Matricentric Feminism: Theory, Activism, Practice. The 2nd Edition





Price: $38.95

Page Count: 292

Publication Date: April 2021

ISBN: 978-1-77258-376-2

The new preface to the 2nd edition,”Matricentric Feminism: Beyond Gender and Towards Resistant and Inclusive Mothering,” explores four central concerns of matricentric feminism: the specific political import and intent of racialized women’s motherwork, the radical queering of empowered mothering, the real and prevalent oppressions of motherwork, and the foregrounding of mothers and mothering in feminism. In these discussions, the prefaces considers how matricentric feminism in positioning mothering as a verb affords a gender-neutral understanding of motherwork and allows for an appreciation of how motherwork is deeply gendered and how this may be challenged and changed through empowered mothering The book argues that the category of mother is distinct from the category of woman, and that many of the problems mothers face—social, economic, political, cultural, psychological, and so forth—are specific to women’s role and identity as mothers. Indeed, mothers are oppressed under patriarchy as women and as mothers. Consequently, mothers need a feminism of their own, one that positions mothers’ concerns as the starting point for a theory and politic of empowerment. O’Reilly terms this new mode of feminism matricentic feminism and the book explores how it is represented and experienced in theory, activism, and practice. The chapter on maternal theory examines the central theoretical concepts of maternal scholarship while the chapter on activism considers the twenty-first century motherhood movement. Feminist mothering is likewise examined as the specific practice of matricentric feminism and this chapter discusses various theories and strategies on and for maternal empowerment. Matricentric feminism is also examined in relation to the larger field of academic feminism; here O’Reilly persuasively shows how matricentric feminism has been marginalized in academic feminism and considers the reasons for such exclusion and how such may be challenged and changed.

“Andrea O’Reilly coined the term ‘motherhood studies.’ In Matricentric Feminism: Theory, Activism, and Practice, she is now moving motherhood studies to the next stage by first defining ‘matricentric feminism’ — feminism that puts motherhood at its center — then detailing how matricentric feminism can and should be enacted in theory, activism, and practice. In doing so, O’Reilly has written a groundbreaking, even field-defining book, which is now a must-read book for anyone interested in understanding both the past and future of motherhood studies and a mother-centered feminism.”

—Lynn O’Brien Hallstein, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, College of General Studies, Boston University

Introduction 11
Andrea O’Reilly

SECTION ONE 15
Chapter 1 Introduction from Of Woman Born 17
Adrienne Rich

Chapter 2 Anger and Tenderness 23
Adrienne Rich

Chapter 3 Early Psychological Development: Psychoanalysis 39
and the Sociology of Gender
Nancy Chodorow

Chapter 4 In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens 61
Alice Walker

Chapter 5 Maternal Thinking 69
Sara Ruddick

Chapter 6 Revolutionary Parenting 87
bell hooks

Chapter 7 Homeplace: A Site of Resistance 99
bell hooks

Chapter 8 Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist’s Response 107
Audre Lorde

Chapter 9 The Radical Potential in Lesbian Mothering of Daughters 113
Baba Copper

Chapter 10 It’s Only Natural 121
Valerie Walkerdine and Helen Lucey

Chapter 11 Unspeakable Plots 135
Marianne Hirsch

Chapter 12 The Meaning of Motherhood in Black Culture 151
and Black Mother-Daughter Relationships
Patricia Hill Collins

Chapter 13 Shifting the Center: Race, Class and Feminist 167
Theorizing About Motherhood
Patricia Hill Collins

Chapter 14 The Myths of Motherhood 187
Shari L. Thurer

Chapter 15 Beyond Mothers and Fathers: Ideology in a 201
Patriarchal Society
Barbara Katz Rothman

Chapter 16 Why Can’t a Mother Be More Like a Businessman? 219
Sharon Hays

Chapter 17 A Sketch in Progress: Introducing the Mother 243
Without Child
Elaine Tuttle Hansen

Chapter 18 Faking Motherhood: The Mask Revealed 273
Susan Maushart

Chapter 19 Mothering and Feminism: Essential Mothering 295
and the Dilemma of Difference
Patrice DiQuinzio

Chapter 20 The Omnipotent Mother: A Psychoanalytic Study 309
of Fantasy and Reality
Jessica Benjamin

Chapter 21 Don’t Blame Mother: Then and Now 327
Paula J. Caplan

Chapter 22 The New Momism 337
Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels

Chapter 23 The “Problem” of Maternal Desire: Essential Mothering 361
and the Dilemma of Difference
Daphne de Marneffe

Chapter 24 The Motherhood Religion 377
Judith Warner

Chapter 25 Domestic Intellectuals: Freedom and the Single Mom 399
Jane Juffer

MATERNAL THEORY: ESSENTIAL READINGS
Chapter 26 High Risk: Who a Mother Should Be 429
Ariel Gore

Chapter 27 Resisting, But Not Too Much: Interrogating the 435
Paradox of Natural Mothering
Chris Bobel

Chapter 28 Con el Palote en Una Mano y el Libro en la Otra 445
Larissa Mercado-López

Section One Copyright Acknowledgements 451
SECTION TWO 455
Chapter 29 Matricentric Feminism: A Feminism for Mothers 457
Andrea O’Reilly

Chapter 30 Normative Motherhood 477
Andrea O’Reilly

Chapter 31 Maternal Subjectivities 493
Alison Stone

Chapter 32 The Category of the Postmaternal in Contemporary 505
Maternal Theory
Julie Stephens

Chapter 33 The New Sexual Contract: One Step Forward and 517
Two Steps Back
Petra Bueskens

Chapter 34 Detangling Wifehood and Motherhood 539
Lynn O’Brien Hallstein

Chapter 35 Maternal Ambivalence 555
Sarah LaChance Adams

Chapter 36 Maternal Regret 567
Andrea O’Reilly

Chapter 37 Monstrous Mothers 579
Abigail L. Palko

Chapter 38 Feminist Fathering: Why It Should Matter to All 593
Who Mother

Nicole L. Willey and Dan Friedman
Chapter 39 Empowered and Feminist Mothering 607
Andrea O’Reilly

Chapter 40 Maternal Activism 629
Danielle Poe

Chapter 41 The Motherline 643
Fiona Joy Green

Chapter 42 Reconceiving Young Motherhood 663
Sarah Bekaert

Chapter 43 Disabled Mothers 675
Gloria Filax and Dena Taylor

Chapter 44 Reclaiming Black Motherhood: Centering Maternal 689
Activism on Birth and Breastfeeding Justice
Kimberly Seals Allers

Chapter 45 Indigenous Mothering: New Insights on Giving Life 697
to the People
Jennifer Brant and Kim Anderson

Chapter 46 The Migrant Maternal: Theory and Practice 719
Anna Kuroczycka Schultes and Helen Vallianatos

Chapter 47 Cosmopolitan Maternalisms 733
Bittiandra Chand Somaiah

Chapter 48 Reproductive Justice in the Heartland: Mothering, 745
Maternal Care, and Race in Twenty-First-Century Iowa
Lina-Maria Murillo and Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz

Chapter 49 Mothering in a Neoliberal World 763
Melinda Vandenbeld Giles

Chapter 50 Queer Possibilities: Unnatural Mothers and Other 783 Aberrations
Shelley M. Park

Chapter 51 Forging Crossroads: The Possibilities and Complexities 795
of Parenting Outside the Gender Binary
Olivia Fischer

Chapter 52 Trans Parenting 807
Damien W. Riggs, Sally Hines, Ruth Pearce, Carla A. Pfeffer,
and Francis Ray White

Chapter 53 Understanding and Recognizing Voluntary 817
Non-Motherhood
Julie Rodgers