Empoderamento feminino e maternidade: análise das representações da mulher-mãe e seus discursos de negação

Abstract

This work addresses women's empowerment and motherhood, and reflects from the social representations that build the place of the woman and the feminine coupled to motherhood, creating the "mother-woman". lts general objective is to analyze and understand the most pertinent changes in the way of thinking and acting of a group of women who first seek their socioeconomic independence and then decide issues related to maternity and also those who have opted for non-maternity. Emphasis is placed on discourses that reflect and / or deny this socially constructed condition. It develops from literature review and speeches of the women who participated in this work, which were a total of 12 women, aged above 28 years, without children (except one who had children after 40 years) and who, therefore, present characteristics that are opposed to socially naturalized cultural standards, by common sense. These women represent this new model of life that has been gradually adopted by women and presents characteristics that are addressed in feminist theories, such as women's empowerment, which advocates the participation and social positioning of women in all social, political and economic fields. Among the topics addressed, there is an important debate focused on issues related to motherhood and the act of not being a mother. To understand this new vision used by women today, it was necessary to present relevant historical moments of the feminine gender, their struggles and transformations, which resulted in the repagination of women. Among the interviewees, conceptions about the theme were presented in different ways according to the historicity of each one, but a common point in all of them is the constant search for female independence, as opposed to the customs and socially imposed habits that reinforce machismo and patriarchy of our society.