Motherhood: Feminisms unfinished business

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Brilliant Jenni Murray

Liberating, intoxicating Zoe Williams
Why, after decades of social progress, is motherhood still so much harder than it needs to be

Before they become mothers, women are repeatedly reminded that their biological clock is ticking. Once pregnant, a womans body becomes public property: she is patronised, panicked, and forbidden from exercising her autonomy. In labour, womens wishes are overridden, resulting in potentially life-changing injuries and trauma.

When the baby comes home, women begin a life of pay cuts, lost job opportunities, heavier housework, unequal emotional loads, and judgement from all sides. State support and family networks have fallen away, and mothers are censured for every choice they make if they are given real choices at all.

In this searing and vital book, Eliane Glaser asks why mothers are idealised, yet treated so poorly; why campaigns for mothers have become so unfashionable; and what we need to do to shift the needle and improve the business of child-rearing for everyone.

Reviews

Brilliant: at last a young mother brave enough to challenge the Madonna myth Jenni Murray

It stopped me in my tracks to see so many things that are never said about the profundity, the consequence, the unprettiness of the maternal experience. Radical honesty is a political act, and also a liberating, intoxicating read Zoe Williams

Startling, provocative and rigorous, this book explains why mothers are so furious and so tired (SO tired!) and how things might change Samantha Ellis, author of Take Courage: Anne Bront and the Art of Life

Eliane Glaser brilliantly blends analysis of the all too contemporary injustices of motherhood with a historical perspective, emerging with fresh and vivid insights articulated with verve and wit Rebecca Asher, author of Man Up: Boys, Men and Breaking the Male Rules

Reading it is like talking to your super-smart and very sensible best friend who has the facts at her fingertips . . . I wish Id had this book when I was in the thick of it Joanna Pocock, The Spectator

Powerfully expressed throughout and a compelling, addictively easy read (while being meticulously researched and effortlessly intelligent), this is a breath of fresh air that blends personal observation with political analysis and proper investigative journalism. This will save you reading hundreds of books on motherhood and child-rearing. And is a damn sight more entertaining Viv Groskop, Observer

Author Bio

Eliane Glaser, author of Get Real, is also a radio producer, and an Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. Her book on Judaism without Jews was one of the Jewish Chronicles Books of the Year in 2007, and her articles have appeared in the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, The New Humanist, the Financial Times, History Today, BBC History Magazine, Forward magazine in the US, the Jewish Chronicle and the Jewish Quarterly.