What we talk about when we talk about Mothering: Social Construction of Mothering in Tehran

Although mothering is widely believed to be a biological and natural stage of women's lives, feminism tells us that not all women have the same experience of mothering. They perceive and act upon it, depending on different cultural contexts. In this research, which includes my reflexive narrative of maternal experience, I attempted to challenge the involvement of dominant ideologies of mothering by narrating the cultural aspects of my own maternal experience. I related this personal story, which challenged my situation alongside others in a social context, to the maternal experience of a marginalized mother. In this regard, I attempted to link our story, which included two small local narratives, to the main body of society by writing a motivational and testimonial text. The story of each of us is full of considerations related to the intersection of gender, ethnicity, social class, language, and other domination systems that determine our privileges, inequalities, and proximity to power. In other words, when the linguistic nature of the word "mother" is replaced by its historical and social reality, it leads to the reproduction of social inequality and marginalizes the maternal experiences of many women.