Voices of young feminist women facing motherhood: deconstructing the social imaginary

Abstract

This article addresses the symbolic construction of motherhood in our context and how the feminist vision of this conception and other social transformations have influenced the collective imaginary. The main objective is to deepen the incidence of the imaginary on motherhood in the construction of feminist identities. Therefore, this paper presents and analyses the testimonies of young women who claim to be feminists and talk about "motherhood" as an element that intertwines with their relationship with feminist politics. The testimonies were collected within the framework of a broader research project that is being conducted in the Basque Autonomous Community. The aim is to examine how young women living in this region have related to feminist politics throughout their lives. A qualitative research methodology is used, based on the analysis of forty semi-structured individual interviews with young women who in 2016 were part of a militant feminist group and/or were completing or had already completed one of the three master’s degrees in equality, gender, violence against women and feminism that are currently delivered in the Basque Country. The results of the analysis of the five selected testimonies show that the reflection on motherhood in feminist key generates discomfort, discontent or uncertainty, but also allows to activate creativity and nonconformity against the normative mandate, which is considered of great social interest and deserves further study, particularly from an empirical perspective.