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The centrality of motherhood to the definition of the adult female is characterized in the form of a mandate which requires having at least two children and raising them well. The processes mandating motherhood are discussed. A direct attack on the motherhood mandate is seen as basic to eliminating sex‐role stereotypes, mythologies, and sex‐typed behavior. Given the social and cultural forces that propel women into motherhood — either by choice or by chance — a thorough analysis of the purpose of childbearing and childrearing in a changing society is basic to understanding persistence and change in sex‐typed behavior.
Nancy Felipe Russo (Thu,) studied this question.