Womanhood–motherhood: The matrix in times of crisis

Introduction

When Regine asked me to participate in this Foulkes study day as a respondent to her lecture on the matrix in times of crises, of course, I was surprised. She suggested my talking about gender because, as an academic, I specialize in female writers and I quickly thought of motherhood and the ultimate crisis. The day women stop having children, the world will end.

This reminded me of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian futuristic novel The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood, 1986). In Atwood’s novel, the plummeting birth rate gives rise to a patriarchal totalitarian state, where women who are still capable of childbearing are used as slaves, raped once a month with the sole purpose of having children for the ruling classes. Another novel that deals with this theme is The Children of Men by P.D. James (James, 1992). In this novel, humans have become infertile and there are no children in the world. The theme of motherhood in crisis seems a popular one considering that both these novels have been adapted to a very popular TV series in the case of The Handmaid’s Tale (4 seasons 2017–2021) and a well-reviewed film in Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006).

There are other crises related to motherhood. Jacqueline Rose’s book Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty (Rose, 2019) reminded me of another novel: Tony Morrison’s Beloved (Morrison, 1987), which tells the story of Sethe, a woman born a slave in the mid-1800s, who kills her baby girl to spare her the life she knew she would have as an enslaved girl and woman. The novel is based on a true story and presents the terrible life of the slaves and its consequences, even when they are free.

Rose also introduced me to a poem I had not read before: Sylvia Plath’s Three Women — A Poem for Three Voices (Plath, 1981), those three voices are of one woman who has just had a child, one who has just had a miscarriage and one who abandons her new-born baby.

These examples, where women stop having children, kill them, abort them or abandon them, might seem extreme, but they relate to what we are seeing nowadays in many societies, manifested in our matrices. We are talking about times of crisis here, so, this paper is not going to be about the joys of motherhood but about women’s rights and women’s bodies as the bearers of life. Even though some of the themes I am going to expose have been around for centuries, what is different now is that in many countries women have started raising their voices and making a change. Inevitably, women’s powerful voices sometimes bring the backlash of ruling patriarchal societies who are afraid of women’s power.

The theme of motherhood is very alive amongst the female patients I see, individually and in groups. When I talk about motherhood, I am not only talking about women who have or want to have children but also about those who have decided not to have children or those who cannot for one reason, or another have children. These women talk about getting pregnant, abortions, miscarriages, IVF, egg donations, as well as the difficulties of being a mother and fears for their children as they grow up and become independent.

Giving your child up for adoption and being a surrogate mother are also part of the picture of women’s relationship to motherhood, deciding whether or not to be mothers even when carrying a baby inside for nine months.

The main difference between men and women is women’s capacity to procreate and this fact has put women in a specific space and role in society for many centuries.

Perhaps not always?

There was a report recently about how women in prehistory may have had an equal role with men in everyday life, in which, even though they were mothers, they also participated in hunting and gathering as well as in artistic endeavours (Boffey, 2022).

Political economy and the social relations that sustain it, have dictated the role of women for centuries. Wars and conflicts and loss of life has produced an aftermath of temporary economic and social changes for women and families to encourage the growth of the population. In some cases, laws have been written which stop women from working after marriage so that they have the time to become mothers and look after their children. Other laws put a cap on the number of children a woman can have when their population is growing excessively, at an ‘uncomfortable’ rate, like they had in China until 2016.

Even though some laws stopped women from working outside the home to concentrate on childbearing, motherhood never stopped many women from working outside the home out of economic necessity. Working-class women often left their children with other family members or neighbours while they went out to work, in many cases to look after the children of upper-class families, whose mothers did not work. This scenario, in some ways, mirrors Atwood’s novel where working-class women work for the upper-classes in their mothering capacities.

Western society continues to put pressure on women to have children, and society needs new citizens to have a good economic balance. There are reports about the low birth-rate in economically developed countries. Women who have access to higher education and the possibility of following a career are delaying childbearing later and later in their lives. Others have decided not to be mothers. Access to birth control and abortion give women the power to decide, to make choices.

Statistics show how ‘countries like Hong Kong are a good example for women leaving the patriarchal structures and focusing on their own career instead of becoming a mother at a young age, causing a decline in the country’s fertility rate’ (O’Neill, 2022).

Struggles over abortion laws, like the present one in the USA, show how persistent is the wish for states to exercise power over women’s bodies. Ireland, Poland as well as many countries in Latin America have also been in the news with changes in their abortion laws. We seem to be regressing instead of going forward.

The reasons for women to choose to abort a pregnancy are many, but one of the reasons is rape.

Rape and sexual assaults are reported in the news daily. Here in the UK drinks are spiked to make women (and men in some cases) unconscious; universities have started to be aware of a rape culture growing on their campuses. Stories of gang rape in Spain, Italy, India and many other countries frequently end with judges exonerating the accused because women did not fight back or were unconscious.

Rape has been used as a weapon of war since wars have existed and is now recognized as a war crime. In a resolution adopted in 2008 the UN Security Council affirmed that ‘rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide’ (Jayarama, 2022; Smith-Spark, 2022).

Arising out of the war in Ukraine, we read daily news of sexual violence, sexual exploitation, and slavery. Ninety percent of refugees from the war are women and children (McKernan B, 2022). This news is not exceptional; there is constant evidence of the treatment of refugee women and children in the camps and at the hands of traffickers around the world.

Women in wars are seen as passive subjects, they are assaulted, killed or they have to flee. Even though there are women fighters, in general women are the ones who take their young children away from conflict, leaving behind older children as well as husbands and fathers to fight. Some reports have described the difficulty which Ukrainian women are having when arriving in countries like Poland, where abortion and contraception are illegal. In Ukraine, meanwhile, rape victims have been given the morning after pills.

Women may survive the war, but the psychological and social consequences of rape will follow them for life. In cultures where the purity of the woman is paramount for her place in society, they will be ostracized by their families and their future will be forever ruined.

In the 21st-century the world has seen the beginning or continuation of many wars with large displacements of refugees and asylum seekers: in Congo, Syria, Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Yemen, Israel/Palestine and Ukraine amongst other conflicts around the world. As well as due to wars and dictatorships, we now find the greatest number of economic displacements as consequence of climate change.

Climate change is already having very real and direct consequences in some countries, but also around the world, young women who do not see a viable future are deciding not to have children.

The news is filled with the fears the younger generations are feeling (Williams, 2021).

Due to climate change and pollution, we are already seeing the consequences which could end the human race: Men’s sperm count is dropping; microplastics have been found in the placenta which could cause long-term damage in the foetus . . .

These crises and their influence are all part of society collective consciousness and are very much part of our groups’ foundation matrices.

At the same time that we are seeing great changes we are also seeing the repetition of old patterns. Nowadays in many countries women have louder voices and are speaking about abuse and inequalities. The work has started but still needs us all to be able to continue making our world a more equal and safer world where women can feel free to either become mothers or not. Groups should be there to allow women to have a voice, to express their frustrations, desires and choices.

And I am going to finish with the words of a British writer Jeanette Winterson:

Women in the 21st-century—young women, a new generation of women—are speaking out louder and stronger. For social and sexual equality. For an end to the policing of women by religion. For the value of women to be recognized. For our contribution to be rewarded. For the freedom to walk by day and by night without fear. To know that our bodies are ours. Never to be shamed for being a woman. To love without coercion. To feel desire. To bear and raise children in peace and with resources. To be equal part of the future as it happens.

Women are not an after-thought.

Women are not inferior.

Women belong to the world. (Winterson. 2018: 47)