Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution

by Adrienne Rich

The pathbreaking investigation into motherhood and womanhood from an influential and enduring feminist voice, now for a new generation. In Of Woman Born , originally published in 1976, influential poet and feminist Adrienne Rich examines the patriarchic systems and political institutions that define motherhood. Exploring her own experience―as a woman, a poet, a feminist, and a mother―she finds the act of mothering to be both determined by and distinct from the institution of motherhood as it is imposed on all women everywhere. A “powerful blend of research, theory, and self-reflection” (Sandra M. Gilbert, Paris Review ), Of Woman Born revolutionized how women thought about motherhood and their own liberation. With a stirring new foreword from National Book Critics Circle Award–winning writer Eula Biss, the book resounds with as much wisdom and insight today as when it was first written.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Parenting, Womens, Gender, Poetry, Philosophy

416 pages, Paperback

Published April 27, 2021

About the author

Works, notably Diving into the Wreck (1973), of American poet and essayist Adrienne Rich champion such causes as pacifism, feminism, and civil rights for gays and lesbians.

A mother bore Adrienne Cecile Rich, a feminist, to a middle-class family with parents, who educated her until she entered public school in the fourth grade. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Radcliffe college in 1951, the same year of her first book of poems, A Change of World. That volume, chosen by W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, and her next, The Diamond Cutters and Other Poems (1955), earned her a reputation as an elegant, controlled stylist.

In the 1960s, however, Rich began a dramatic shift away from her earlier mode as she took up political and feminist themes and stylistic experimentation in such works as Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law (1963), The Necessities of Life (1966), Leaflets (1969), and The Will to Change (1971). In Diving into the Wreck (1973) and The Dream of a Common Language (1978), she continued to experiment with form and to deal with the experiences and aspirations of women from a feminist perspective.

In addition to her poetry, Rich has published many essays on poetry, feminism, motherhood, and lesbianism. Her recent collections include An Atlas of the Difficult World (1991) and Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991–1995 (1995).

Reviews

[Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an essential read for anyone interested in feminist and or gender related issues. An absolute classic. Here are a few memorable excerpts:

1. "Partiarchy is the power of the fathers: a familial-social, ideological, political system in which men - by force, direct pressure, or through ritual, tradition, law, and language, customs, etiquette, education, and the division of labor, determine what part women shall or shall not play, and in which the female is everywhere subsumed under the male."

-a nice definition since so many fumble with it usually

2. "A crucial moment in human conscioussness, then, arrives when man discovers that it is he himself, not the moon of the spring rains or the spirits of the dead, who impregnates the woman; that the child she carries and gives birth to is his child, who can make him immortal, both mysticallyl, by propitiating the gods with prayers and sacrifices when he is dead, and concretely, by receiving the partimony from him. At this crossroads of sexual possession, property ownership, and the desire to transcend death, developed the institution we know: the present-day patriarchal family with its supernaturalizing the penis, its division of labor by gender, its emotional, physical, and material possessiveness, its idea of monogamous marriage until death (and its severe penalties for adultery by the wife), the "illegitimacy" of a child born outside wedlock, the economic dependency of women, the unpaid domestic services of the wife, the obedience of women and children to male authority, the imprinting and continuation of heterosexual roles"

3. "The pig, declared an unclean animal in the Koran and the Old Testament, was a reiterative figure in goddess - religion; the sow was sacred in Crete, sometimes appeared as an embodiment of Isis, was sacrificed at the feast of Aphrodite, and was a symbol of the Eleusinian cult of Demeter. "Wherever the eating of pork is forbidden and the pig is held to be unclean, we can be sure of its originally sacred character""

-something I never knew

4. "Women who refuse to become mothers are not merely emotionally suspect, but are dangerous. Not only do they refuse to continue the species; they also deprive society of its emotional leaven - the suffering of the mother"

5. "As her sons have seen her: the Mother in patriarchy: controlling, erotic, castrating, heart-suffering, guilt-ridden, and guilt-provoking; a marble brow, a huge breast, an avid cave; between her legs snakes, swamp-grass, or teeth; on her lap a helpless infant or a martyred son"

-nice

[Rebekah Griffin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only made it to the half way point in this book. I may finish, but I'm not sure yet. While this book is praised by many feminists, many of whom I have read, I am not loving the tone Rich takes when writing about motherhood. While it shares real expereince, which I appreciate, it also tends to demonize the 'mother.' I was especially put of by a section where she writes that motherhood is essentially a power trip for women and a way to exercise control. As a mother and a woman I take offense to this. While I can see how this may be the case with some parents (not only mothers), it is definitely not the case with all mothers.
The parts of the book that attempt to shed light on some of the more painful expereinces women have as mothers, as well as the sections where she discusses how women's relationships with their own mothers affect their parenting is interesting, at times even valuable, but at other times it is again a bit demonizing.
I'l update if and when I finish this book.

[GeekChick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rich details how motherhood and childbirth were subjugated as people transitioned from matriarchal or equal societies to patriarchy. She traces how patriarchal systems then drastically lowered women's role and value, and how childbirth was 'stolen' from midwives and turned into a 'medical procedure.'

Rich is clearly angry about all this, and given the era she grew up in, it is understandable. And remember that the book was written in the mid-1970s. Still, the anger only rises to the surface now and then. It is an excellent, empowering book for any woman who struggles to define herself outside the role of 'mother' or "woman without children." Her point of, "why do we define women who aren't mothers by something they don't have, rather than something they do?" rings true. We have been reduced to the sum of our reproductive capacities.

The situation has been improving in recent decades, but depending where one lives there is still a long way to go. As a working mom struggling to add motherhood to her self-definition (rather than becoming it), I found this book extremely liberating and empowering.

I've read a few other books on this subject, but this one is the best.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Those who speak largely of the human condition are usually those most exempt from its oppressions—whether of sex, race, or servitude.

At the end of this book, Rich says something about women, even at the time of her writing, thinking in ways that were ignored, derided, or actively suppressed by mainstream ideologies. I don't know whether she intended this to be self-reflection or irony, or if she had any intent at all that reflected on her own building of structures rather than the broadside and seemingly exterior targets of patriarchy and gynephobia. To put this in a way less oblique, between the time I read On Lies, Secrets And Silence and now, I have become increasingly and horribly aware of the connotations of the phrase "radical feminism" with all its TERF and SWERF offshoots that invest certain "women" the divine right to define what "woman" is. If this were in anyway conducive to social justice movements, I would be perfectly right in defining woman as only those who undergo the risk of bleeding out every month as the result of perfectly natural biological processes, in addition to the uterus, in addition to the vagina, in addition to the breasts and the hormones and whatever else the gendered social construction has imbibed over the years. However, I don't. My main reason why? I'm not interested in participating in genocide.

Reading this while trying to factor trans women in is like trying to take a wolverine for a walk through the park. It's not just the difficulties of getting any use out of all the assumptions of shared commonalities of physiognomy that make the experience a tightrope. It's also that there's a history of radical feminism humiliating, violating, and ostracizing trans women in the streets, on the podium, and in the halls of US Congress, a violence that is more than healthy on the modern trails of the Internet. Rich may have published this in 1976, but the Stonewall Riots that were spearheaded by a trans woman of color occurred nearly a decade previous, and I find it extremely hard to believe simple ignorance could have lasted so long. Throw in the fact that Rich is acknowledged as having aided in the murderous horror that is The Transsexual Empire by the author herself in 1979, and you have a cis writer who's more comfortable referencing cultures in Kenya and China than with looking in her own backyard when it comes to concepts of mother, motherhood, and the impact of it on women. Every so often a quote would appeal, but not enough to post it outside of the context of a willful calcification of the idea of womanhood around what science, up till this point so suspicious in its preponderance of (cis) men participation, at the time proposed.

Beyond the transphobic construction of this entire thing (you could say it's aged badly, but the fact that Rich never bothered to go back and comment on her thinking before her death in 2012 shows that it hasn't so much aged as poisonously survived), there are smaller individual matters about her vilification of birth control, abortion, insanity, and a relationship between mother and child where the child is not in anyway owned by the parent. As someone whom eugenics would have eagerly purged out of the womb, the last thing I need is a portrait of child abuse that seeks apologisms and an analysis of infanticide that considers gendred physiognomy as the only plausible factor. In terms of birth control business, I agree there needs to be more review of the science, but considering how Rich glosses over the coercion of Puerto Rico women, followed by the enforcement of incarcerated women with the former connected the horrible side effects to the drug trials they were undergoing, her critique comes off less as invested and more as ableist as fuck. There's also the random allusions to woman of color (black women more like), slavery, incest, and other issues that weren't intersectional so much as the bare minimum of covering all of one's bases.

In short, I like Rich far better when she talks about herself. That's what the beginning of this book was, a misleading introduction that led to me looking to recapture the tone of someone who's actually experienced what she's talking about till, disappointingly, the very end. I'll still be looking to acquire another book of her poetry/prose/writing compilations, but to put it plainly, those who had reservations about mourning her without qualm back in 2012 were right to have such.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book about the myths and stereotypes surrounding motherhood, contrasted with the reality of Rich’s experience as a mother of three sons. It is an academic-level work and can be fairly heavy going, which is why I started skimming at about page 55 (though I did slow down and read in its entirety the late chapter that felt most relevant to me, “Motherhood and Daughterhood”). Though it was originally published in 1976, we’re still in thrall to the patriarchal system of motherhood that Rich describes and dates back to the dawn of monotheistic religion. She writes about the bodily reality of motherhood and the crisis of purpose for both mothers and non-mothers: is becoming a mother really the only marker of a woman’s success? How can a separate identity as an artist be carved out and sustained? New books about motherhood arrive every year – I’m looking forward to Sheila Heti’s, for instance – but it’s hard to imagine one more complete and profound than this.

[Maricruz · Rating 4 out of 5]

La verdad es que Adrienne Rich decía cosas más cañeras sobre la maternidad ya en los años 70 que varios de los textos actuales que he leído sobre ese tema. Por qué habré tardado tanto yo en leerlo.

[Jenny McDougal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adrienne Rich has again rearranged me. 'Of Woman Born' should be required reading for all: Rich interrogates the violence inherent in the institution of motherhood, how it infiltrates every aspect of our lives, how it limits our conception of who and what women are, and how this institution must be destroyed in order to mend not only our culture but our selves. "There are ways of thinking we don't know about yet," Susan Sontag tells us, and Rich expands on this: "We need to imagine a world in which every woman is the presiding genius of her own body. In such a world women will truly create new life, bringing forth not only children (if and as we choose) but the visions, and the thinking necessary to sustain, console, and alter human existence -- a new relationship to the universe. Sexuality, politics, intelligence, power, motherhood, work, community, intimacy will develop new meanings; thinking itself will be transformed."

[Kenya Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this long ago in one of my Feminist Theory courses. It basically changed my life and I believe I was lucky to read this before actually becoming a mother. I have so much less mother's guilt as I pursue my writing career.

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good thing I didn't read this in college, or I would never have gotten married and had a child. Or, maybe I should have read it then and sacrificed everything for my poetic career.

A reminder of what being a gifted writer, committed feminist and serious thinker really means. Some of it is a little dated, but it's still like having a bucket of cold water poured on your head--infuriating, terrifying and enlightening all at once.

[Nicolas Lontel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ayant lu rapidement le résumé, je m'attendais "simplement" à une réflexion sur la maternité et le rôle de mère, mais je ne m'attendais vraiment pas à la réflexion approfondie sur l'enfantement, la maternité et la femme, sociologique, historique et un peu personnelle aussi, qu'Adrienne Rich nous livre ici.

Autant elle s'inscrit à la suite des réflexions anthropologiques de Margaret Mead et Johann Jakob Bachofen sur les sociétés matriarcales, gynocratiques et/ou patriarcales et les éléments qui la composent qu'à la suite des réflexions de Kate Millett (Sexual Politics) sur les attributs du patriarcat contemporain et leur incidence sur la vie des femmes. Elle approfondi aussi énormément ce que Deirdre English et Barbara Ehrenreich commençaient à explorer dans Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers ainsi que Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness et suit un parcours historiques et juridiques de la prise en charge de l'enfantement et de la théorie, des méthodes de travail par le patriarcat et les hommes et la dépossession de l'enfantement au corps médical reléguant le statut de sage-femme à celui de sorcière et prompt aux insultes. Elle parle évidemment aussi des nombreuses violences obstétricales, du Moyen-Âge à aujourd'hui.

En plus de toutes ces analyses, très larges, complexes et presqu'exhaustif pour expliquer des systèmes d'exploitation, qu'on retrouvait beaucoup dans les essais féministes des années '70, elle introduit aussi sa propre expérience d'enfantement, de mère dans la société américaine et en tant que femme appartenant à certaines communautés (juive, lesbienne, ...) qu'elle le désire ou non et arrive à refléter un large éventail d'expériences de d'autres femmes (noires, pauvres, etc.) et de leur propre barrière et oppression dans une conception de la maternité imposée par le patriarcat. Elle réfléchit aussi sur la place (ou l'absence) de la femme non-mère (qui n'a pas de mot pour la décrire) dans la réflexion théorique féministe et maternelle.

Un livre qui n'a pas vraiment vieilli au fond. Probablement un incontournable du genre.

[cass krug]

this was way more academic than what i was anticipating so i’m soft DNFing at 25%. you can definitely see how the time period it was written in influenced the content and the tone. we’ve come a long way since 1976! i do think the use of multiple introductions, as well as the footnotes rich added for the 10th anniversary edition, were a really interesting display of how people’s ways of thinking can evolve over time. you get the sense that she could’ve kept returning to the text every 10 years, armed with more inclusive points of view each time. might return to it one day but was feeling the same way i felt about susan sontag's on women - i'd probably get a bit more out of a more contemporary book.

[Raquel Casas · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Cuando pensamos en una institución la imaginamos instalada en un edificio (...) Lo que no vemos son los medios con los que el poder se mantiene y transfiere detrás de las paredes. La maternidad se asocia con el hogar».
🥀
Y Rich derriba esas paredes y saca la maternidad y la no maternidad, la disposición de la mujer, en definitiva, de su propio cuerpo, a la luz. La examina con sus componentes psicológicos, como la culpa («la herramienta más eficaz de control sobre las mujeres»), o sociológicos, como la presión («cualquier cosa que hagamos está mal»), o políticos, como ese control de la natalidad en función de la necesidad de mano de obra.
🥀
No hay prisma bajo el cual Rich no analice la condición de mujer, de madre, de hija, de ciudadana. Nos coloca unas gafas políticas para que examinemos la realidad que nos rodea y todo ello lo acompaña de rigurosos estudios, referencias literarias y experiencias propias.
🥀
Un ensayo, fruto de cuatro años de trabajo, que usaré como referente siempre. Será mi compañero, mi lugar de consulta, mi apoyo para la reflexión, para abrirme nuevos debates, ampliar horizontes. Porque, como dijo Susan Sontag: «Hay formas de pensar que no conocemos aún»; porque, como me dijo mi librera: «Aquí está todo».
#AdrienneRich #Nacemosdemujer #misimprescindibles #MaternidadesLit #misescritorasreferentes #leoautorastodoelaño #creandoredes

[Pia Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is such a heavy, yet necessary and thought-provoking read. It shows motherhood from a whole different perspective- gone are the assumptions that motherhood is the rosy, fluffy, ‘all-is-well-in-the-world-now’ picture society teaches us it is. Some of Rich’s anecdotes and statements might seem anti-motherhood, but once you read between the lines and actually understand what she’s talking about, it all makes sense. The thing that startles me most is that this book is more than 40 years old and still so relevant to today’s society. Scary, actually. We still have such a long way to go.

[Kulveen Virdee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential read for all women, regardless of whether they choose the path of motherhood or not. Such insightful perspectives on the ways in which patriarchy as institutionalized motherhood and as a result trapped women into standards, ideals and experiences that perpetuate patriarchy and the control of us as women. I could go on and on, I’m a clinician and already finding that many of my patients who are mothers are burnt not from childrearing itself but from patriarchy and their relationship with it.

[Eliana Sofía · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creo que mi tesis de maestría acabará siendo una reseña muy muy larga de este libro.

[Catherine Livesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: elements of this book are, unfortunately, associated with the TERF movement and its transphobic elements. Reading this book from a modern feminist perspective, there are a very few references which I discounted on this basis.

Having said that I still feel that after reading this book my understanding of the world is fundamentally altered. While there may be outdated elements that we find painful to read with current perspective, I don't think these should discount the incredible wisdom of this book. The entire section on the history of birth and mid-wifery was stunning to me: a whole section of history never recorded that resulted in the death of so many thousands of women.

We now recognise that not all women have uteruses and, if they do, not all women choose to have children. However we also know that, historically, childbearing, motherhood and reproductive health has been a hugely influential aspect of gender politics over the years, and it deserves to be given a full examination in that context.

The philosophical and historical expositions were challenging and fascinating, but I also loved the personal reflections woven in. I have never read another book that combines the academic and the personal in this way. I felt it provided an insight into all facets of a complicated author and an even more complex subject which is very much personal.

Go in with awareness of the issues around transphobia that can be attributed to this period in feminism, and the troubling things that could come up in the writing. Don't let this put you off reading this very important book - a must-read for everyone interested in feminism and gender studies.

[Matthew Gurteen · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

I firmly believe that if aliens were to visit Earth and only pick up this book, they would come away with the impression that men live in a kind of Eden in which they force women to be their slaves because 'patriarchy.' I disagreed with at least 80% of what was in this book. It not only demonises fathers but also mothers as well. On top of this, Adrienne Rich offers barely any solutions to the 'problems' she proposes and even the ones she does suggest she disputes herself at the end of the book! On top of that, the book is filled with autobiographical information which was just out of place in a critical text. I do, however, acknowledge that this book was written when women had only recently achieved equal pay, so the issues of gender were much more prevalent then, but to say that this book is still as relevant now is a lie. All that being said, it was incredibly well written, and I am not saying this book should not exist. It had a lot of interesting facts from various points in history, and the author is clearly knowledgable. I also appreciated her honesty and unapologetic tone. Overall I honestly can't recommend this book for anyone unless you are looking critically in depth into motherhood or are looking for some gold old fashioned hateful feminist propaganda.

[Sucheta · Rating 5 out of 5]

The central thesis of this book, as the title suggests, is to delineate the institution of motherhood, which is essentially a tool of the patriarchy, from the experience of motherhood. The latter is often the price paid in order to perpetuate the former. In a roundabout way, the women’s liberation movements of the era the book was written in didn’t truly liberate women but alienated them further from their bodies. True choice (of whether, when, where, with whom and at what stage of life to have children) evades women because the deification of motherhood clouds our vision of the truth of motherhood. Motherhood is a state of being none of us can escape- either by being bodily born of, raised by, or becoming one- but is neglected as a complex human experience by the institutional expectations created around it.

To me it felt like an older sister (as Adrienne Rich suggests, sisterhood is a form of motherhood too), guiding me through the mental muddle of biological female-ness in the swamp of everyday patriarchy.

[delphiansybil · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book -- Rich discusses the experience of motherhood and daughterhood from pre-birth to adulthood with exquisite language and emotion. Every mother and daughter, and every daughter who is thinking of becoming a mother should read this book. It is fantastic and really one of the most important feminist books of its time.

[Lois · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adrienne Rich died today. She had a profound impact on me when this book was published, when I was 26 and not yet thinking about becoming a mother. Her poetry, especially "Diving into the Wreck" and "Dreaming a Common Language" moved me and challenged me.

[Mireia Crusellas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Que tot i estar escrit l'any 78 continuï sent tan actual, i ens faci tanta falta llegir-lo, em preocupa.

[Jessie Wittman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful. She names and historically/politically situates so many mother-related problems. The chapter on maternal violence was especially visceral. Though I disagree with many of her conclusions, the book’s position in female history is incredible. I am so thankful she began to bring to light issues within the maternal experience so that the rest of us could attempt to wrestle with them. Also, her mastery of language is stunning.

[Colette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Je m'attendais à un essai moins personnel, mais en fait c'est très autobiographique. Intéressant et il me semble qu'il y a encore peu de textes qui sont si directs et crus sur la question...

[SaЯRah Muhammad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Adrienne Rich's book, Of Woman Born, is a book about Rich's own experience of being a mother. She writes from a feminist perspective, and explains how the motherhood institution that is imposed on them through society determines a woman's motherhood experience. At one point in the book, Rich tells a story about a woman who killed and decapitated two of her children in her front yard. When Rich discusses this story with her poetry group, the women all agreed that they felt a direct connection with the woman`s desperation. Rich wrote that every woman in her poetry group that had children could identify with her. It seems as though all parents have a breaking point when it comes to their children, however it seems highly unlikely that those parents could ever imagine doing what that woman did to their own children. Rich also discusses the hatred that mothers feel towards their child, and the depression she felt throughout raising her three children. The book also seems to be a bit outdated. At one point of the book, Rich writes "I had no idea of what I wanted, what I could or could not choose. I only knew that to have a child was to assume adult womanhood." When relating this quote to the 50's, it is very fitting. However, it is not so true for this time period. Women are no longer expected to bear children. Women can now go to college, achieve a degree, and obtain virtually any job a man could get. It is much more accepted now if a woman does not want to have children. There are many women who chose not to have families now a day, but who are still assumed into adult womanhood. She continues to express that her children held her back from being able to do what she wanted to do in life. I know plenty of women who are able to have jobs while also caring for their children. I feel like by Rich saying this, she is stating an untrue generalization that no woman wants to be a stay at home mom, and no woman is able to live her life to the fullest if they have children. These generalizations may be true for some women, but there are plenty of women out there who do not fit into this mold that Rich describes. Rich also writes "women have been both mothers and daughters, but have written little on the subject; the vast majority of literacy and visual images of motherhood comes to us filtered through a collective or individual male consciousness." For the time this book was written, Rich was completely right. However, women writers are now as common as men.The one part I did find interesting in the book was when Rich discussed the history of women. She theorizes that women bear the weight of Eve's transgression, since she was the first women offender. She also goes on to talk about how the relationship between sexual acts and pregnancy went unrecognized. Men had an active denial to their paternal role; therefore they believed that women were impregnated by spirits of the dead. I also thought it was interesting when Rich mentioned how Ancient Mid-Eastern tombs were deliberately designed to resemble the body of the mother- with labyrinths and spirals intended to represent her internal anatomy- so that the spirit could be reborn there.I have read a lot of positive reviews for this book, so maybe I do not have the same connection to the author that others have. I am not a mother so there may be some parts of the book I cannot fully relate to and have some bias towards.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was not expecting Of Woman Born, a book originally published in 1976, to be so relevant when I read it for the first time in 2021! Despite being uncomfortable with dismissive attitudes towards second wave literature among contemporary feminists, I had still internalised the idea that this book isn't on every feminist's bookshelf today is because it's too outdated to be essential. In other words, that the book is at fault. I was so wrong! This is a phenomenal book about motherhood as an institution with enormous relevance for today's women (and for anyone who wants to understand the social condition of half of humanity, I suppose). I'm ashamed that I went so long without reading it.

It's worth noting that the edition of the book that I'm reviewing is a later one, in which Rich demonstrates intellectual growth by revisiting the work and amending some of her original statements. In doing so, Rich takes into account criticism the book had received from other feminists on account of her standpoint as a white, American woman who allows her privileges to obscure her understanding of the different subject positions of Black and white women vis-a-vis motherhood and mothering. I'm not going to pretend that this is a perfect book, even with Rich's amendments. But it's a classic in feminist theory, and it's also endlessly quotable (Rich is perhaps best known for her poetry elsewhere).

A new edition seems to have been published recently if you'd like to get yourself a copy (linked below). I can't say I recall having ever seen this book in a bookstore or library in the UK before, an indictment of the publishing industry if I ever heard one.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/of-w...

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

really enjoyed this read and will probably be obsessing over it for the foreseeable future — i’ve highlighted, bookmarked and screenshotted so many excerpts. my poor friends had to deal with a lot in our gc as i read it.

anyways, i have thoughts and they are messy! the one thing that keeps me from giving it a full 5 stars is that i got an apologist vibe for maternal abuse to children from this. kinda. let me explain.

i do understand where the anger comes from — how the institution of motherhood (etc etc) can form resentment, how it can be a “desperate response from a mother on an invisible attack on her being”.

but guess what? you’re still the adult and that’s still a child. and as someone (w/o getting into details) who was at the receiving end of a mother’s frustration for much of her life? that’s traumatic, hurtful and while i acknowledge that motherhood-the-institution plays a big part on how we got here, at the end of the day, it is what it is: abuse — verbal, physical, “just a spanking”. it’s abuse, and coating it with academia doesn’t make it less bad.

it may be the book’s age (my own mother was a child herself when this came out) showing — but i think, that in order to heal and dismantle this institution, this “release of frustration” has to be acknowledged as abuse. it needs to be spoken and acknowledged or cycles of it will never be broken & resentment will continue to be passed on from mother to daughter.

anyways. good book. it’s 5:30am.
everyone go to therapy if you can and don’t use systematic oppression to pretend you have no fault in hurting your children.

[Auba · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 estrelles

És un llibre interessantíssim sobre un tema enorme! De cada capítol es podrien treure 3 o 4 llibres més. Tracta es tema de sa maternitat des de diferents punts de vista (polític, sociològic, històric, literari, antropològic...) i a diferents èpoques i cultures (però més centrat en ses cultures occidentals, especialment ses anglòfones). Si li hagués de trobar una pega és que vol fer tantíssimes coses i condensa tantíssima informació que, de vegades, costa d'assimilar el que llegeixes... i com que és tan interessant, m'agradaria poder-ho assimilar tot! Ses parts que més m'han interessat han estat es recorreguts que fa Rich a sa història de sa maternitat com a experiència lligada a sa domesticitat (no sempre havia estat així!), sa història de s'obstetrícia i sa 'midwifery' com a professions i sa manera com desmonta es mite "comare=bruixa/bruta/ignorant vs. metge=científic/net/professional". També m'ha semblat molt curiosa (i dura) tota sa història des parts i ses barbaritats que feien.

En definitiva, he après molt.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rich has played a large role in my personal life ever since my high school English teacher gave me her selected poems. I deeply respect the reading/research that (while dated) went into this book — but I find the section that most reverberated (w me) is almost absent of that scholarship: ‘motherhood and daughterhood’ is a masterpiece. If you only have time for one essay, read that one. It’s a gift. The rest of the book has been slowly filtering into cultural and political thinking for the past 40-50 years… note: I read the re-release where Rich does try to situate the racial and economic realities a bit more but it’s definitely (still) a white woman’s perspective. However, the tenacity and vulnerability of her work does outshine (in many ways) its privilege.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were some chapters that took my breath away, notably the two about raising sons and raising daughters. Mostly this is a book about the mythological underpinnings of the patriarchy and motherhood, and I won't lie, there are some eyebrow-raising conspiracies along the lines of IVF as a patriarchal strategy of disenfranchising women (?). But there are also incredible reminders that the best way to raise feminist children is for women to love, respect, and nurture themselves. Also, come on, Adrienne Rich was preaching intersectionality in the 70s like it was a given, and we're still struggling with the concept.

[Elisa Ramírez · Rating 4 out of 5]

“No entendía muy bien mi resistencia a llamarme a mi misma madre… ahora la entiendo… la resistencia era contra el hecho de acabar siendo una función más que una persona”


Este libro es de 1976 y aunque obviamente tiene cosas anticuadillas, merece la pena de leer. Fascinante como a día de hoy seguimos teniendo que cuestionar las mismas expectativas e ideas que rodean a la maternidad. Y, como dice Rich: acabar con la institución de la maternidad, no significa acabar con la maternidad.

(Mis dieces especialmente al capítulo sobre los inicios/desarrollo de la obstetricia)