A mulher atual e a representação da maternidade

Abstract

The present Master s Dissertation adopted the Post-Structuralism perspective as theorical reference. It reefers to a qualitative research which main objective was to comprehend motherhood for ten women within the ages of 25 and 35 years old, without children, living in the city of Recife. We identified their projects and priorities of life, their concept of maternity and their feelings, conflicts and beliefs related to the subject. For the research we used a semi-structured interview, which was carried out individually and taped by the researcher. The Analysis of Content (MINAYO, 1999) was used to analyze the obtained material. As the interviews were analyzed we understood that the participants first priority, as a life project, is profession, followed by sentimental life and maternity. The results point to a significant change in feminine identity, reveling that women, nowadays, plan maternity according to their professional conquers and their conjugal stability. Never the less, the same time they assume a new position in their carriers and dedicate to an occupation, they also desire with the same intensity for maternity. Therefore the subject-positions that these contemporary women assume must not be thought as something stable but as a processes of continuum identification which is connected to a wider context such as: culture, politics, religion, economy and others. In the same way, we can affirm that there isn t only one representation of maternity and only one way to be a mother. There is it s a continuum process of construction. We are plastic beings becoming as we interact with others in the world we live. We formulate and reformulate our ways of life, we assume and abandon identities, we are crossed by the historical context and dominant discourse existed in the lives we live