What is the image of the mother in German cultural expression?
This study, carried out by Dr Valerie Heffernan, Head of the Maynooth University Department of German and funded by the IRC, is designed to look at a previously underexplored element in a woman’s decision-making process: culture. What is the image of the mother in German cultural expression? What kinds of mothers are we seeing on television and reading about in books? And, if those expressions of motherhood are negative, is that feeding into women’s decisions around parenthood?”
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Mother’s Day invites us to reflect on mothers, mothering and motherhood, and their significance in contemporary society. Researchers at Maynooth University are examining cultural representations of motherhood and the way that mothers are depicted in popular culture, film, literature and the media. In particular, their research explores accounts that depart from the traditional, idealised images of motherhood, shedding light on the experiences of mothers who are marginalised and the pressures on women to conform to ‘normal’ ideas of motherhood.
Dr Julie Rodgers, Maynooth University French Studies and Dr Valerie Heffernan, Maynooth University German Studies research the Motherhood being"Stigmatised, and on the margins: Understanding Motherhood in the 21st Century"
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Marina Cavazza and Egle Kackute, expatriates from Italy and Lithuania respectively, have been photographing and interviewing other expatriate mums (and sometime dads) in Geneva. While the stereotype of an expatriate family has it that dads are out working and mums happily stay at home looking after the children, Marina’s and Egle’s work brings to light a different image of expatriate women who often have a career and/or a professional identity to balance with their motherhood outside of their country of origin.
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