White Feminists and Contemporary Maternity: Purging Matrophobia

by D. Hallstein

Overview

This work explores matrophobia - the fear not of one s mother or of motherhood but of becoming one s mother - in past and present white feminist analyses of motherhood and mothering. By tracing white second wave feminism s strategic choice to organize first as sisters then as daughters, O Brien Hallstein argues matrophobia became embedded in past and continues to linger in contemporary feminist analyses. As a result, contemporary analyses reveal crucially important but limited understandings of contemporary motherhood and mothering. This important work concludes that matrophobia can be reduced and eliminated by reorienting analyses to mutual responsiveness between sisters and daughters, second and third wave feminists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230608634
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	04/14/2010
Edition description:	2010
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

D. LYNN O'BRIEN HALLSTEIN is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric at Boston University, College of General Studies, USA.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

1 While Second Wave Feminisms and Rich: Historic Feminist Matrophobia 25

2 From Ongoing Silence to Popular Writers' Matrophobia 47

3 Sisters, Daughters, and Feminist Maternal Scholars: Contemporary Matrophobia 75

4 What's Wrong with a Little Lingering Matrophobia?: Rhetorical Consequences in Contemporary Analyses 107

5 Purging Matrophobia: Theorizing a Matrophobic-Free Feminist Subject Position on Contemporary Maternity 131

Notes 161

Works Cited 177

Index 187