I guess when I think of the term "motherhood," in the simplest sense to me, it is the thing that separates the two genders. Female-bodied women are expected to become mothers and experience motherhood, whereas male-bodied people are not. In this way, exploring motherhood become a way to explore the reproductive difference between the two sexes. It's interesting that this could be why this topic is something that is kind of taboo to explore in a negative sense for writers, which makes it all the more necessary for writers to explore. As we talked about in class, the mainstream idea of what motherhood does to a woman is always portrayed as extremely positive. We have all heard the stories of the woman who puts her children before everything else her life, yet the stories of women who don't accept motherhood as the missing piece of the puzzle in their life or don't seem to really care about the children they have are always in a negative light. (Not saying that women who don't care about their children are some sort of heroes, or even that they are in the right. They are always just immediately placed in a negative category without much understanding of their situation.) Remember Britney's meltdown? How many times was she trashed for not being a good mother to her kids? Think about how often we hear about fathers just paying child support without experiencing "fatherhood." Are they ever crucified nearly as much as women? Double Standard? That's why I think it is extremely important that these issues need to be explored, especially in the study of gender. We see all different women across the spectrum, from the girl who wants an abortion who decided to keep the baby, to the woman who doesn't care about two of her kids, to the woman who steals a kid and doesn't want it afterwards. Seeing into these characters situations allows us to see deeper into the issue of motherhood and see the negative aspects of it, not just all the amazing great things mainstream culture has made us believe.
