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Reconceiving Women : Separating Motherhood from Female Identity (Paperback)
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Publishers Weekly,``It is practically impossible to think of the woman who is not a mother without thinking of something absent, lacking, or missing,'' says Ireland, a California-based psychologist with a heavily Freudian bias. Such a blanket statement is highly questionable, particularly since the 100 women (ages 38-50) whom Ireland interviewed in 1988 all hail from Northern California and don't represent a cross section of middle American attitudes. Whether discussing women who are childless due to infertility, those who delayed pregnancy until past their childbearing years, or women who consciously decided against motherhood, Ireland too facilely pigeonholes these baby boomers as representatives of 1970s feminism. One senses a strong traditional bias behind what findings she chooses to report, limiting her examples to women who started out with strong desires for motherhood, despite casual references to women who ``told me that they had never enjoyed playing with dolls as a child.'' Moreover, readers who don't have some grounding in psychoanalytic theory will be confounded by Ireland's discussions. There is a lot of dry verbiage here, but little insight. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Specs
- Book formatPaperback
- Fiction/nonfictionNon-Fiction
- Publication dateJune, 1993
- Pages195
- Reading levelGeneral Adult
- SubgenreWomen's Studies
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According to recent surveys, approximately 40% of American women between the ages of 18 and 44 do not have children. Yet these women are virtually missing from accounts of women's lives. In this important new work, Mardy Ireland defines a place for women outside the parameters of motherhood and gives voice to the significant number of women who are not mothers. She draws extensively from interviews with over 100 childless women from various ethnic and educational backgrounds, demonstrating the myriad ways they came to view themselves as complete adults without recourse to the traditional defining criteria of motherhood. Her work offers all women--mothers and nonmothers alike--a vision of self-defined adulthood and a recognition that every woman is the subject of her own life. Challenging the assumption of deprivation or deviance that is traditionally applied to childless women in psychological theory and popular culture, Dr. Ireland reframes childlessness as a concept and lays a groundwork for an expanded view of women's identity and psychic development. Using contemporary psychoanalytic theory, she reexamines female identity development and presents a positive interpretation of women who--for whatever reason--are not mothers. To contrast and compare the experiences of her interview subjects, she places them within the changing psychosocial context of the last few decades and categorizes them according to their reasons for childlessness. Included are: 'traditional' women, who are childless by reasons of infertility or health complications; 'transitional' women, who are not mothers because of delaying circumstances; and 'transformative' women, who have actively chosen not to bear children in order to develop lives beyond the field of motherhood. The legend of Lilith, a creation story of the first woman, described in the last chapter, places both female desire and female power in a longstanding historical and mythic context. Animated by excerpts, quotes, and stories from the many interviews, RECONCEIVING WOMEN: SEPARATING MOTHERHOOD FROM FEMALE IDENTITY is illuminating for general readers and professionals alike. It provides valuable insights for anyone interested in women's studies and the psychology of women, and serves as an excellent textbook for courses in these fields.
Publishers Weekly,``It is practically impossible to think of the woman who is not a mother without thinking of something absent, lacking, or missing,'' says Ireland, a California-based psychologist with a heavily Freudian bias. Such a blanket statement is highly questionable, particularly since the 100 women (ages 38-50) whom Ireland interviewed in 1988 all hail from Northern California and don't represent a cross section of middle American attitudes. Whether discussing women who are childless due to infertility, those who delayed pregnancy until past their childbearing years, or women who consciously decided against motherhood, Ireland too facilely pigeonholes these baby boomers as representatives of 1970s feminism. One senses a strong traditional bias behind what findings she chooses to report, limiting her examples to women who started out with strong desires for motherhood, despite casual references to women who ``told me that they had never enjoyed playing with dolls as a child.'' Moreover, readers who don't have some grounding in psychoanalytic theory will be confounded by Ireland's discussions. There is a lot of dry verbiage here, but little insight. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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Specifications
Book format
Paperback
Fiction/nonfiction
Non-Fiction
Genre
Political & Social Sciences
Publication date
June, 1993
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