Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution
by Adrienne Rich
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"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 show more 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"-- show lessTags
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Member Reviews
A must-read for feminists interested in the institution of motherhood (and really, as Rich argues, why wouldn't you be, whether or not you intend to parent?) and for parents, birthworkers, and other healthcare providers interested in feminism and/or in mothers' experiences. I went into this book braced to find it painfully dated but (although of course it's of its own time) was pleasantly surprised throughout: it's not just an influential classic of historical interest but a book that continues to be thought-provoking and relevant today.
Rich writes engagingly and is honest and thoughtful in her arguments here.
Rich writes engagingly and is honest and thoughtful in her arguments here.
Stunning work. It raged into the world with a horrible and beautiful truth. I read it first as I was nursing my firstborn, in the 70's. Fearful territory. She may have been the first to look with clarity at the ambivalence of motherhood, coming from her own perspective as a good mother and wife of the 1950's, bearing three sons in something like 6 years, plunging into the roughening waters of feminist consciousness, coming out as a lesbian. As to the last, I have always cherished her retort to the interviewer who asked what her sons thought of her lesbianism. Said Adrienne "well, I guess you'll have to ask them".
It can sometimes be jarring to read books dating back 30 years or more written by feminists (radical or otherwise); although we still have a long way to go, times have indeed changed. And there were moments of this in "Of Woman Born" - Rich's description of how the wives of academic husbands behaved and felt didn't ring true to someone of my generation. But I also know that that very scene is still true for many women today, just not usually those in that demographic; and we forget this at our peril.
This book is a sociological analysis of motherhood - the institution - an examination across several cultures (though mostly those leading to American), invoking myth, psychology, feminist theory, Marxism and more. At times, Rich's anger was show more uncomfortable - I don't feel it in the same way myself. But mostly, it was galvanizing. I came out of the book realizing how very much the institution is culturally determined and how much it would be possible to change - and how much better we would all be if we did change it. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to think about parenthood, of either sex, or to understand the role of parenthood and mothering in our culture. If you are honest, it will make you uncomfortable - but I think that's a good thing. show less
This book is a sociological analysis of motherhood - the institution - an examination across several cultures (though mostly those leading to American), invoking myth, psychology, feminist theory, Marxism and more. At times, Rich's anger was show more uncomfortable - I don't feel it in the same way myself. But mostly, it was galvanizing. I came out of the book realizing how very much the institution is culturally determined and how much it would be possible to change - and how much better we would all be if we did change it. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to think about parenthood, of either sex, or to understand the role of parenthood and mothering in our culture. If you are honest, it will make you uncomfortable - but I think that's a good thing. show less
This book was a lot more compelling and interesting than I thought it was going to be. I particularly enjoyed the sections on ancient women-centered societies and the medicalization of childbirth.
this had many interesting things but nearly every page had notes to read. I just think it was too long--298. because of all this stuff I decided not to have a child in my 20s. I am now 74.
This book is a classic that needs to be understood within the context of the time it was written. Yes, things have changed--duh. One reason women are living different lives in 2010 than they were in 1970 is because of people like Adrienne Rich. "We stand on the shoulders of giants"--of those who came before us.
A certain president elect should probably read this, along with everyone else of course.
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Author Information
103+ Works 9,869 Members
Adrienne Cecile Rich was born in Baltimore, Maryland on May 16, 1929. In 1951 she graduated from Radcliffe College and was selected for the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize by W.H. Auden. She began teaching for City College of New York in 1968, and was also a lecturer and adjunct professor at Swarthmore College and Columbia University School of show more the Arts. She taught in CUNY's basic writing program during the early 1970s. In the 1970s, she started to be active in the women's liberation movement. Her work has been characterized as confrontational, treating women's role in society, racism, and the Vietnam War. In addition to many collections of poetry, she has also written several books of nonfiction prose, such as Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations, What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics, and Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. Her last poetry collection was entitled Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010. She has won numerous literary awards, including the 1986 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the 1992 Poets' Prize, the 1997 Wallace Stevens Award of the Academy of American Poets, the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry, and the 2006 National Book Foundation Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She has also received the Bollingen Prize, the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and a MacArthur Fellowship. In 1974, she refused to receive as an individual the National Book Award for Poetry, instead accepting it on behalf of all silenced women. She also refused the National Medal of Arts in 1997, stating that "I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration." In 2012, she won the Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Poetry Prize. She died from long-term rheumatoid arthritis on March 27, 2012. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Is abridged in
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1976
- Epigraph
- ... ma per trattar del ben ch'i vi trovai,
diro dell' altre cose, ch'io v'ho scorte.
... but to treat of the good that I found there,
I will tell of other things I there discerned.)
- Dante, Inferno, 1:3 - Dedication
- To my grandmothers Mary Gravely Hattie Rice whose lives I begin to imagine.
I dedicate this Tenth Anniversary edition to the activists working to free women's bodies from archaic and unnecessary bonds - First words
- All human life on the planet is born of woman.
- Quotations
- Women, upon whom most of the burden of respect for life has been placed [i.e. the anti-choice movement], know that it is not [true throughout history that we have valued life above all]. We know too much at firsthand about t... (show all)he violence of the warrior, the rapist, the institutional violence of political and social systems in which we have little part, but which affect our bodies, our children, our aging parents: the violence which over centuries we have been told is the way of the world, but which we exist to mitigate and assuage.
In learning to give care to children, men would have to cease being children; the privileges of fatherhood could not be toyed with, as they now are, without an equal share in the full experience of nurture. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)This is where we have to begin.
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Sexuality and Gender Studies, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 306.8743 — Society, government, & culture Social sciences, sociology & anthropology Social Behavior - Dating, Marriage, Divorce Marriage, partnerships, unions; family Intrafamily relationships Parent-child relationship Mother-child relationship
- LCC
- HQ759 .R53 — Social sciences The family. Marriage, Women and Sexuality The Family. Marriage. Women The family. Marriage. Home Parents. Parenthood
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 887
- Popularity
- 30,428
- Reviews
- 8
- Rating
- (4.02)
- Languages
- 6 — Dutch, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 23
- ASINs
- 12
