Why families gang up on daughters and outcast them with Stephanie Sellers
Family Mobbing is a phenomenon where daughters in families are estranged or shunned and singled out because they don't follow the family’s explicit or implicit rules. It’s something Stephanie A. Sellers experienced in her own family and why she’s here today to discuss her book, Daughters Healing from Family Mobbing. Stephanie holds a doctorate and has been on the faculty at Gettysburg College since 2000, during which time she was the inaugural director of the Women's Center from 2009 to 2015. She has been a volunteer counselor advocate in shelters and a community organizer for decades.
Who is Stephanie Sellers?
Stephanie A. Sellers is the author of Daughters Healing from Family Mobbing and holds a doctorate in Native American Studies with a focus on Women and Gender issues. She has been on the faculty at Gettysburg College since 2000, during which time she was the inaugural director of the Women's Center from 2009--2015. Sellers has been a volunteer counselor advocate in shelters and a community organizer for decades. In 2007 she was mobbed by one side of her family.
Sellers lives on a homestead in the mountains of Pennsylvania with her Welshmen (husband and corgi), heritage breed laying hens, and a cottage garden full of antique jonquils, parrot tulips, and medicinal plants.
The precursor to family mobbing
Stephanie says it’s common to understand and recognize cycles of abuse in adult relationships, spouses, etc but often don’t recognize them in families. She says, “We don't understand that the cycle of abuse happens with families and a scapegoated child in the family, a child or an adult. And what happens is, if you find yourself that, after interactions with the family, there is something disturbing and upsetting. You try to reach out and resolve it, talk about it…you're getting the response from family members of ‘that didn't happen’, denial, reversals of what the experience was, and this is happening over and over.”
Stephanie continues to explain that after the family denies the experience of the daughter an equilibrium is reached. Things have cooled down. The daughter may feel things are ok. Until the escalation happens again. The family may gossip, attack, and slander the daughter as if she’s making things up.
They make others in the family and sometimes the community believe the daughter is crazy and the problem. Stephanie said this isn’t even mobbing yet. Even so, the daughter starts to see this treatment affect the quality of her life.
What is family mobbing?
In the time leading up to family mobbing Stephanie says, “What will happen is then the next step from this chronic cycle of abuse, which, you know, we can imagine is absolutely confusing, exhausting, interrupts of her life or functioning in her life with her spouse or partner, her work her children just with herself, constant confusing maze of real anger.”
The next step up is when we consider this treatment family mobbing. She says:
“The family begins to act out. She's getting the cold shoulder. Now she's not being invited, when she is included, people are acting out again, giving the cold shoulder glaring sneering turning their backs. This will be to her spouse, her partner and her children can all be included in this and we see they will be folks who are actively participating in that behavior. And then there will be biological kin in this family who are not quite acting out, but they are participating more passively. Then you have folks again out in another layer who are still talking with her, perhaps you know emailing phone calls in person smiling, waving, chatting, but they are clearly participating.”
This kind of behavior can happen to men, too. It’s more typical, though, for women to become the scapegoats and victims of mobbing.
Women’s issues are a humanities issue
As we talked about issues within families the conversation naturally went to women’s issues. What is it about labeling something a “women’s issue” that makes society not want to intervene? How can we being to change this?
Stephanie says that women weren’t always seen as “lesser than”. She also said:
“We can't look at what's happening to women as women's issues, then they're being marginalized. Yes, because women are marginalized. We have to say this is a humanity issue. And it's not just a humanity issue, it is a full Earth and a full biosphere issue as well. Women are the door way between the world of spirit and the spirit dimensional world of human flesh. We are the doorway, all of life that comes through us. We are the seed, and we are the garden.”
A major perspective shift is clearly needed. I continued asking her what we can do to make this change.
How to unravel implicit biases against women
Stephanie gave some profound advice on how we can begin to unravel these biases. She said, “When women begin to center themselves in their own experiences and understand their bodies. The cycles of our bodies, our menstrual cycles, our pregnancies, if we bear children, our menopause, whenever that comes…when we begin to center ourselves, not just in that, but in our intellect, our voices, our talents, and know in the most fundamental ways, our own preferences.”
Stephanie says American women especially are talked out of having preferences as young as a toddler. Many women have to relearn what their preferences are and how to hear themselves again. She says a great way to start is to recognize when you feel uncomfortable in situations. Then discuss those feelings with a trusted partner, spouse, or friend to get their feedback. Perhaps reading a book or looking to our ancestors.
The key, Stephanie says, is to centralize ourselves in our own experiences. To own them. Claim them. She says:
“Women and girls are…supposed to centralize male opinion, male thoughts, male needs. And most importantly, male authority, socially and religiously. That we are to give our voices up and over to that, and not see ourselves in divinity. So what we do is when we begin to undo that and see ourselves, our bodies, our minds and our voices as having legitimacy, strength, validity, looking to what is divine and sacred to us in our lives. And saying, ‘I can see myself there, I can see the form of femaleness as sacred. That too is for me.’”
Make sure to listen to the full episode as this doesn’t even tap into the profound wisdom she shares.
More From The Episode . . .
[2:32] - The context of family mobbing
[5:26] - What is family mobbing? The cycle of abuse
[8:13] - What does mobbing feel like?
[12:27] - The significance of the goddess, Sedna, and her story
[17:06] - Understanding our history: identifying women's issues as humanity's issues
[22:18] - Centralizing ourselves and owning our preferences as women
[28:26] - The return of family and the self-realization after the mobbing
[31:42] - Healing and grieving from mobbing
[36:56] - How women can nurture and understand their divinity
Quotes
“What happens to women and girls eventually touches everyone in their personal circle and their community, ultimately that means what happens to women and girls impacts everyone.” - Stephanie Sellers
Affirmation
I am a divine spirit of God and step into a deep knowing of my worth and power.
Writing Prompt
When do I feel my divinity the most? How can I start sensing my preferences and emotions more?
Book Recommendations
Stephanie’s book: Daughters Healing from Family Mobbing*
Stephanie’s recommended reading for more about female divinity:
When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone
Rebirth of the Goddess by Carol Christ
"Why Women Need the Goddess" an essay by Carol Christ
The Feminine Face of God: The Unfolding of the Sacred in Women by Sherry Ruth Anderson and Patricia Hopkins
Awakening Shakti by Sally Kempton
Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd
Resources
Learn more about Stephanie Sellers
