Second Sunday of May. Mothers Day. A commercial date reserved for all fighting, loving and understanding women. Stores are full, school events are held, lunches are scheduled and our televisions are full of advertisements showing this mother’s love. But is this reality? Is being a mother that beautiful or is this scenario only reserved for one day of the year? Stereotypes are reinforced on this day and help create an image that is not reflected in everyday life.
Motherhood is a social construction of capitalism, placing women in the role of reproductive beings, in addition to delimiting freedom and controlling these bodies in society. Mother’s Day becomes, then, a date for the affirmation of these capitalist and patriarchal values that put mothers in the background within society.
Struggles of moms in society
Motherhood requires choices, just like any other decision-making. Although, in most cases, these choices are not made by women, but imposed. When a woman becomes a mother, she is no longer seen as before by society, her whole constructed life is thrown aside and replaced by motherhood.
A study called Gender statistics: social indicators of women in Brazil, by IBGE (Brazilian Statistics Institute) in 2019, shows that women dedicated almost twice as much time to caring for people or household chores as men — 21.4 hours against 11.0 hours. Still in this research, it is shown that women are excluded from the labor market after having children.
This situation is exacerbated when they are women in social vulnerability or single mothers since their position is one of extreme inferiority and contempt. Public policies aimed at these women are not enough and they also have to deal with the fatigue of the double shift, marginalization, and lack of support from institutions and often from their own families.
Another study done by IBGE shows that 63% of families supported by women are below the poverty line. All this data demonstrates that the idea of beautiful and easy motherhood is a construction and that taking this discourse as legitimate is, at the same time, hypocritical and a way of maintaining patriarchal domination over mothers.
The mother figure in the media
The number of advertisements about motherhood for Mother’s Day is enormous. Every day different brands broadcast their commercials on the televisions of millions of Brazilians and sell the romanticized idea of what it is to be a mother. This representation is based a lot on the conservative molds of docile mothers and the feminine essence that is sold by the media.
In addition to not representing motherhood in its reality, they contribute to the maintenance of structures that place women only as reproductive beings and delimit their role in society. The consequence is that the view that a woman’s place is at home taking care of children becomes more common. Keep it rooted.
Reflection is key this mother’s day. It is extremely important to realize the violence, often hidden, in society. Breaking with this imposition of what motherhood should be is essential to recover the maternal experience without idealizing it, in order to live it freely.
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The article above was edited by Julia Bonin.
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