Taking a stand and assuming political responsibility, Mary Cassatt's paintings encouraged women to return to their domestic roles (Broude, 3.) Cassatt's paintings have been dismissed as suppressive to women and regressive to the women's movement, yet these paintings shine light on a forgotten and important role women play as educators. What Broude fails to point out is how Mary Cassatt encouraged women back to the home through her advertisement of motherhood in these works. By transforming the maternal role of women from domestic, patriarchal slaves to mentors, Mary Cassatt gave mothers the honorary recognition they deserved. It is through Cassatt's use of instructive gestures that she lends mothers the deserved title of a role model. Cassatt places great significance on the fact that mothers are responsible for raising and shaping the generational minds of France. Thus, when Alison Effeny spoke of the Renaissance Madonna, she claimed that, “Cassatt's women likewise guide future generations to their destinies� (Effeny, 112.) Effeny points out the importance of the maternal connection with a child and how mothers serve as an influential role model to steer girls in the right direction.
This notion of a role model is symbolically represented through the guiding gestures in "Modern Woman" (1893.) This magnificent mural was one of Cassatt's most striking works incorporating significant symbolic scenes of motherhood. Specifically the gestures in Mary Cassatt's "Modern Woman" depict a didactic scene that according to Mathews “reflect the basic concerns of the people themselves� (Mathews, 84.) These concerns of nineteenth century France were the erosion of the family structure thus resulting in the need of role models for young women. The "Modern Woman" points out the need of structure and guidance in a child's life. To the left there are two young girls reaching up to the sky and running towards the focus of the mural, which appears to be a pyramid of women with a young girl at the bottom. Slightly to the left of this pyramid are two young girls holding a basket of apples and to the far right there are women dancing and celebrating culture. This mural is full of symbolism with young girls looking up to their mothers and influential women that surround them, with central focus on the “tree of knowledge.� Here a mother stands on a ladder picking fruit from a tree and reaches down to hand it to her assumed daughter. These gestures of passing the apple signify the passing of knowledge from one generation to another and the important role of a mother as a teacher and mentor. Art Historian and critic Nancy Mathews recognizes the way “Cassatt adapted the tree of knowledge theme, with its biblical connotations of disobedience, sin, and sexuality into a modern statement about independent women taking upon themselves the pursuit of knowledge and its dissemination� (Mathews, 89.) Clearly, then Cassatt is taking a feminist step in recognizing women's essential responsibility as mentors through advertising such powerful, enlightening gestures, rather than simply portraying patriarchal domesticity.
This notion of mothers as role models and providers of knowledge is also see through Cassatt's "Baby Reaching for an Apple" (1893) and "Gathering Fruit" (1893,) painted in the same year as "Modern Woman". For instance, In "Baby Reaching for an Apple" the mother pulls the tree branch down to assist her child's reach for an apple. These gestures symbolically represent a mother's assistance to her child in the tree of knowledge. The mother's extended reach represents all that she has to offer to her child in the preparation for her destiny. These instructive gestures are also seen in "Gathering Fruit". Once again, the mother stands above the daughter on a ladder and places a picked apple in her daughter's hand. Clearly the apple represents a figurative gesture of ripening the future minds of France. Here Cassatt is eager to prove women's opportunity for a superior role as an influential mother in French Society.