9/22 Superwomen With Children – An Easy Target

After class today I’m really stuck on how Lillith’s character made me think about the superwoman and motherhood – how the two usually do not mix. When I see superwomen, I usually see them sans children. For example, all three ladies in Charlie’s Angels, the women in Charmed and Uma Thurman of Kill Bill. One exception is the mother from The Incredibles, however it must be noted that she was a superwoman and then stopped fighting the bad guys once she became a mother. It is not until a situation presented itself where she chose to start fighting evil again while simultaneously establishing her role as a mother.
I see superwomen with kids as more vulnerable than those without. In addition, superwomen who have partners are also made more vulnerable. Having loved ones as a superwoman is a risk because villains can use them to get to the superwoman herself.
So I have established that most superwomen are not mothers. Their matronly role is affirmed, however, simply because they are continuously helping people as superwomen.
This brings me to Lillith because she is resistant to play the role of a parent when she is awakened because of her child’s death. Therefore, she has supernatural powers and is refusing to be the motherly character; obviously it must be painful to think about her deceased child. With Lillith’s nuclear family eliminated from the plotline, she is forced to become a “parent” figure and we therefore connect this to her gender, referring to her as the motherly figure for those she chooses to awaken.
This theme of motherhood in Dawn seems to me to be strong, although the nuclear aspect is absent. This is somewhat revolutionary in representing the idea that family can be a group of individuals living together who are not related by blood.