Paper short abstract:

Violent religious imagery surrounding both “normal” and “monstrous” motherhood plays a significant role in the reproduction of tense gender relations in rural Mexico, so that men seek to control what is perceived as dangerous femininity.

Paper long abstract:

In Mexico, violent religious imagery surrounding motherhood is a significant factor in the reproduction of tense gender relations, in which men seek to control what is perceived as dangerous femininity. This paper is based on 15 months of fieldwork in the twelve pueblos of Milpa Alta, in the rural outskirts of Mexico City, where Aztec and Catholic traditions are intertwined, forging a distinct vision of motherhood and violence. For example, Saint Anne, the Biblical mother of the Virgin Mary and patron saint of the Milpa Altan town Santa Ana Tlacotenco, sends snakes after people who have not fulfilled their obligation as devotees. Dangerous maternity is manifest in the cosmological link between women and serpents, both possessing the power to kill and to create.

Every child in Milpa Alta is carefully watched over by several loving, albeit strict mothers: Mother Earth (tonantzin tlalli) and the ubiquitously venerated Virgin of Guadalupe, divine symbol of Mexican maternity, as well as the biological mother and the two grandmothers, which are all addressed as "mamás". Even adult sons may still receive physical punishment from their mothers. The dark side of motherhood is most strongly represented in urban legends about witches. In a reversal of "normal" kin relations, witches suck children's blood and deprive them of life force, instead of bleeding to create new life. Thus, looking at motherhood through the lens of cosmology helps to explain why women in Milpa Alta become victims of gender-based violence from a position of relative power, acquired through motherhood.