Does feminism begin at home?

Are attitudes to feminism shaped at home, through the relationship with the mother? Or are there other factors that influence women's worldview in this regard? Paula Pustułka, PhD, an associate professor at SWPS University in Warsaw, investigated these issues among Polish women.

For many years, the issue of intergenerational transfer of feminist attitudes has been a subject of interest for researchers in the field of gender studies. Gender equality is a value that benefits every member of the society, so it is worth investigating where subsequent generations learn how to support this stance. One of the paths to acquiring beliefs and attitudes - including feminist ones and, more broadly, attitudes that concern gender equality - is to have them passed down from generation to generation in the family home. It turns out that mother-daughter relationship has a special role in shaping progressive or traditional views on the social roles of women and men, although research on this matter has been rarely conducted in the Polish context.

Feminism, the Polish way

Paula Pustułka decided to look at the intergenerational transfer of attitudes towards feminism in Poland. She investigated the approaches to feminism that could be observed in mother-daughter dyads, and the factors shaping specific worldviews. She discussed the results in the paper „When feminism does not begin at home: Exploring attitudes to feminism in mother-daughter dyads in Poland”, published in Women’s Studies International Forum. The qualitative study included the analyses of sixteen family dyads: adult daughters (aged 26-40) and their mothers.

The study revealed three attitude patterns - two of them showing the convergence of the views of mothers and daughters, who were either pro-feminist or anti-feminist, and one pattern in which mothers and daughters disagreed on this issue. The third type, in which daughters were pro-feminist while their mothers rejected feminism, was the most common in the study. Interestingly, the study did not record the opposite situation, i.e. dyads in which the mother would describe herself as a feminist and the daughter would not, emphasises Paula Pustułka, PhD.

Feminism – that sounds bad

In the case of the group rejecting feminist ideas, the negative approach of women was based primarily on the derogatory presentation of feminism in the public debate in Poland. The participants associated feminism with the fight for the LGBTQ+ rights and generally considered the “gender ideology” to be “inappropriate”. In the opinion of the interviewed mothers and daughters with negative attitudes to feminism, the women’s rights movement is unnecessary, radical and even detached from the lives of ordinary women. “Feminism is a fight that is simply too, too extreme, (...) I do not believe that a woman is capable of independence”, said Magda (age 30). "I have many negative associations with it (...) Feminism in the media, in culture, is presented in such a perverted way", Adela (37) believes.

The interviewees claimed that there was a need for a "natural" separation between the sexes. "It is good for a child when a woman stays at home (...), so it should be associated with privileges (...). There are certain roles and tasks (in parenting) that men simply cannot take over", explained Wiesława (57), who gave birth to six children and took care of her grandchildren for years. Her daughter, despite moving from a small village to the city, shares her mother's view of herself primarily as a wife and caregiver, rejecting the idea of gender equality.

The belief in the superiority of the traditional division of roles, in which the father is the main breadwinner and the mother takes care of the house and children, may be related to being rooted in the Catholic faith and living outside the large cities, Pustułka explains.

At the same time, the rejection of feminism was also present in middle-class mother-daughter dyads, in which adult daughters assessed the earlier, more progressive attitude of working mothers as detrimental to the family. Jagoda (65), now an opponent of gender equality, says: "I used to think that feminism was the modern way, and I (…) always wanted to do everything, be like my male colleagues at work. (...) For some time now I have felt that maybe this is not the way, that I do not want to be independent all the time". Jagoda's daughter openly rejects feminism and claims that her mother's employment has had a negative impact on their family.

Maybe everyone should be a feminist after all

Some mothers and daughters in the study shared feminist views. The conducted analysis confirms the results of previous studies, which show that mothers' progressive attitudes strengthen their daughters' pro-equality worldview and life aspirations. "I am a feminist. I am too smart not to be a feminist. It may sound stupid, but only people who haven't thought this through are not feminists", believes Jowita (38). "The world should finally change so that women finally have equal rights. Especially in marriage and childcare", says Malwina (59).

Some of the interviewees are reluctant to call themselves "feminists" openly, and most describe themselves as "quiet feminists", convinced that equality is a value, but not necessarily ready to announce their views to the world. "Generally, I am a really quiet feminist, I don't advertise it. I am not an activist. But for me, being a feminist is obvious", emphasises Marianna (35). Openly positive attitudes towards feminism were rare among the interviewed women.

Differences in the perception of feminism

One of the most interesting aspects of the study was the situation where mothers and daughters differed in their views. The younger generation adopted feminist attitudes, while the mothers were not only sceptical towards feminism, but even criticized the views of their progressive daughters. This shows that the family home - including the mother-daughter relationship - is not the only channel for transferring gender equality attitudes.

How is it that daughters with anti-feminist attitudes end up supporting feminism? They draw their views primarily from their educational experiences, especially from student life.

Different views sometimes result in tensions between family members. Divergent attitudes are shaped by the upward social mobility of daughters, who become middle-class and no longer share their mothers' negative opinion of feminism. "I do not feel obliged to wait for him (my partner) to come home from work (...) He has to take responsibility for household chores and childcare", says Marta (32). Her mother Aneta (60) is concerned about her daughter's attitude, stating that she is afraid of how her daughter’s progressive outlook will affect her marriage and children. She declares that she has never sought equal division of household responsibilities.

Anti-feminism begins at home

In the final pattern of convergent mother-daughter views, two generations of women sharing negative attitudes to feminism were discussed. While the feminist attitudes of daughters discussed before often had external sources, the attitudes of the interviewed anti-feminist young women tended to be passed on from mothers to daughters. One could say that for the young generation of women in Poland, it is not feminism, but rather anti-feminism, that begins at home.

The future of feminism

The results of the study expand our knowledge of both the intra-family transfer of anti-feminist and feminist views, and the extra-family sources of pro-equality attitudes. It turns out that attitudes towards feminism are not uniform.

Moreover, in the interviewed dyads, the daughters who supported feminism rarely attribute their attitudes to the influence of their mothers, even though women from both generations have tended to have similar educational and professional goals, as well as strived for equality in relationships with men.

The long-term effects of attitudes ingrained by mothers may be most significant for women who do not become feminists. Rejecting progressive views on gender means, for example, that these women will promote traditional gender roles in the next generation as they become mothers.

Further research is needed to discover the relationship between the influence of messages received at home and other factors that appear to stimulate feminist attitudes among young Polish women, emphasises Paula Pustułka, PhD.