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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.
List of contents
White Second Wave Feminisms and Rich: Historic Feminist Matrophobia From Ongoing Silence to Popular Writers' Matrophobia Sisters, Daughters, and Feminist Maternal Scholars: Contemporary Matrophobia What's Wrong with a Little Lingering Matrophobia?: Rhetorical Consequences in Contemporary Analyses Purging Matrophobia: Theorizing a Matrophobic-Free Feminist Subject Position on Contemporary Maternity
About the author
D. LYNN O'BRIEN HALLSTEIN is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric at Boston University, College of General Studies, USA.
Summary
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.
