Does Motherhood "Make" a Woman?
TYBA
2020-21
Actress Viola Davis said, “Do not live someone else’s life and someone else’s idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you.” Though her words continue to inspire many, feminist theory argues than gender is largely social. Gender is a social construction which allots meanings to acts like birth and nurturance. It is because of these constructs that motherhood becomes the “symbol of a ‘true female’”. No woman is considered “complete” unless she bears children. In short, society tells us a woman is born to become a mother. In this article, we look at short stories and songs (especially loris) as media that are used to either represent or perpetuate social norms and roles expected of women.
“A Perfect Life” is Chitra Banerjee-Divakaruni’s attempt at representing an ambitious, young Indian woman, Meera, living the American Dream, and her journey of becoming a mother. Meera’s initial attitudes towards motherhood are far from positive. She scoffs at the unattractiveness of Indian mothers with their “limp hair pulled into a… bun” and their “crumpled saris with stains of a suspicious nature”. She also considers women who become mothers “intellectually diminished”, their whole world confined to worries about their child. From her account of mothers, we see that women are expected to put their own lives on the hold for those of their children, to be self-sacrificing. Meera, who had “fought hard” to pave her way to success as an Asian woman in America, was wary of doing so. She refused to get married because she saw marriage as “a prelude to that all-important, all-consuming event, becoming a mother” (Banerjee-Divakaruni, 2016, p. 75-76).
Meera’s world changes, in many ways, when she runs into the little boy under the dark stairwell who doesn’t know how to use a toilet, shies away from physical contact and bears suspicious burn marks on his back. Meera, throwing all rational thought out of the window, takes him in, surprising even herself as she does so. Why does she do it? A tiny voice within her tells her that maybe “fate brought him here”. For ages, as Simone de Beauvoir says, society has “mystified” women, portraying them being irrational and superstitious (Nayar, 2017, p. 88). These social perceptions become social norms that women feel they must conform to. We see a reflection of the same lack of reason in Meera’s actions. The fact that a female writer has indulged in such a representation bears testament to the internalisation of this stereotype.
We see how Meera’s character changes after a chance encounter with a little boy, who she promptly names “Krishna” because the God was brought up by a foster mother. She starts planning for a future with Krishna, complete with fantasies of his first day of school, his baseball matches, a trip to Disneyland, his first car and his college applications. Her life revolves around him and she changes her routine in order to spend more time with him. Her relationship with Richard takes a back seat because he isn’t as keen on adopting Krishna as she is. She is prouder of herself when Krishna puts on a few pounds than she was when she cracked a seemingly impossible algorithm. To put it in a few words, her life is dedicated to “Mother-love, the tidal wave that swept everything away” (Banerjee-Divakaruni, 2016, p. 98-99).
Interestingly, Meera still stands her ground before Richard, doesn’t let him get away with calling her “stupid” and eventually, even decides to put Krishna up for adoption. She is still the same old fiery woman, just with different priorities.
She looks at “the red Cyclops eye on the answering machine blinking ominously,” and in yet another representation of motherly intuition, she knows something is wrong with Krishna. When she discovers that Krishna ran away from the foster home the Services had temporarily placed him in, Meera can’t help thinking of herself as “a failure- unmarried, childless, empty,” or as Indians would say, “Banja” (Banerjee-Divakaruni, 2016, p. 103). Thus, being a mother is the most dominant part of her identity. Once that is gone, a sense of isolation and purposelessness sets in.
Interestingly, when Krishna can’t sleep and snuggles up against Meera, she can’t remember the words to any of the lullabies her mother used to sing for her, but she does remember how her mother “held” her. The way a mother holds her baby, the warmth and protection associated with this action, are universal across cultures. Thus, one may think that the concept of motherhood, though different in expression and connotation, is very similar in its essence all around the world.
This brings us to the significance of lullabies, or “loris” as they’re referred to in India, in shaping the social constructs related to motherhood. The two loris we will be looking at are “Chaoro” from the film “Mary Kom” and “Sooha Saaha” from the film “Highway.” These two loris have been chosen specifically due to the influence of regional culture reflected quite prominently in them.
In India, the child usually sleeps with its mother for a long time, unlike some Western cultures. The practice of singing a lullaby is inherent to Indian culture and children often grow up loving these lullabies which are associated with a mother’s warmth. Lullabies are quite like folktales in that they are passed from generation to generation through oral tradition. Thus, their role in perpetuating the archetype of a good mother can’t be undermined.
“Chaoro” is a sweet, soft lori consisting of the Manipuri equivalent of the Hindi phrase “Jeete raho”. The mother is seen lulling her sick baby to sleep while she prays for all the adversities in its life to become her own instead. This is a representation of the altruism that is often expected of mothers. The lullaby comes at a crucial juncture in the film, when the mother is at an emotional crossroads- her child is sick and the boxing championships in which she is representing India are around the corner. She is torn between mother-love and her career as a boxer. She picks boxing, not out of regard for her professional life, but out of the responsibility she has towards her country. This is used by the script writer to minimise the negative reactions that would’ve accompanied her decision had she “selfishly” picked boxing because of her ambition.
“Sooha Saaha” is a lori that consists of a fair share of Haryanvi fables, where the baby is the little red bunny (“sooha saaha”) who is represented as roaming in the green fields with the “mynah” and “tota” to keep him company. It reflects the unconditional love that is often linked to motherhood, as the mother talks about not letting her little one go hungry, offering him sweetmeats to that end. The reference to the sweets, “pede” and “pudi” could also be a metaphor for the happiness the mother wishes her child to have as he grows up. The song changes in its second verse from happy to melancholy as it reflects the state of the character it is picturised on. Mahabir is a man who has lost his way in life, a broken star (“toota taara”) in a sense. This song, while reminding him of his mother and her hopes and dreams for him, helps him re-evaluate the path of violence and crime he is walking on. The bed of stars (“taaron ka bichhauna”) that his mother talked about in her lullaby has eluded him till now. But, he resolves to find his purpose in life because after all, he is his mother’s “sooha saaha”. There are blurry images in Mahabir’s mind that indicate that his mother was a victim of domestic abuse. But, every day, she came back to her son and sang songs for him, wishing for him to have the life she didn’t. Thus, this song, when considered along with its context from the film, is a representation of both, the victimisation and powerlessness, as well as the hopefulness and strength of women as wives and mothers respectively.
The media often represents motherhood as the principal role women are expected to play, the very purpose of their existence. It's almost as if motherhood makes a woman. The archetype of an ideal mother propagated through media is just another way of defining the qualities a woman ought to have. Women have been depicted as caregivers for so long that the notion of a woman picking her career over the possibility of becoming a mother is inconceivable. The fact that motherhood and a woman’s professional life are seen as mutually exclusive is part of the problem. In reality, a woman’s sense of self is shaped equally by the multitude of roles she plays in a lifetime. Motherhood is just one of them. Though some women may choose to favour it over others, the question that needs to be asked is, is it really a choice they're free to make?
This is the second part of the three-part series "Frappe with Extra Femme."
References:
Ali, I. (2014, April 3). Sooha Saaha by Alia Bhatt, Zeb Bangash | Highway | Full Video Song (Official) | A.R Rahman. Retrieved February 9, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzUmTp6apx8
Chaoro (Lori) Full Video | Mary Kom | Priyanka Chopra | Vishal Dadlani, Salim Merchant | Hd. (2014). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyreLU0-60Y
Banerjee-Divakaruni, C. (2016). Arranged Marriage. London: BLACK SWAN.
G, Krithya. (2018, September 6). Sooha saha – Highway (Lyrics and Meaning). Retrieved from https://krithya.wordpress.com/2018/09/06/sooha-saha-highway-lyrics-and-meaning/
Katemcdonough. (2016, March 10). Katemcdonough. Retrieved August 13, 2020, from https://katemcdonough.tumblr.com/post/140781953384/kids-are-awesome-in-moderation-im-so-excited
Nayar, P. K. (2017). Contemporary literary and cultural theory: from structuralism to ecocriticism. Uttar Pradesh, India: Pearson India Education Services Pvt Ltd.
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