Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution - Paperback

by Adrienne Rich (Author), Eula Biss (Introduction by)

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.

Back Jacket

'In order for all women to have real choices all along the line, ' Ardrienne Rich writes, 'we need fully to understand the power and powerlessness embodied in motherhood in patriarchal culture.'