Representations of motherhood: normative and transgresive constructions

Abstract

The ideal of motherhood provides a common standard for all women, which does not translate into the possible individual differences with respect to what one can be and desire. The images surrounding motherhood have carried with them many types of significance, from the ancestral rites of divinity to the codification of motherhood through the figure of the Virgin Mary in the Catholic religion. The lifeless bodies of women who died in childbirth were revered as divinities, and their bravery admired by the majority of society. Kristeva associates the ideal of woman with the icon of the Virgin Mary, considered ‘one of the most powerful imaginary constructs known in the history of civilizations’. For some decades now, feminist theory has vindicated the role of motherhood, trying to get rid of patriarchal inheritance and seeking to re-signify the act of giving life.