Motherhood in SF

Motherhood is one of the ways by which patriarchal culture defines women. Contrast "fatherhood".

In SF, motherhood may be used in several ways:

• playing out the standard trope that the fiercest fighters are mothers defending their young -- e.g., women turn to violence to protect or avenge their children. See, e.g., Terminator 2; see Aliens (girlchild provides Ripley the opportunity to defend a child); see Buffy's mom - nobody lays a hand on my daughter.
• Motherhood as a way for bad women to be redeemed. See, e.g., Darla's pregnancy in Angel (the soulless vampire woman gains a soul through carrying a souled fetus; she kills herself to bear the child ), and Ellen Barkin's character in Switch (the soul of a sinning sexist dead man returns in the body of a woman; the soul is redeemed when the woman dies in childbirth).
• Mother is sainted or awesome or important because she is giving birth or destined to give birth to The One, almost always a male. See, e.g., Dune; the Virgin Mary in Christianity.
• The horror reversal -- In horror, the ideas associated with motherhood -- love, tenderness, protectiveness -- may be transformed or recontextualized to create the sense of horror. Abusive mothers, mothers who eat their young, mothers who love their monstrous young ("That Only a Mother" by Judith Merril; Grendel), etc.

See also

• Mother-daughter relationships