Las Madres Paternalism

Maternalism is defined as the quality or state of having or showing maternal instincts. However, it is difficult to fit the concept of maternalism into just one definition. Maternalism has a political construct, as well as its social definition. Maternalism can be utilized differently, as seen in White Mother to a Dark Race and Disappearing Acts. In both texts, maternalism was used to call for social change. Both texts focus on the role of maternalism in politics, where it becomes a means to an end.
In Disappearing Acts, Las Madres uses the conventional idea of maternalism against a destructive force- namely to further their attempts of holding their government responsible an explanation the disappearance of their children. The group is simply

They also used their roles as mothers in opposition to a militaristic dictatorship. Las Madres could have submissively accepted the disappearances of their children, but instead opted to use their motherhood to legitimatize their protests. In addition, the protests of Las Madres helped bring about laws that protected women. However, the ideas of memory, forgetting, and haunting play a part in their struggle. As mentioned before, the mothers are haunted by their children. The mothers demand something impossible-- the return of their missing children. They know that their children are dead, so why do they insist on such an impossible goal? This helps recreates the children as ghosts of sorts—their mothers refuse to participate in exhumations or to try and identify corpses that could be theirs in order to keep their children “alive”. While we have a general knowledge of what occurred to them because of investigators and survivors’ testimonies, many personal fates are still unknown. Las Madres’ rejection of their death keeps them frozen in a time where they were safe and alive. If they admit the children are dead, they would have to grieve and move on. There have already been calls for trials against the military to stop, for fear it could destabilize the government and a desire for closure. Las Madres became the voice of their children and demanded justice

In both Australia and the United States of America, indigenous people were seen as unfit to care for their children. In many cases, children were removed from the custody of their parents and sent to a boarding school. Once there, they would have to fit into the idea of whiteness—they could not speak their native languages, their names would be changed and they would have their appearance changed. To the settlers, the native people were the “marked” people who needed to change their uncivilized ways to become more like the whites. White women were often the strongest supporters of these institutions and as a result became the agents of nation building. By claiming themselves as the “Great White Mother”, they denied indigenous women the roles of mothers in their own society. These types of women were often intermediates between natives and government associations that enforced these beliefs. It also attempted to force different forms of motherhood on a foreign society. Under the guise of benevolence, these policies helped to tear apart indigenous families. Unfortunately, maternalism was simply another way settlers justified their mistreatment of the natives. On a larger scale, the indigenous people could be considered the child and the settler the adult. The settler presumed that the natives did not know how to live properly, and thus, their children were not