Mother Daughter Revolution: From Good Girls to Great Women

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553374184 ISBN 13: 9780553374186

Publisher: Bantam, 1994

“Describes the potential for a powerful new relationship between mothers and daughters which would change the relationship between all women and girls.”—Gloria Steinem

As the daughters of baby boomer moms approach womanhood the questions begin. Will I teach my daughter the right things? How do I correct the mistakes my mother made with me?

Mother Daughter Revolution: From Betrayal to Power addresses all the issues that a mother guiding a budding woman could possibly need to know about. Authors Elizabeth Debold, Marie Wilson, and Idelisse Malave approach these dilemmas as would any other mother who is concerned with the survival of her daughter in a male-dominant society would. This book centers on women's attempts to build trusting relationships with their daughters. The foundation of this trust is based on removing the feeling of betrayal that develops when daughters feel that their mothers have not prepared them for the earthshaking changes they experience during adolescence. Lack of preparation for these changes leads to a lack of confidence and an inability to deal with competition.

Mother Daughter Revolution is written in a problem and solution style and describes the path from adolescence to womanhood through identifiable stories and anecdotes. Many mothers recount stories of being told by their mothers to "be nice" because "nice girls get married and get good things." Well, these new mothers opt to tell their daughters that being nice is not always an option, especially if "being nice" infringes upon their rights.

Review:

Our culture betrays women. And mothers, to be good mothers, must betray their daughters. It is this tragic norm that Marie Wilson and Idelisse Malave, president and vice president respectively of the Ms. Foundation, and Elizabeth Debold, a member of the Harvard Project, question. Though perhaps no longer revolutionary, their text still presents a vital and revitalizing agenda, 0ffering ways to transform the typical cycles of betrayal and to resist such unnecessary losses as those of voice, freedom, and the power to act. Debold, Wilson, and Malave turn many precious cultural biases and beliefs upside down-- "rugged individualism," for example, is scrapped in favor of interdependence. The belief that separation from the mother is a normal developmental step is firmly cast aside.

Written originally in 1993, Mother Daughter Revolution takes as its foundation the findings that came out of the Harvard Project on Women's Psychology and Girls' Development under psychologist Carol Gilligan. The core of that study could be summed up with the question: Why, at the onset of adolescence, does the self-esteem of girls plummet? The authors expand on Gilligan's valuable and still timely "wall" theory. That is, at adolescence, young girls come up, clashingly, against how they're perceived by the dominant culture--largely in terms of their sexual and reproductive value. To get through this "wall," girls must sacrifice parts of themselves in order to be accepted and protected by society. At great cost. Mothers, ironically, usher girls through the wall of self betrayal. And the three most loudly voiced complaints by girls about their mothers reflect that betrayal--that they're not dealt with fairly; not truly loved for being themselves; not trusted with the truth. The "authentic self" of daughters is driven underground.

These are hard and heartbreaking insights which 30 years of feminism's second wave has not changed. Interviews with adolescent girls, memoir fragments offered by the authors, and stories shared by such well-known writers as, for example, Maxine Hong Kingston illustrate the social phenomenon. Don't be fooled. This is not a rant so much as a prescription for uncovering, defining, and nurturing the love between mothers and daughters. Paradoxically, adolescent girls find more of the world open to them, while at the same time experiencing a deep distress. "Eating disorders and teenage pregnancy, once associated with opposite ends of the social class spectrum, are more prevalent among girls of all classes and all races than ever before." These insights and prescriptions, organized and given voice by three committed feminists, are offered with lucidity and passion, in the spirit of social transformation.

About the Author:

Dr. Elizabeth Debold has published numerous articles about human and moral development, gender issues, and girls' self-knowledge and growth. She has consulted to a variety of organizations ranging from corporate law firms to nonprofit educational organizations, has lectured widely, and has appeared as a guest on numerous television and radio programs, including Oprah , Good Morning America and NPR’s 51%. Debold is currently the Academic Director of the Master's Program in Conscious Evolution that WIE is running in partnership with The Graduate Institute, in Milford, Connecticut.

She received her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University, and was a founding member of the Harvard Project on Women's Psychology and Girls' Development, which was directed by Dr. Carol Gilligan.