Motherhood: The Last Alternative for Heidi.
The feminist movement has played a major role in the accomplishment of many benefits regarding women's situation in society. For example, nowadays they are active members of the economy of many nations and have privileged positions in governmental institutions. Tired of being defined by men, feminists demanded, among other issues, being defined for what they were as independent individuals capable of taking their own decisions. Precisely, such is the case of Heidi's character in Wendy Wassertein's The Heidi Chronicles. Throughout the play, Heidi is revealed as a woman concerned about the discrimination suffered by women along history, and she, together with her friend Susan, is determined to fight in order to revert their social situation. However, as the play continues, one can see that Heidi, in contrast to her friends who have changed from the persons that they were, has not moved on with her own life. Consequently, when she realizes that she remains the same person that she was 15 or 20 years before, she accepts that she is not happy at all, and, as a result, she looks for a change: adopting a child. Therefore, one can affirm that Heidi, culturally influenced by a society represented by her friends, understands that becoming a mother is the last alternative that she has to give a new meaning to her life and reach the self-fulfillment that she has searched for all her life.
In her article, "Body/Politics: our bodies triumphed-, Alison Young explains how women who protested at Greenham Common were allowed to express their emotions, in contrast to other movements who favored the use of reason over the expression of feeling: "Emotion or feeling is there (in other movements) denigrated in favor of a faith in reason, that is, rationalism which seeks to expel emotion- (Young 354). Clearly, such movements inhibit women to express themselves freely.
