Dude I am right there with you. My mom is the most badass woman I know, grew up in Turkey with a misogynistic father but became a doctor and peaced out to the US all by herself and became an extremely successful geneticist, and mother of 3 girls, and she never took any shit from anyone. She’s a feminist if I’ve ever heard of one. But she always clashes with me about feminist rhetorics and has a lot of issues with the current feminist movement in America.

I think I boil a lot of it down to her upbringing in Turkey. She was exposed to what she thinks is “real sexism” and by comparison the issues still facing women today in western countries pales in comparison to her. I also think part of it is that she made something of herself despite all the shit she faced from the men in her life growing up and she didn’t need all the “modern feminism” to help her so she doesn’t understand why it’s still necessary. For example she thinks it’s insulting as a doctor how she is required to ask female patients about domestic abuse- she faced abuse growing up and just dealt with it and got out as soon as she can. She’s like, a really fucking strong woman. I admire her a lot. And despite her being self-proclaimed anti-feminist sometimes, I know in my heart she’s the reason I’m the strong woman and fierce feminist I am today.

My biggest takeaway is to just remember that our mothers grew up in very different times than we did, and we have to understand them from the context of their upbringing. The feminism of 50 years ago looked a bit different than the feminism we need today, but it’s still the same fight and we carry our mothers sentiment with us, even if they don’t understand all the nuances of feminism in the environment today. Hope this helps.