Glorified maternity: analysis of motherhood discourses from women participating in groups of respectful child rearing in Valparaíso region, Chile

Authors

  • Daniela Villanueva Aburto Universidad de Valparaíso

Abstract

Today more than ever women are exposed to unending ambiguous social representations of gender and family. In this context a new movement seeks to resignify motherhood: this movement is about so-called respectful child rearing, which has mainly been assembled by young professional mothers. The following article tries to understand the complex articulation between motherhood and citizenship, understood as the relation between the private and the political. To this end, motherhood discourses are described and analyzed, from which two main consequences are extracted: on the one hand, the reproduction of traditional gender roles and, on the other, the resistance that these discourses pose to the dominant social order. All this under the glorification of motherhood as a mechanism for social transformation.

Keywords:

discourses, maternal thinking, motherhood, groups of respectful child rearing