ABSTRACT
To approach the social dynamics between the two identities of women raped – one of a survivor and another one of a mother – the author analyzes postwar notions of motherhood and mothering through the prism of an undisclosed motherhood (among mother–survivors of war rape) put into comparative perspective with tragic comfort–discomfort motherhood (with the example of mother–survivors of gendercide in Srebrenica). In the second part, the author discusses work on masculinities and femininities through the communities of practice to developing an understanding of how and what aspects of toxic sexualities and gender relations might get transmitted from traumatized mothers (and fathers, too) in homes. The third part of the chapter presents how mother–survivors find ways to integrate their own traumatic experiences – which symbolize regression in their own, individual, personal development – with the progressive attitude of fostering care and love despite having been subjected to extreme violence, abandonment, and hatred as a consequence of their own trauma.
