Mother
ISBN: 978-1-80117-679-8, eISBN: 978-1-80117-678-1
Publication date: 28 November 2022
Citation
(2022), "Mother", Rumson, L. and Bentham, A. (Ed.) Divergent Women (Emerald Interdisciplinary Connexions), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 65-65. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-678-120221014
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023 Lorraine Rumson and Abby Bentham. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited
No role for women is as enshrined as that of the mother. The mother is the holder of creative power, the literal power to create life, and representative of the physical power to create, ‘who nourishes and sustains Life from the abundance of Her own Body's flesh and fluids’ (Wilshire, 1994, p. 21). Tamaryn Dalldorf, Sylvia Tloti, and Soonbae Kim write of women's creative voices, their relationships with their creations, their children and their characters, and the blurring of those borders.
No role for women is as punishable as that of the mother. No failure carries such heavy repercussions, culturally and legally, as failure to be a (good) mother. Even in the spheres of the world where women's success in careers, creative pursuits and non-familial relationships is most accepted, the expectation that women will eventually become mothers reigns supreme. With it comes the expectation of self-abnegation – infinite, unrestrained self-denial, self-destruction and extreme and culturally sanctioned punishment when that destruction turns outward instead of inward. Elif Çakmak, Lorraine Rumson, and Sam George-Allen attend to women who refuse or reject the role of motherhood.
Reference
Wilshire, 1994 Wilshire, D. (1994). Virgin mother crone: Myths and mysteries of the triple goddess. Rochester, NY: Inner Traditions.
- Prelims
- Chapter 1 Introduction: Grasping the Broomstick, Cutting the Umbilical Cord
- Section 1 Maiden
- Chapter 2 Portrait of the Monster as a Young Girl – An Interactive Dialogue
- Chapter 3 Spiteful Spirits: Projection and Blaming in Women's Lives and Mother-Daughter Narratives
- Chapter 4 Witch Hunt – The Media's Obsession With One Infamous Canadian
- Section 2 Mother
- Chapter 5 The Paradox of Female Villainy in Mary Robinson's Walsingham and Charlotte Smith's the Young Philosopher
- Chapter 6 Resubjectivation of the Female Voice in Eunsung Kim's My Mother's Story
- Chapter 7 Off With Their Wombs! Cultural Representations of Women's Rebellion Against Motherhood
- Chapter 8 Beyond Mandatory Motherhood: How Childfree Women Use Digital Spaces to Redefine Womanhood
- Section 3 Crone
- Chapter 9 All About Snow White's Mother
- Chapter 10 Forgiving European Witches: The Case for Pardons and Memorials
- Index