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The Construction of Feminine Identity through Motherhood. An Analysis of the Representation of Motherhood in School TextbooksPage 6 of 6
Childhood is subject to state interests, it is not a free childhood. I think that there is an impossible mission projected on it; a mission that goes beyond their means and that is unfair with their nature. Girls start their motherhood training from their earliest childhood, becoming the unique phenomenon of their lives and the only activity in which they can be socially active and involved. They are denied the development of any other personal dimension23. Control, pressure, manipulation and intervention of the new regime and the Church on motherhood respond to concept of biopolitics described by Foucalt. Such power monopolizes and dominates the whole human being as a person, in this case, literally, the body and the soul of girls. It is true that "the human body exists in and through a political system” and that each political power provides varying degrees of space to the individual. However, during the period that concerns us, political power sees women, since childhood, a force or source of production in a single direction and in a unique way, and this is instilled in them since the early years of social, familiar, and school education. Women and men are forced to procreate. But man has other areas of activity allowed apart from paternity. The woman's body has a mission that does not concern his individual will. All her education and training is geared and designed to the proper exercise and performance of the required unquestionable role. 23 We could refer to the exception of the activities carried out by the Feminine Section of the Extreme Right Wing Party (Falange), although with some reservations. |
