Essentialism and Mothering

As a philosophy, essentialism believes that the true essence of any person or thing is established prior to its existence and determines what shape that existence will take. In practice, mothering is the individual approach a woman brings to the experience of being a mother. Essentialism has had a tremendous impact on political, cultural, and social visions of what good mothering should be, because essentialist thinking has largely based that image on the notion that all women naturally possess innate female qualities that drive them to pursue maternal goals above all others. These [Page 358]essentialist notions go beyond the obvious biological fact that women physically give birth, and assume that women are genetically destined to be responsible for childcare and, by extension, most domestic duties. Nonessentialist views of mothering argue that women are no more physiologically configured to change diapers, tend to children's needs, and perform domestic services than men are. An intense form of essentialist mothering in mainstream Western society works against nonessentialist views, which posits that the extent of a woman's biological, natural involvement includes carrying the fetus through the gestational period, giving birth to the child after a period of labor, and providing the child's infant nourishment in the form of breastmilk. Everything else associated with mothering is a social and cultural construct, subject to individual interpretation and community scrutiny.