‘Una Buena Madre Tiene Ovarios Gigantescos (A Good Mother Has Giant Ovaries)’: How Mexican Mothers Negotiate the Madresposa Ideology

Abstract

In Mexico, the ideal of motherhood is embodied by the madresposa—a motherwife expected to fully dedicate herself to her family and husband at the expense of her own desires and autonomy. Madresposa is grounded in marianismo, a cultural script that idealises the Virgin Mary as the ultimate model of womanhood—virtuous, self-sacrificing, and devoted to her family. Scholars have almost exclusively focused on mothering ideologies across the minority world, underscoring how women differentially embody motherhood based on ethnicity/race, class, sexuality and family structure. Yet, despite its prevalence in Mexican society, madresposa has been largely unexamined in research. In this study, we asked: How do Mexican women negotiate madresposa in a societal context characterised by patriarchy? We used a semi-structured interview approach with Mexican women (N = 27, M_age = 32.30), most of whom live in central Mexico, to gather insights about their perspectives on motherhood. Using thematic analysis, which included both semantic and latent approaches of coding, we identified three key ways that women both upheld and resisted the pressures to embody the madresposa: they negotiated (1) labour; (2) self-sacrifice and (3) affect. We situate our findings within the patriarchal contexts of Mexico. Our study advances existing research by expanding knowledge on mothering ideologies beyond the minority world contexts, bringing into focus the unique ways that mothering ideology is configured in Mexico.