men and women should handle their feelings.
While men are sometimes stereotyped as unemotional, expressing anger is often seen as a sign of passion or authority. An angry outburst from a male boss might be interpreted as him being stressed or serious about his work.
A woman expressing anger is often dismissed as being emotional, irrational, or hormonal. Her valid concerns are often completed dismissed or de-legitimised because of the tone she uses.
Appearance and Aging
Physical appearance is another area rife with double standards, particularly concerning age.
A man with grey hair and wrinkles is often described as a silver fox, looking distinguished, mature, and experienced. Signs of aging are seen as adding character.
A woman showing the same signs of aging is often pressured to conceal them with hair dye and anti-wrinkle creams. She is often seen as letting herself go if she doesn't, and the focus shifts to a perceived loss of youth and beauty rather than an accumulation of wisdom.
Parenting and Career Focus
Working parents are often judged through very different lenses.
A father who works long hours is typically seen as a dedicated provider and a good breadwinner, fulfilling his core family duty. No one questions his commitment to his children. If he is doing even basic child raising duties like changing a nappy, taking his kids to the park, or cooking meals, he’s seen as something extraordinary and amazing.
A mother who works long hours is often questioned about her commitment to her family. There can be an underlying assumption that she is neglecting her children or being selfish for focusing on her career. And if a woman is seen doing basic child raising duties, then that is just accepted as the norm. There are no congratulations or expressions of how well she is doing.
This is a multifaceted issue rooted in psychological biases and ingrained social narratives.
And like I said, just as we blame women and treat them differently to their male counterparts within society, when it comes to relationships and what women are meant to accept, there are some deep societal legacy wounds at play here.
Core reasons include:
Blame-Shifting and Gaslighting: In relationships with dominant or abusive partners, a common tactic is for the aggressor to shift blame onto the victim (it’s called DARVO - Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender). This form of psychological manipulation, often coupled with gaslighting, can lead the perpetrator to shift the blame onto their partner, and for their partner to internalise the blame and question her own reality. The abuser's narrative, which paints the woman as too sensitive, crazy or provoking, can be insidiously adopted by outsiders who are not privy to the full context of the abuse.
The Madonna-Whore Complex: A deeply ingrained patriarchal construct, the Madonna-Whore Complex divides women into two rigid categories. The pure, chaste ‘Madonna and the promiscuous, devalued ‘Whore. This binary denies women their full humanity and sexuality. A woman who is assertive or sexually liberated may be categorised as a whore and therefore deemed less credible or deserving of respect, making it easier to blame her for any mistreatment she endures.
The ‘Belief in a Just World’ and Defensive Attribution: Psychologically, people have a cognitive bias to believe that the world is a fair and just place where people get what they deserve. This Belief in a Just World can lead to victim-blaming, as it is psychologically more comforting to believe that a woman did something to deserve her mistreatment than to accept the random and unjust nature of violence and abuse. Similarly, the defensive attribution hypothesis suggests that people are more likely to blame a victim if they perceive themselves as being different from that person. This is a way of distancing themselves from the possibility of a similar fate.
Internalised Misogyny: Just as it impacts the mother-daughter dynamic, internalised misogyny plays a crucial role in how women are judged in their romantic relationships and by society at large. Women who have absorbed patriarchal messages may be
quicker to judge other women for not being "strong enough" to leave a dominant partner, without fully understanding the complex social, economic, and psychological barriers that can make leaving incredibly difficult and dangerous
or more likely to use double standards when it comes to women when compared with their male counterparts
So, the power of patriarchy is not an abstract concept but a lived reality that deeply impacts the intimate lives of women all over the world. It creates a legacy of pain that can be passed down from mother to daughter and creates a culture of blame that holds women responsible for their own subjugation.
Recognising these interconnected dynamics is an important step towards dismantling the structures that perpetuate them and so we can have healthier, more equitable relationships.
It can also help us hold more compassion for our mothers’ and some of the harsh realities of our relationships with them. While also acknowledging the impact of those relationships.
If you have experienced a difficult relationship with your mother, then I invite you to reach out. Working through some of these challenges can help us make peace with and heal from those dynamics, which could allow you to create a stronger bond going forwards.
