Motherhood Quote by Robin Morgan

Robin Morgan’s line detonates like a manifesto disguised as a slogan: it refuses the comfortable, well-worn script where women are asked to manage, soothe, or somehow “fix” the sexism done to them. The first clause is deliberately plainspoken, almost procedural, because it’s clearing the ground: if sexism is systemic, then blaming women for surviving it is a second act of violence.

Then comes the provocation: “kill your fathers, not your mothers.” Morgan isn’t issuing a literal hit list so much as attacking the symbolic architecture of patriarchy. “Fathers” stands in for inherited authority - the institutions, traditions, and paternal figures that reproduce domination and call it normal. “Mothers” stands in for the people patriarchy typically drafts into unpaid emotional labor: the ones expected to absorb rage, make excuses, keep families and movements intact, take the blame when men fail. The line flips the direction of moral accountability. Stop punishing the proximate caretakers. Go after the source code.

The intent is strategic: reroute anger away from lateral damage (women policing other women, or sons punishing mothers for the world they didn’t design) and toward the power that benefits from everyone staying confused about where the harm originates. The subtext is also generational. Patriarchy isn’t just enforced by individual bad actors; it’s inherited, defended, and replicated through family roles and cultural myths about “respect” and “duty.”

It works because it’s impolite on purpose. It shocks you out of sentimental family narratives and forces a cleaner question: who actually has power here, and why are the powerless being asked to carry the consequences?