The Concept of Motherhood

Over the last three centuries, attitudes towards mothers, motherhood and "mothercraft" have evolved considerably. Certainly, these attitudes are also related to the prevalent perceptions about women. Before the 18th century, women were regarded as animalistic creatures primarily driven by their passions and sexual desires. Their capacity to reproduce was further used as an explanation for the fact that their beings were controlled by their bodily impulses and desire (Davis 124-5).

However, towards the end of the 18th century, religious establishments such as the British evangelicals transformed the prevalent attitudes towards women and mothers by highlighting their purity a

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d on the unreasonable belief that mothers were ultimately responsible for the well-being of their infants, not environmental factors. In reality, mothers were generally unable to prevent infant deaths caused by epidemics and other diseases regardless of how well they cleaned their utensils (Ross 203). Nonetheless, health, school and medical officials were determined to intervene in the domestic households of the poor women in order to raise their standards of childrearing. However, their high and rigid expectations essentially placed increased pressure on the mothers' capacity to feed their family and manage their households. For example, a poor woman who would have to decide whether money should be spent on food or new spectacles for her child would naturally opt for the first priority (Ross 197). In a more radical way, mothers were utilized as tools for the Nazis to realize their vision of creating a society dominated by superior individuals as inferior people are gradually eliminated (Bock 405-6). The State and the medical establishment violated the privacy of women by deciding which women would be compelled to have children by making abortion illegal and prescribing eugenic sterilization for other women who were considered un
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Approximate Word count = 1382
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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